Los Altos High caps its season with 21-0 rout of visiting Gunn
By Scott Campbell, Special to the Town Crier
 photos by Tony Avelar/Special to the Town Crier Los Altos defensive end Kyle Simpson stops Gunn running back Cory Babbington from getting a first down during the first quarter of last Friday night’s game at Foothill College. |
In a fitting ending to a season that reinvigorated Los Altos High football, the spirited Eagles dominated Gunn 21-0 last Friday at Foothill College.
The SCVAL El Camino Division victory helped Los Altos atone for its crushing loss to Santa Clara the week before and left little doubt that this is a program on the rise.
“I think everybody this week was really upset about last week,” quarterback Richard Rullo said of the 10-0 defeat that eliminated the Eagles from playoff contention. “We couldn’t get it off our minds. Last week was obviously the low point of the year and there have been so many high points that we didn’t want the season to end on two losses or two games we didn’t play too well.”
The Los Altos defense made sure that it didn’t.
The foundation of the Eagles’ success under first-year coach Erik Rutgers, the defense held Gunn to 130 total yards while recording its second shutout in the past three games. Using a variety of blitzes, Los Altos sacked Titans quarterback Tucker Laurence seven times and intercepted him once.
“We just pretty much wanted to take our anger out on somebody,” said Eagles linebacker Pete Cronin, a season-long tackling machine who notched two sacks.
Defensive end Trevor Phipps, who finished with four sacks totaling 22 yards, agreed.
“We wanted to make a statement,” Phipps said. “We’re so good at blitzing and sometimes we just bring too many guys to block and I’m just the first one there.”
The Eagles (5-1 division, 7-3 overall) held Laurence to a 4-of-14 performance, allowing only 45 passing yards.
With the defense playing at the top of its game, the Eagles’ offense only needed to awake from its one-week coma that proved costly in what amounted to the El Camino Division title game against Santa Clara.
Needing a win to finish second in the division, Los Altos found big plays aplenty against Gunn (3-4, 4-7).
On a drive that started at the Eagles’ 2-yard line, fullback Jamar Watson burst up the middle for a 50-yard gain. Three plays later, Rullo connected with tight end Erik Johnson for a 20-yard touchdown that, with Charles Sines’ extra point, gave Los Altos a 7-0 lead with 4:56 left in the first quarter.
Before quarter’s end, the Eagles struck again.
With Los Altos facing a third-and-14 deep in its own territory, Rullo lofted the ball seemingly beyond the reach of his favorite target, Evan Nelson. But the wide receiver sprinted to catch the ball and never stopped, blowing past two Gunn defenders down the right sideline for an 82-yard touchdown.
“It’s always nice to go out with a bang like that,” Nelson said of his ninth scoring connection of the season with fellow senior and good buddy Rullo. “We probably won’t ever have the chance to do anything like this again, so it was great to get our last, final touchdown.”
Nelson finished with three receptions for 100 yards.
Watson, a junior who completed the season tied with Nelson for the team-lead with nine touchdowns, carried seven times for 93 yards.
Rullo, who was 5-of-9 passing for 186 yards with one interception, finished off the scoring with his third touchdown of the night: a fourth-quarter screen to halfback D.J. Archie.
With Rullo delivering the ball with three Gunn pass rushers ready to unload on him, Archie caught the pass and found an impressive convoy awaiting him. With offensive linemen Anthony Arellanes and Chris Lastrina - a combined 520 pounds - clearing the road, Archie slipped through Gunn’s secondary for a 66-yard touchdown.
The win capped a season in which Rutgers noticed a radical shift in his team.
“We’re getting the attitude of ‘losing is not acceptable,’” said Rutgers, who served as an assistant coach for two seasons prior to assuming the top spot. “It’s getting away from the way things used to be here.”
With several players from the league champion junior varsity team expected to reload next year’s varsity team, Rutgers sees only brighter days ahead.
“The athletes that are coming up … this program is on such a great incline right now,” Rutgers said. “I think next year … as much as I love this team, I can’t wait to get started on next year, too.”
But for the outgoing seniors, this season amounted to a matter of pride in helping with the initial turnaround.
“I think our program is definitely headed in the right direction,” Nelson said. “It would’ve been nice to be the senior year where we won CCS, but it’s also a good feeling to know that we were the ones that started the uphill trend in our school.”
In other local action …
Halfback Brandon Hamilton rushed for 151 yards and two touchdowns in Mountain View’s 32-7 thumping of Lynbrook Thursday. Quarterback Jeff Jalaba added two scoring runs for the Spartans, who finish 5-5 overall.
Host St. Ignatius stunned St. Francis 21-14 Saturday in a West Catholic Athletic League game. The Lancers enter Saturday’s 1 p.m. CCS opener at Aragon having lost two in a row after winning their first eight games.
