Teammates lift Santa Teresa's Joshua Reyes (2) as they celebrate their 30-20 win over Palo Alto High School in the 2022 CIF State NorCal 6-AA championship game at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 2, 2022. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
PALO ALTO — The season of firsts for Santa Teresa’s football program added another on Friday night: first NorCal championship.
The Saints scored all 13 fourth quarter points to beat Palo Alto 30-20 in the Division 6-AA NorCal regional championship on a brisk Friday night in Palo Alto.
It was another resilient effort that Santa Teresa head coach Steve Pain has come to expect from his Saints.
“It’s what these guys do,” Papin said. “They don’t quit. They don’t give up. They don’t waiver.”
Six days after they won the 49-year-old school’s first football section title, the Saints added a NorCal title to go with it.
“That’s just crazy, man,” said Joshua Reyes, Santa Teresa’s do-it-all senior leader. “To finally come to this stage and this point in the game and just making history, making all of these accomplishments. And just to do it with the people that you love. It’s just crazy, man. The love for the game is for real and the brotherhood over here is strong like a rock.”
Normally a run-heavy team, the Saints used that tendency to find opportunities to throw the ball with success against their fellow Central Coast Section champion. The biggest play of the night came in the third, when the Saints were down by four.
Quarterback Jayden Arevalo kept a read option and looked to run, but when the lone Palo Alto cornerback on that side of the field came up to tackle the speedy junior and left wide receiver Jeffrey Kerr completely open, the “pass” part of the run-pass option play became almost too easy.
“I didn’t want to risk an overthrow,” Arevalo said. “He’s so open and you’re so excited to get it there.”
Kerr added, “I just try to keep my mind blank so that I don’t drop the ball.”
Arevalo did safely get the ball into Kerr’s hands and the senior did the rest, racing away untouched for a 51-yard touchdown.
“We wanted to call it two or three times, but were just waiting for the right time,” Papin said.
Arevalo used the passing game to again set up the game-winning touchdown, hitting on passes of 19, 16 and 21 yards to get the Saints to the 1-yard line. Reyes punched in the score from there to tally his second score of his 18-carry, 64-yard night.
“We just have this offense where it’s ground-and-pound, just keep on feeding it to the defense until they fall apart,” Reyes said. “You’ve got to have heart, playing ST football.”
On the next drive, the Vikings went for it on fourth-and-1 from their own 39 but were stuffed to turn the ball over. It looked like Palo Alto would get the ball back when Santa Teresa faced fourth-and-8 at the Viking 27, but back-to-back encroachment penalties gave the Saints a first down.
“That was tough to overcome,” Palo Alto head coach Dave DeGeronimo said of the penalties.
Santa Teresa put the game away three plays later, when Arevalo kept the ball on an option play and ran it in for a 5-yard touchdown. While that was his lone running contribution of note, he finished 10-for-13 passing for 165 yards and the aforementioned to Kerr (who had five catches for 112 yards).
Palo Alto (7-7) drove back to the edge of the red zone while trying to make it a one-score game, but back-to-back sacks effectively ended the game and the Vikings’ six-game winning streak.
“When you get to this level and you’re playing against good teams … I just thought we had it and just got away with the opportunity,” DeGeronimo said. And they just took it in the second half.”
Still, for a team that started the season 1-6 in DeGeronimo’s first season, the CCS Division V championship will be something to look back on with pride.
“They had to learn a new system on defense and learn a new system on offense. They had to get used to new coaches and new styles, and so it was a wild journey filled with ups and downs,” DeGeronimo said. “It was an amazing season. A really enriching season that helped put our program in a good direction.”
The Vikings were led by junior quarterback Declan Parker, who completed 19-of-27 passes for 197 yards and two touchdowns, and senior Jack Newman, who had 23 carries for 126 yards and at least four tackles for loss on defense. While Newman admitted “it sucks” to have lost on Friday night, he already knows how he’ll look back on 2022.
“We won a CCS title. That was the goal,” Newman said. “I wanted to win something, leaving as a senior, so that was a huge deal.”
For Santa Teresa (9-5) — who would have hosted the NorCal game, but their facility was unavailable due to a prior commitment — it’s the third straight game the Saints have has won, all of them away from their south San Jose home. But now, they’ll end their season next Saturday with one final game on campus: the state championship.
“It’s a special team,” Arevalo said. “I can’t even begin to process how thankful I am to be a part of this team, to lead this team and help us get to where we’re at right now.”
The Saints will face Classical Academy out of Escondido, who beat Lancaster 34-14 to win the SoCal title on Friday night. Papin had already done a bit of advanced research on the team, informing some of the Saints players and coaches about the Caimans’ star player, senior Life Pollard.
But Santa Teresa has its own star in Reyes, one that his coach and his teammates appreciate.
“He’s our team leader, our vocal leader, our on-the-field leader, our spiritual leader — he’s our guy,” Papin said. “He’s a guy we rely on … He has the biggest heart and he loves the game of football.”
Kerr added, “Without him, we wouldn’t be here.”
And the player everyone calls “Bear” was already starting to look ahead at what the Saints need to do to get ready for next Saturday.
But the smile he wore made it pretty clear that he’ll enjoy it, too.
“Just to even think about [that] we’re playing for a state title at our home, it’s just crazy, man. It’s ridiculous,” Reyes said. “We’ve just got to get back, do what we’ve got to do, rest our bodies and play ball.”
