San Mateo’s Cameron Palma (9) hands the ball to San Mateo’s Emmanuel Fitzgerald (8) in the fourth quarter at Milpitas High School in Milpitas, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
MILPITAS — San Mateo executed its triple-option offense just the way it’s drawn up.
The Bearcats moved the ball at will on the ground in the first half, scoring three touchdowns on three possessions, and kept the ball away from Milpitas over the final two quarters, chewing up clock with their ball-control offense, and held on for a 21-14 victory Friday in a Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division opener.
San Mateo (4-1, 1-0) rushed for 315 yards. Fullback Emmanuel Fitzgerald led the way with 122 yards on 21 carries. Quarterback Cameron Palma added 73 yards on nine carries. Wingback Logan Davis, in motion on most offensive plays, provided an outside threat to complement the inside power running of Fitzgerald and Palma, and picked up 96 yards on eight pitches from Palma.
“We were clicking on all cylinders,” Fitzgerald said. “Momentum is huge in football, once the ball starts rolling, it might never stop. (Winning the division) is a huge motivation, but I think the biggest motivation is the community and family we have at San Mateo. Every day at practice, 100 degrees out, every one pushing and committed, that’s what really leads to success.”
Palma and Fitzgerald have been together for four years, resulting in a fine-tuned understanding of the offense.
“Every year you get better, you learn the reads,” Palma said. “The triple option is a power run game, but you can’t do the same thing over and over. You’ve got to read it.”
Palma threw only two passes, but his one completion went for a 10-yard touchdown to Yianni Fitzgerald, Emmanuel’s younger brother. Those two pass attempts brings his season total to seven passes attempted over five games.
Milpitas (3-2, 0-1) took the opening kickoff and drove to the San Mateo 19, where a field-goal attempt fell short. San Mateo responded with Davis going 55 yards for a touchdown to take the lead.
The Bearcats made it 14-0 on Palma’s touchdown pass. Milpitas came back with Patrick Lucero scoring on a 13-yard run, set up by a 38-yard gain on a hook-and-lateral play that went from quarterback Adrian Chavez to Roman Johnson to Reynaldo Dunbar.
That made it 14-6 with less than four minutes left before halftime, but San Mateo went 80 yards on 11 running plays with Jovani Hernandez-Cruz plunging in from the 1 to make the score 21-6 at halftime.
Milpitas went almost exclusively to the air and Chavez ended up completing 21 of 34 passes for 240 yards. He connected with Xander Lecours on a 31-yard touchdown pass with 2:50 left, and then hit Lucero with a pass for the two-point conversion, bringing the Trojans within 21-14.
“He’s really good,” San Mateo coach Jeff Scheller said of Chavez. “He throws a great ball, has good receivers.”
But the onside kick was recovered by the Bearcats, and they ran out the clock, picking up 26 yards and a first down on four carries by Fitzgerald and Palma.
“Their running game, they took off a lot of time so we had to take a shot with our guys,” Chavez said. “Every game’s a playoff game for us from here on out.”
