Pioneer celebrates after defeating Leland at Pioneer High School in San Jose, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. Pioneer won 13-0. (Thien-An Truong for Bay Area News Group)
SAN JOSE — An old-time defensive dogfight broke out Friday night in front of a near-capacity crowd at Pioneer High School as the Mustangs made a first-quarter touchdown and a couple of field goals stand up in a 13-0 win over archrival Leland in the latest installment of the Battle of the Den.
The win evened the series between the two Almaden Valley schools, according to MaxPreps, at 10-10.
“Playing this game with Leland it doesn’t matter what the records are,” Pioneer coach Eric Perry said. “The kids all know each other and they play so hard against each other. It’s nice to be on the winning side of it.”
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On Pioneer’s first possession of the game Braeden Ries connected with Connor Christensen on a 13-yard touchdown pass. That was it as far as crossing the goal line was concerned in this contest.
Nathan Bearrows kicked a 37-yard field goal in the final minute of the first quarter to make it 10-0, and the score stayed that way until 1:41 was left in the game when Bearrows added a 34-yard field goal.
In between was a lot of good defensive play by both teams, most notably by Pioneer.
Junior defensive end Matthew Wheeler broke loose for three sacks. Doing it against Leland made it more special.
“It’s such an intense battle,” Wheeler said. “It’s a big rival game, everyone’s here. The crowd is going crazy. It feels really nice to get those sacks and hear the stands calling my name.”
Leland, which won the Central Coast Section Division V championship a year ago, was hit hard by graduation and is trying to make a transition with new personnel and a new head coach, Anthony Herrera, who replaces Kelly King Jr., now at Piedmont Hills.
“Offense failed tonight, I failed tonight at not putting these guys in better position to win and execute offensively,” Herrera said. “We go back to the drawing board tomorrow with our lift and film session and start preparing for Lincoln.”
Pioneer running back Colton Bermillo was the top offensive player on the evening as he rushed for 106 yards on 16 carries. Ries completed 7 of 16 passes for 44 yards.
“Defense did a great job,” Herrera said. “We lost the penalty battle and the turnover battle which is why we lost the game. We’re a young team, we’re going to learn from this.”
Leland quarterback Philip Arsintescu was 11 of 17 for 96 yards. Sam McFarland carried 18 times for 50 yards. The Pioneer defense came up with two fumble recoveries and an interception by Christensen.
Bearrow, in addition to his two field goals, was a big factor in Pioneer winning the field position game in the second half with punts of 52, 50 and 44 yards, the latter one a coffin corner beauty going out of bounds at the 2.
Middle linebacker JJ Garcia had tackles for loss on two successive plays on one Leland possession.
“Putting all hats on the ball,” Garcia said in an explanation as to why the defense was so successful on this particular occasion. “Going all out in practice during the week and executing on Friday.”
