Wilcox Wins Rivalry Week Game over Santa Clara

In a seemingly annual tradition, the Wilcox Chargers football team cruised to a lopsided victory over crosstown rival Santa Clara Bruins this past week. Although the 42-0 final score might seem like neither team would be able to take much away from this game, the way it played out actually featured key teaching moments for both teams. Time will tell if both the Bruins and Chargers can master the lessons that this game afforded them.

For the Bruins, the key takeaway despite the lopsided loss is that they managed a handful of explosive plays.

On the game’s opening kickoff, Joseph Manueli took the return all the way up to the 40-yard line. Almost every subsequent kickoff return was also an impressive run by the junior tailback.

Following his first solid return to open the game was a nice 15-yard pickup on the ground by quarterback Tayshawn Reed. Just like that, in a flash, the Bruins were in Chargers territory on the opening drive of the game.

While the drive would stall, the Bruins would march down the field again later in the first half with a chance to cut the Chargers lead to 14-7. Santa Clara managed to get all the way down to the 1-yard line before fumbling just shy of the goal line.

Reed also impressively picked up a first down on a 4th and 7 when he gained eight yards on the ground. The lesson here for the Bruins is if they can shed tackles against an upper-division team like Wilcox, they should be able to compete toe-to-toe with every opponent in their division.

Wilcox, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t have been able to take much away from beating a lower-division opponent if it weren’t for one pass play in particular.

The Chargers have always been a run-heavy offense, and this year, they have a young sophomore starting quarterback in Kai Imahara. Late in the first half, Imahara was sprinting hard to the left sideline to get away from the Bruins pass rush, and somehow, the young quarterback was able to stop his momentum, twist back, and get enough on a downfield throw to receiver Semaj Clark.

For Imahara to be able to torque his body back the other direction well enough to get even a half decent throw off is remarkable. Furthermore, Clark made the catch despite also drawing a pass interference penalty. The Santa Clara defender was already in the process of tackling Clark before the ball arrived and Clark caught the pass anyway.

The takeaway here for the Chargers is that no matter how difficult the throw or how challenging the catch, these kids can make any play on the field if they put in the effort and concentration required to make it happen.

Wilcox (3-2) will have a bye week upcoming before they try to carry over lessons learned in the first half of the season when they open their league portion of the schedule on Oct. 12 against Menlo School.

Santa Clara (1-3), meanwhile, will look to apply the lessons they’ve learned thus far this season in a league-opening matchup at Woodside on Oct. 4.

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