Highlanders fall to visiting Arroyo
The Piedmont High School boys football team headed into its off week with a 40-26 loss at home to Arroyo on September 26. It was a game where the Highlanders couldn’t take advantage of multiple chances.
“We had plenty of opportunities,” Piedmont coach Jordan Seiden said. “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong in that game, everything from turnovers, unforced errors, lining up wrong.
I kept telling them, ‘They’re trying to hand us this game, but we didn’t want it.’”
The loss dropped the Highlanders to 2-3 and concluded the nonleague portion of the schedule. The Highlanders will have a week off before opening West Alameda County Conference Mission League play on October 10 when they will host Hayward.
Ricky Wyatt led the Dons with 145 yards rushing including a touchdown on 22 carries. Arroyo piled up 401 yards in total offense. The Dons never punted.
However, Arroyo did turn the ball over three times including two lost fumbles in the first quarter. The first came on a bad snap with Piedmont’s John Bunje falling on the ball at the Dons 44. It was the middle of the first quarter and the score was tied 6-6. The Highlanders couldn’t manage a first down and ended up punting the ball back.
Then, Wyatt took a pass from Jonah Shelton and was hit by George Saunders. The ball came out and Saunders fell on it at the Arroyo 14. However, on the third play after that, Xavier Henderson took a carry and was hit by Robert McGehee. Again, the ball came out and this time it was Cody Hoghtelling who came up with it.
Henderson redeemed himself in the second quarter with a 19-yard touchdown run to put Piedmont up 12-6. McGehee then caught a 23-yard touchdown pass from Shelton to tie the game.
On the next play following the ensuing kickoff, Jimmy Lagios was looking for Max Fujimoto but McGehee stepped in front and intercepted the ball and took it home from 43 yards and the score was 19-12 Arroyo at halftime.
The Highlanders tied it up early in the third quarter on a 32-yard run by Henderson. He finished with 87 yards and three touchdowns on 15 carries.
“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”
Coach Jordan Seiden
But the Dons got a 48-yard touchdown run by Wyatt to go up for good. Lagios was intercepted again, this time by Zakir Armstrong which set up a 47-yard scoring run by Donald Buckley. He finished with 76 yards on nine carries with two touchdowns.
Henderson scored his third touchdown on a one-yard run in the fourth quarter. But the Dons then took six minutes, 38 seconds off of the clock on an 11-play, 70-yard drive with Armstrong capping it on a one-yard run. That pretty much ended the contest.
Seiden said the team is playing close to expected, considering its youth.
“I’d be lying if I said I was shocked or surprised where we are right now,” he said. “We’re a young team. (A) 2-3 or 3-2 (record) is where I’d put us. Just based on our youth. We’re a small program. It’s not like 30-40 kids are coming through. We know we have the right players in the room. We know we have good kids and a good group. It’s a matter of pulling it out of them and building on their self-belief.”
He said the week off will help the team grow.
“Our bye week came at a good time,” Seiden said. “It’s a good time to get back to fundamentals before we get back into league. We’re going to focus on our conditioning. Just really focusing on getting back to our basics, blocking tackling, completing passes. Completing passes to the right people. Kind of getting back to double-days.”