Piedmont High School’s boys football team got off to another slow start, but turned things around quickly to put up a 40-15 win over visiting Irvington at Witter Field on Oct. 17. The Highlanders are now 3-4 over and 1-1 in the Mission League of the West Alameda County Conference.
Piedmont fell behind 7-0 when it attempted an onside kick on the opening kickoff. Irvington big man Anthony Jovel didn’t fall on the ball, instead scooping it up and running right past the Highlanders kickoff team for a 48-yard touchdown return.
“I have never seen that live,” Piedmont coach Jordan Seiden said. “I literally sat there and laughed. He took off and we froze. We couldn’t catch a 250-plus lineman. Who doesn’t love a big man scoring?”
It’s true. After that, the Highlanders settled down, overcame a Jimmy Lagios interception and a Xavier Henderson fumble, and scored the next 26 points in the game. Henderson scored on a 13-yard run later in the first quarter to put Piedmont on the board. Matias Seelenberger missed the extra point and it was still 7-6 Vikings. George Saunders gave the Highlanders the lead for good early in the second quarter when he intercepted a Vivaan Tiwari pass and returned it 78 yards for a touchdown. A failed two- point conversion left the score at 12-6.
Lagios hit Jack Meyjes with a 27-yard scoring pass later in the quarter to make it 19-7. That was the score at halftime.
Piedmont opened the second half with a 55-yard run by Rehan Mumtaz, which set up a one- yard scoring run by Henderson.
A 55-yard pass from Tiwari to Gabriel Aruwah set up a five-yard touchdown run by Ruben Sanchez for Irvington.
Touchdown runs of five and 27 yards in the fourth quarter by Henderson put the game away. Henderson missed the prior week’s blowout loss to Hayward. His return was welcome and key for Piedmont: He rushed for 108 yards and four touchdowns on 16 carries and led the defense with 10 solo tackles, five assisted tackles, 1 ½ tackles for loss, one sack, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery.
“Every day last week we focused defensively on tackling fundamentals,” Seiden said. “It showed up. We had a couple of missed tackles here and there. Overall our tackling was much better.
“X (Henderson) had a huge strip and fumble. And it doesn’t hurt getting our best player back.” Seiden loves talking about Henderson.
“He’s truly a football player,” the coach said. “He’s a kid who grew up playing football. It’s in his DNA. Having him on a team where the kids are still figuring it out and you have a kid like that who inspires them to be better.”
The Highlanders outgained the Vikings, 340-205. Lagios completed 10 of 20 passes for 165 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Meyjes caught four passes on seven targets for 78 yards. The defense had four sacks.
Next is a game against Washington-Fremont at TAK Fudena Stadium on Oct. 24. “It was a little tougher of a preseason than we imagined but it set us up to take on these other teams,” Seiden said. “Washington has a couple of kids who can give us trouble. When you get out on the road it kind of brings the team together. Gives us an us vs. the world mentality.
“That’s the goal. Play our best, put us in position to make the playoffs again, that would be amazing,” he said.