Piedmont High School’s boys football team got off to another quick start and romped in its first road game of the season, beating Hayward, 35-14. The Highlanders moved to 5-1 on the season. Next up is a showdown with undefeated Irvington on Oct, 17 at Tak Fudenna Stadium in Fremont.
“We looked pretty good,” Piedmont coach Jordan Seiden said of the win over Hayward. “Overall this was our best game of the season in all three phases. We had control of the game from the opening whistle to the end.”
The Highlanders forced a punt on the Farmers opening possession. It took just two plays for the offense to get the lead for good with Tommy Ashton busting loose for an 81-yard touchdown run. Piedmont went on a 15-play, 67-yard drive bridging the first and second quarters to make it 14-0. Ashton again scored the touchdown, this time on a 1-yard run.
Miles Silver then recovered Sam Shelby’s onside kick and the Highlanders took over on the Hayward 36. This was an all-passing drive and quarterback Markos Lagios connected with Cash Elmquist on a 5-yard scoring pass. Passes of 22 and nine yards to Shelby helped set up the touchdown.
The Farmers then got on the board, going on a 11-play, 87-yard drive. Jaydyn Irving connected with Isiah Spearman for the 38-yard touchdown on a beautiful pass. There were just 52.5 seconds left in the half, but the Piedmont offense wasn’t done. Lagios had a couple of scrambles as well as a 13-yard pass to Jack Meyjes to set up a 15-yard
touchdown pass to Shelby with just 6.7 seconds left in the half.
Hayward got a three-yard scoring run from Maurice Hall in the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 28-14. But Piedmont answered right back with a 38-yard touchdown run by Shelby to close the scoring.
“We’ve had some good games but there were always areas where we needed to and continue to need to improve on,” Seiden said. The coach said this week’s matchup is a bit of a mirror-image for the Highlanders. “It’s going to be a good game,” he said. “Their team is pretty similar to ours in that the program had fallen on hard times and they were thinking of dropping it but they hired a good group of coaches.”
It was a fabulous game. These Highlanders are so dedicated and talented.