It wasn’t the prettiest victory, but host Valley Christian showed a lot of grit holding off a tough Novato squad for a 22-13 victory in the Warrior’s season opener Saturday night. The Warriors lost four fumbles in the game, three coming in the first half. But the defense, led by...

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Oak Grove got its first win over St. Francis since 2001 behind a standout performance from a quarterback not many have heard of. Senior Kenny Arechiga didn’t play varsity football last season because of academic issues, and Friday night was his first ever game as quarterback. But he looked...

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The games are finally here, with a couple big showdowns this weekend with Oak Grove visiting St. Francis at 7:30 p.m. tonight and Novato making the trip down to play at Valley Christian Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. The Oak Grove / St. Francis rivalry is a great one with some memorable games. The...

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Here’s a look at the toughest league in the Central Coast Section. WEST CATHOLIC Bellarmine 10-2 With four players likely to play in Division I next year, expectations are high for the Bells, who lost to Oak Grove on the Open Division semifinals last season after winning their first...

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Here’s an unedited version of the SCVAL football preview. De Anza Division LOS GATOS 10-1-1 The Wildcats graduated their top three seniors … Mercury News Player of the Year Nick Kalpin, Kiko Alonso and Karl Winkleman, but don’t expect much of a let down from Los Gatos, which...

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The Mercury News County Football Preview will come out in Friday’s paper with schedules of all county teams, players to watch, the Top 15 and previews of each league. Space limitations forced cuts in the amount of copy I could use, so I wanted to get the unedited version out there for folks...

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To be a great receiver you need a quarterback to put the ball in your hands, that’s why our discussion begins with a pair of receivers from Gilroy High, where senior Jamie Jensen will be delivering the ball on the money. Dante Fullard is back for his senior season after making a name for...

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Los Gatos and the Central Coast Section lost an all-time great running back to graduation when Mercury News Player of the Year Nick Kalpin moved on to Portland State. It’s highly unlikely anyone can duplicate the workhorse back’s numbers from last season when he set county records...

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By Dennis Knight Opening day is Sept. 5, so I wanted to get the blog going after spending the last couple weeks talking to nearly every coach in the county. We’ll start by covering the best players out there by position and quarterback is a good place to begin. Feel free to [...]

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Live Oak’s 5-3 victory over Menlo School Tueday was the 412th career win for head coach Mark Cummins. The Acorns will face Santa Cruz at PAL Stadium Saturday in the Division III final, trying to win the first Central Coast Section title in school history. The 46-year-old Cummins has coached...

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Bellarmine College Prep football star Usua Amanam made a verbal commitment to play for Stanford on Sunday. The 5-foot-9, 175 pound junior running back/defensive back said he expects to play running back, while seeing some action as a return man _ and anyone who has seen Amanam’s speed and...

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Coach Gary Cunningham’s 21-year career was extended for at least one more game Saturday as Bellarmine College Prep beat top seeded San Benito 8-6 at PAL Stadium. Michael Couch pitched five strong innings for the No. 9 seed Bells, who improved to 20-15. Patrick Hennessey picked up the save,...

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We had a bit of a space crunch in the paper last night, so I wanted to get the original version of the CCS swim story on the blog today — Dennis. Since swimmer Colleen Fotsch arrived at Palo Alto High before her junior season, she has been pushed to a new level by teammate Liv [...]

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