Rico’s clutch kick caps off Napa’s second-half comeback to beat Irvington in season-opener
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Last season, the Napa High football team won just one game. To begin the 2022 campaign the Grizzlies matched their win total from last year when they squeaked past Irvington-Fremont 15-14 on Saturday night at Napa Memorial Stadium.
“That’s a lot of confidence,” Napa junior wide receiver, quarterback, and defensive back Yovanni Palma explained. “The leaders are so happy and some of our seniors are crying because it means so much to everybody.”
The win sure didn’t come easy. With just 1:55 left, Kevin Rico converted from 33 yards out to give Napa its only lead of the night. Before that, he had missed a pair of PAT attempts.
“All I had in my mind was score, score, score,” Rico said of his game-winning field goal that went right down the middle. “Do not let it go out (of the uprights) or else it will be on me. I can not be the one to let us down. I have to give us the winning field goal.”
To make things even more interesting, the Grizzlies did all their damage in the second half of the contest.
Napa got on the board with 6:15 left in the third quarter when Mata found the end zone from six yards away. He would end the night rushing 20 times for 82 yards.
“He ran every ball,” Napa High head coach Askari Adams happily said. “He had to play inside linebacker. We were going to play him a little bit, but not that much.”
With just 37.2 ticks left in the third, sophomore quarterback Diego Montanez found Donovan Sander for an 8-yard touchdown connection. Montanez took over signal calling duties after two series in the first by Palma and caught fire. After all, he ended the night completing 9 of 21 passes for 144 yards, the touchdown, and a pair of interceptions.
“Just glad to have a lot of confidence in him, Palma said of his fellow quarterback. “At first, it was a progress. So a lot of progress. I want everybody to be better, and he showed out tonight, and that’s what got us the win. We all got a team win. It’s all of us on the team and I’m proud of everybody, I’m proud of Diego.”
At the break, Irvington (0-1) held a 14-0 lead. They got the lead by virtue of a pair of Jacob Sanots 12-yard touchdown rushes. His first one came at the 2:43 mark of the first quarter, which would be followed by a missed PAT.
Then, with 7:49 remaining till halftime another scored again from 12 yards away, with the visitors converting a key two-point attempt when quarterback Aaryan Shah found Ethan Nguyen for a successful two-point conversion.
“We came out that first half, we were just tight and nervous,” Adams said of the slow start. “We made a lot of bonehead mistakes. We challenged them.”
Also having a fantastic showing was the defense by only holding the Vikings to 14 points that came early in the game.
“I challenged them,” a fired-up coached Adams continued. “I challenged them, like they weren’t being aggressive. They weren’t attacking, they weren’t playing with Napa pride. When they came out in the second half, they stopped missing tackles.”
