Palma, Mata, and stout defensive effort leads Napa past Novato and into bye week with momentum
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thomspon (Shamboozled.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
What a difference a week makes. When your defense is holding the line and playing well, it makes it a lot easier to win.
After giving up 53 or more points the last few weeks, the Napa defense stood tall as the Grizzlies beat Novato 27-13 on Friday night at Napa Memorial Stadium.
“They’re flying around and being aggressive,” Napa High head coach Askari Adams said of the defense’s bend but don’t break approach. “We came out being a hammer. They played the defense that I know they can play, and they didn’t even play their best. I noticed that there is a lot to work on, but this is a good start. We haven’t had our defense out there playing the right way the last two weeks.”
The Grizzlies were also able to make critical stops and get turnovers when they needed to. Napa was able to force a pair of Hornet turnovers to keep the momentum on their sideline when the ball was starting to move down the field against them. Mata also shined on defense with an interception of Connor Mulvaney.
On special teams, the Grizzlies (2-2) were able to make the most of an errant snap before taking over in the red zone at the Novato 17.
Another thing that helped was the duo of Yovanni Palma and Carlos Mata who quite literally carried the offense.
The combo each had a pair of rushing touchdowns in the game as well to account for 277 of Napa’s 279 yards on the ground.
“They came out and they led us,” Adams said of the duo. “They took us on their shoulders and ran with it. They did a really good job.”
Palma scored 15 yards out for the opening score of the game with 9:27 left in the first quarter. He scored the final touchdown to put the game out to reach with 4:16 left. Palma ended the night with 166 yards on 16 carries.
Mata found the end zone on an eight-yard run with 6.1 seconds left in the first and later on a six-yard scamper with 8:42 left in the third. Mata rushed 18 times for 111 yards in the contest.
“Two touchdowns is so good, but without the line, I can’t score nothing,” Mata pointed out. “So I just want to say thank you to the line.”
Novato (3-1) also had one player put the offense on his back. Kai Patel found the end zone from two yards out with 5:40 left in the first half. His second score was a 64-yard run with 8:24 left in the third.
However, after the third quarter, Napa buckled down and made it to where Patel wouldn’t be the one to beat them.
“We had nine guys doing their job. We had ten guys doing their job, but there was always that one guy that, but there was always that one guy that wasn’t doing his job that he found,” Adams said as to how they slowed Patel. “They came out in the second half determined to play Napa football and do it with 1 through 11.”
With the victory, Napa has doubled its win total from last season. They also carry some momentum into the bye week before hosting American Canyon in two weeks.
“We had two terrible weeks and to be able to bounce back against Novato was good,” Adams said of the importance of the victory going into the bye week. “It’s good for our confidence going into the bye week.”
