Napa uses strong rushing attack to pound Kennedy as Harris racks up first win
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Follow on X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
It’s always nice to win your debut. But if it was that easy, it wouldn’t be as much made of it. The thing is, it can give a jolt to a team to get the first win right away as well.
In his debut as a head coach at the varsity level, new head coach Chris Harris was able to come away victorious as his Grizzlies beat Kennedy-Richmond, 42-14, at Napa Memorial Stadium.
When the game ended, there was plenty of celebrating going around as it was the first win for Harris, who is a 2004 alum.
“It means a lot,” a smiling Yovanni Palma said of winning the first game. “But you can’t ever be satisfied. I’m excited for this season. But I want more.”
Harris was also happy but didn’t hesitate to pump the brakes since it is only the first game of the season.
“It means a lot,” he explained. “I’m really happy to be back in town and just be coaching here and it just feels you know, it’s home at the end of the day, and I’m really happy for our kids. They worked really hard for a long time and they got to win tonight. So I’m excited for them.”
The Grizzlies (1-0) were able to pump out the rushing yards as they averaged a whopping 9 yards per carry in tune with rushing for a team total of 299 yards.
“Any successful program said before is you have to be able to run the ball in order to throw the ball,” Harris said of the rushing attack that had no trouble moving the ball. “So we tried to take what the defense gives us. We had numbers we were in the box, so we were taking advantage of that. But a lot of our stuff you can do into this run-pass options out of it. So our quarterbacks need to read and make the right reads. We didn’t make all the right reads tonight but we did a good enough job to win the game.”
In the game, Napa used seven different runners to do this. It showed how versatile the rushing attack can be.
Leading the way out of all of them was junior quarterback-wide receiver Diego Montanez who carried the rock 11 times for 115 yards to go along with a touchdown run.
Montanez had the offense at his fingertips in this one as well as he completed 5 of 8 passes for 97 yards with two touchdowns and an interception.
“He’s a stud,” Harris pointed out. “He does really good in space. There was a couple of errors out there today but that was just because some of our receivers made errors as well. So the progressions weren’t there because we had to run routes and stuff like that, but it was good he made a couple (of) great throws a couple we want back but you know, it’s the way of the game.”
Also having a nice night was Yovanni Palma. As a quarterback and wide receiver, he also made an impact in the contest. In his time as the signal caller, he had touchdown runs of 1 and 19 yards. Then, he shined as a receiver by grabbing a pair of touchdown passes from Montanez. The highlight of those came with 6:12 left in the third when the two connected for a long 39-yard score to give Napa a 14-0 lead.
“He’s a very dynamic player, and we’re very excited to have him,” Harris added on what Palma brings to the table. “He’s doing things on the offensive side, defensive side, throwing the ball. So I mean, that is him and that’s the way we want him to play.”
Palma also rushed 8 times for 31 yards in the game. Others gaining rushes were Alexis Barrientos (7 rushes, 50 yards), Hector Nogales (4 rushes, 45 yards), Pablo Cruz (6 rushes, 34 yards), and Jose Victorino (3 rushes, 19 yards).
Prior to that, the Grizzlies scored when senior receiver Fisher MacDonald took a handoff around the edge for a 5-yard touchdown with 7:32 left in the first.
The Eagles (0-1) did all their scoring in the first half. They made it a seven-point game with 2:55 left in the first when Jayson Scarbrough rolled out to his right and heaved a pass toward the end zone where he found Desmond Johnson who went up and got the pass over the defender.
Later, Jerry Graham got into the end zone on an 11-yard run with 33.4 left in the first half.
Napa will be back in action next week when they head to Fremont to face Irvington. That game will start at 7 pm. Last season, the Grizzlies beat Irvington 15-14 in their first game of the season as well.
