Cate School’s 8-man football team returned to the gridiron and defeated Grace Brethren, 50-21, in Simi Valley.
Senior quarterback Will Bouma threw three touchdown passes, ran for two and converted on three of five 2-point conversions. Mason Oetgen caught all three touchdown passes.
Ethan Ligon was also a go-to receiver and scored a running touchdown. Running back Matty Holmes also scored a touchdown.
The Rams played against a program that recently was an 11-man football power, winning more than 90 games, seven league titles, two CIF Southern Section championships and a CIF State title in 10 years.
The coach left the school, several players transferred and a new administration downgraded the program to 8-man football.
Cate coach Ben Soto thought it was a little odd to play a program that was once dominant in 11-man football.
“When we decided to play them game one, yes, we thought about how many of their players would still be on the roster after they decided to change coaches,” he said. “It seems a lot of the players left with the coach. Numbers were down, so they made the decision to drop to 8-man,” he said.
As for the game, “I was very pleased with our performance for not having played a game in over a year,” said Soto, who added that it wasn’t just the players who had opening jitters.
“For the first time in my years of coaching football, we forgot to pack the footballs,” he laughed. “Lucky for us, my daughter was coming to the game and she was able to bring them. There’s a first time for everything…”
Soto praised the play of Ben Meyer, Kristian Scurtis, Jack Whelan and Charlie Patel.
Kicker Thomas Paige put 5 of 7 kickoffs into the end zone and was 2 for 2 on PATs.
“This truly felt like a ream victory as all 20 members saw some kind of action, including freshmen David Rissel and Henry Bouma seeing their first varsity snaps,” said Soto.
Cate’s plays its home opener on Saturday, Sept 18 against Orcutt Academy. Kickoff is at 2 p.m.
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.