The Friday night matchup between the Wilson Bruins and the Cabrillo Jaguars was a weird intersection of parallel paths.  Last season, the Bruins were where the Jaguars are now: a talented, young team that was struggling to find a way to win.  After a 41-18 loss to Wilson, Cabrillo is now 0-7 on the season.  Wilson has rebounded from 2007 to their current 4-3 standing, with a  2-1 record in league that has put them in position to make a playoff run over the next three weeks.  They got a big confidence boost tonight, putting on an impressive offensive display against a feisty Cabrillo defense.

The story for Wilson begins, but doesn’t end, with Jemari Roberts.  Their senior standout wide receiver, who’s headed to Stanford next year, hasn’t seen the ball as much as he, his coaches, or the Bruins fans would have liked this year, in large part because he was their biggest downfield threat, and teams were keying on him.  Tonight the Bruins welcomed Ezell Ruffin, Roberts’ foil on the other side, back into the offensive fray after an ineligibility issue.  With a second big, fast receiver to worry about, Cabrillo couldn’t just spy on Roberts all game.  As a result, Jemari had three catches for 124 yards, and two touchdowns, including a 66-yard score that was classic #84, breaking tackles and making people miss, then winning a horse race down the middle of the field.

But Roberts wasn’t the only producer in an offense that put up 362 yards.  Wilson’s primary running back, Brandon Robertson, had 19 rushes for 80 yards and two TDs.  That’s well below his season average, but as Wilson coach Mario Morales pointed out afterward, Robertson usually gets 30-35 carries a game.  “I think he wasn’t warmed up yet,” Morales joked.  Wilson QB Stephen Barrett also had one of his best games of the year, going 5/11 for 165 yards and two TDs, though he did have three interceptions as well.

For Cabrillo, it’s hard to find a saving grace statistically—they had less than a hundred yards through the air and no back with more than 52 yards on the ground.  But the Jaguars are a young team, almost to a fault, and their young players continue to impress, especially running back Tyrrone Swinton, a shifty junior who can break tackles.  Swinton had a 39-yard run, a touchdown, and a 75-yard kickoff return for a TD to boot.  Among Cabrillo’s small class of seniors, Roman Lewis stood out, with five catches for 47 yards, including a masterful 12-yard end zone grab, a ball he pulled out of the air as he was falling backwards.

First-year Cabrillo coach A.J. Luke was proud of the way his team has battled through adversity this season, telling me, “Everybody can be happy when times are good, that’s easy.  They’re working through this.”  They certainly are—I was greatly impressed with the way the Jaguars continued to scrap in the second half, despite going into it down 34-12.  They do a good job of picking each other up on the sideline, which is the kind of positive attitude that coach Morales and his Bruins used to motivate each other to erase memories of 2007. 

Both coaches will need to stay positive for their next games, when they take on Poly—Wilson will visit Vet’s next Friday, and Cabrillo the following week after their bye.  Coach Luke, prior to taking over at Cabrillo this year, was a defensive coach at Poly for over a decade, and he’s hoping his knowledge of the Poly system will aid him going into the game.  Coach Morales, when I asked him about his strategy, smiled and said, “We’re just going to enjoy this one for tonight.  We’ll start worrying about them tomorrow.”