PITTSBURG – The Pittsburg High School football team showed off its trademark quick-strike capability but also a bit of inexperience in its season-opening game against Granite Bay on Friday night.
The Pirates had a 21-point lead at halftime but needed fourth-quarter touchdowns from wide receiver Kenneth Ward and running back Jari Alexander to help seal a 42-36 nonleague victory over the hard-nosed Grizzlies.
After Granite Bay (1-1) scored touchdowns on two consecutive possessions in the second half to cut Pittsburg’s lead to 28-22, Ward scored on a dazzling 40-yard catch and run for his third receiving TD of the game to restore the Pirates’ double-digit advantage.
Granite Bay once again came back to make it a one-possession game on a 35-yard touchdown catch from senior running back Isaiah Ene. But Alexander helped put the game away with 1:38 to go, as he capped a five-play drive with an eight-yard touchdown run.
The Pirates won their fourth straight North Coast Section Division I title last season, but they have just two returning starters on offense and four on defense. Still, they did enough to record a season-opening win for the fourth straight year.
“(We) executed really well in the first half, and then every sign of a young team is kind of taking the foot off the pedal a little bit after halftime and having a big lead, and it showed itself,” Pittsburgh coach Charlie Ramirez said. “When you’re going against a solid team, a well-coached team like Granite Bay, they’re going to make you pay for it, and that’s really what happened in the second half.”
Senior quarterback Carlos Torres, making his first career varsity start, took most of the snaps Friday and threw for three touchdowns, including a 58-yard bomb down the middle to Ward on Pittsburg’s second offensive play.
Torres and transfer Javale Jones are tasked with succeeding Marley Alcantara, who threw 40 touchdown passes last season in helping the Pirates finish with a 12-3 record. His gaudy statistics, which included throwing for close to 3,000 yards, helped him become the Bay Area News Group’s Player of the Year.
Torres got off to a solid start, though, completing 20 of 29 passes for 319 yards and no interceptions. One of his favorite targets, usually on shorter patterns, was senior RJ Mosley, who caught eight passes for 96 yards.
“I was proud of our offense,” Mosley said. “Carlos Torres, he did a great job in his first varsity start. That first half, we were scoring really fast, we were explosive. And even in the second half, when it started slowing down, we were still getting chunk plays. Really proud of our team tonight.”
“He took what the defense gave him,” Ramirez said of Torres. “That’s always the key in this offense. We’re a tempo offense, and it’s quarterbacks getting the ball to the playmakers, and we’ve got some exceptional ones out on the perimeter.”
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Pittsburg has never been shy about testing itself against quality opponents in nonleague play. This year is no different, as the Pirates travel to play Bishop Manogue-Reno next Saturday and West Catholic Athletic League favorites Riordan-San Francisco on Sept. 13.
The Pirates then host Marin Catholic on Sept. 26 and travel to play fellow traditional Bay Area power Los Gatos on Oct. 3 to help prepare for Bay Valley Athletic League play and another run at a section title. While hardly perfect, Friday’s win was an encouraging start for Ramirez’s young team.
“To see how we got ahead in the first half, and for us to be able to reload once we did face some adversity, was good to see,” Ramirez said.
