“We came out soft and not hitting at all. And when you come out not hitting, you’re gonna lose.”
Junior Mark O’Grady’s explanation was one of many from varsity football players after their lopsided 45-7 defeat to The King’s Academy on Thursday, Oct. 9.
Thursday’s matchup was the Panthers’ second blowout loss in the last three games, and dropped them to an even 3-3 record on the season (0-1 in Peninsula Athletic League De Anza Division). The team was outplayed on both sides of the ball, as Burlingame’s defense gave up 426 total yards to King’s Academy, while only accounting for 153 total yards offensively.
Still, the Panthers started strong. On the Knights’ opening drive, junior cornerback Will Armstrong intercepted a pass from quarterback Ricky Gutierrez. But shortly after, senior quarterback Nick Armstrong threw a 61-yard pick-six that gave the Knights the lead. The Knights added to it with a 32-yard touchdown pass and a 72-yard passing touchdown in the second quarter.
According to O’Grady, one reason for the defeat may have been the poor week of practice following the team’s 17-14 win at Hillsdale High School on Friday, Sept. 26, which led to an overconfident mindset.
“Feel like it’s a little bit cockiness, coming off a week like Hillsdale, we had a lot of guys missing, and we ended up winning the game,” O’Grady said. “So we came out very confident, maybe overly confident, and can’t come out overconfident.”
Junior center and defensive tackle Uaine Po’oi-Unga also cited the team’s attitude during their last few practices as a reason for the loss.
“This week of practice has been a little bit shaky, with everybody just messing around. So I think we need to capitalize on that and just get better at practice,” Po’oi-Unga said.
The Panthers tried to regain momentum with a passing touchdown from Armstrong to sophomore receiver Ben Flanzer. However, King’s Academy responded with another passing touchdown to extend their lead to 28-7 by halftime.
“We were kind of hanging in there. We had a nice drive late in the second half, and we were kind of moving the ball,” head coach John Philipopoulos said. “The score there, I think, flips the momentum. Potentially, we get the ball back, but it just didn’t happen.”
The Panthers’ struggles continued in the second half, as their offense was held scoreless and struggled to move the ball. The Knights added 17 points with a pair of rushing touchdowns, resulting in a dominant 45-7 win.
“A lot of times, our guys were in the right spots. They just have two really exceptional receivers that are physically gifted and Division-1-ish type receivers. They’re just a good football team,” Philipopoulos said.
According to O’Grady, Philipopoulos was frustrated after the game and encouraged the team to play with a more urgent mindset.
“He’s done with what we’re doing… and we got to come out and be ready to play,” O’Grady said.
Philipopoulos said the Panthers need to work on a multitude of things, such as eliminating penalties, executing offensively, and tackling better on defense.
The Panthers have continued to struggle with injuries, including key offensive players such as star senior running back Hayden Haba and junior running back and cornerback Qasim Abutair, forcing others to take on bigger roles.
“We certainly have lost some good players. But I don’t want to use that as an excuse. We need to be better, “ Philipopoulos said. “And I think it’d be really easy to just point at the injuries, but there’s a lot of reasons why, and there’s a lot of ways we can get better, and I’m going to make sure we do that.”
Po’oi-Unga said that the team needs to fix its attitude over the course of next week’s practices.
“I feel like it all starts once we hit that locker room. I mean, if we go in that locker room with that… mentality and just think about messing around, I feel like that’s gonna kill us a lot,” Po’oi-Unga said.
Philipopoulos said the team needs to regroup and prepare for its next game at Carlmont High School on Friday, Oct. 17.
“We’ve got to do a much better job as coaches of preparing our kids and kind of holding our guys accountable and holding ourselves accountable as coaches and looking at what we do and how we do it and try to get this thing back on track,” Philipopoulos said.
