SAN MATEO – The difference between Capuchino and Aragon High’s football teams has been much greater over the years than the fourth-quarter trick play that won Thursday night’s league showdown for San Bruno’s finest.
Halfback Lucas Zayac’s 53-yard touchdown pass to Ricky Arauz with 10:56 left put Capuchino in front, 21-14, and two takeaways thereafter ensured the Mustangs a share of the Peninsula Athletic League’s Ocean Division title with the Dons after their division finale.
Final score: 21-14.
Capuchino linebacker Danny Thomas knew the significance when teammate Mofi Folau stripped an Aragon runner of the ball at the Mustangs’ 15-yard line with 6:23 left.
“I saw it on the ground,” Thomas said. “Usually, we practice the scoop and run. But, I was like, I’m just going to lay on it. I just want to get a league championship … get that banner in our gym. We’ve been waiting for it all these years.”
Aragon (7-2 overall, 4-1) already clinched a piece of its first league crown since 2014 but didn’t feel much like a champion after going scoreless in the red zone on its first three possessions, allowing Capuchino (8-1, 4-1) to stay close and strike back to earn its first championship since 2015.
And that’s what the Mustangs did, scoring a shocking touchdown with 10 seconds left in the first half. A simple hitch play, combined with a broken tackle and a great downfield block, put Travis Ciardella in the end zone from 28 yards away on a play that seemed destined to simply run out the clock.
Instead, it tied the score, 7-7.
“That turned the game around for us,” Zayac said. “Break a tackle, score a touchdown. Get a bunch of momentum going into halftime.”
Aragon moved the ball for much of the game, but a fumble at the 1, another at the 15, a failed fourth-down try at the 19, and a missed field goal took their toll. An interception by Capuchino’s Sebastian Conclara with 1:26 left was the dagger.
“We’ve been pretty clean all year,” Aragon coach Steve Sell said. “This was the wrong night to turn the ball over.”
Aragon came in with its most explosive offense in years, and on Thursday running back Ivanhoe Nisa broke tackles repeatedly on his way to a 151-yard rushing game on 29 carries, and on a 32-yard pass play for the Dons’ first score.
But an emboldened Capuchino team pushed back in the second half.
Though Aragon quarterback Sean Hickey completed 14 of 23 passes for 173 yards – with Jalen Scroggins on the receiving end of five passes for 76 – Capuchino’s swarming defense made the difference while the offense did what it needed to do – specifically, two deadly halfback passes.
Zayac, who rushed for a team-high 59 yards on 15 carries, surprised Aragon by throwing over the defense to Conclara for 38 yards in the second quarter. And then, after securing a handoff on a reverse, pulled up again to find Arauz for the winner.
“I’ve never played quarterback in my life,” Zayac said. “Coach is like, ‘Game-winning throw?’ I’m like, ‘I’ll give it a try.’ Coach called it. We ran it.”
Fifth-year Cap coach Jay Oca likes the trickery. He used the same play on Aragon two years ago in a 36-33 loss.
“I’m a linebacker at heart,” Oca. “I know when linebackers are coming up. That’s just what I do. It’s just a feel of the game.”
Capuchino left with a feeling of validation.
“I knew our time was coming,” senior running back Charlie Barfield said.
Oca acknowledged only that “this means we’re going in the right direction”
He added, “We’re a physical team, we’re a fast team. And we’re a hungry team.”
It wasn’t just the championship, which came in the third tier of the PAL’s new five-level merger with the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League, that made the night so meaningful to Capuchino.
It was its shared history with Aragon.
Cap and Aragon have shared a league since Aragon, the younger of the two, was established in San Mateo in 1961. In time, the schools transitioned from the Mid-Peninsula League to the PAL, where Aragon grew in strength, becoming a San Mateo County public school power.
As the league split into three divisions based on merit, Aragon was winning titles in the top-level Bay Division while Cap mostly was scratching for respectability in the lowest-tier Lake.
Beginning in 1996, Aragon either played in a higher division than Capuchino or finished ahead of the Mustangs in the standings when they did share.
However, in 2023, let it be known that Capuchino finally caught the Dons.
