St. Pius defeats Pirates 39-8

One beautiful autumn evening, alumni, friends, and family packed the Port of the Pirates and enjoyed the new bleachers and striking turf field – many fans seeing the refurbished facility for the first time at the annual h o m e - coming football game. The Pi- rate football team, however, was routed by the visiting St. Pius Sartans by a score of 39- 8.

“We had a shaky start to the game, but our Defensive unit found its footing and played some of the best football that we've played this year,” said GHS head football coach Brandon Hernandez.

The Sartans scored nineteen unanswered points the first quarter and six unanswered points the second quarter as the Pirate defense struggled to control the Sartans march. Offensively, the Pirates went with Sophomore Julian Padilla at the crucial quarterback position, this was Padilla’s first outing as a quarterback as a Pirate. The defensive pressure on the young and inexperienced quarterback showed as he tossed five interceptions for the night under the relentless Sartan pressure.

“Offensively, we are still ironing out some wrinkles with a new quarterback. Julian Padilla is a great kid, and we believe that he has an extremely bright future here at GHS. We have him for two more years after this, so that's exciting,” said Hernandez.

After a fumble recovery late in the fourth quarter by Matthew Nieto, a composed Padilla hit sophomore receiver Andres Lazos with a short 10-yard touchdown pass for a quick six and then on a quarterback sneak, Padilla garnered the two-point conversion for a total of eight points. No goose egg for the Pirates that night.

The rallied Pirates defended better in the second half by only allowing 14 points, yet, the point deficit was too wide to have much of an impact on the final outcome of the game. Coach Hernandez was pleased with his team’s energy and effort in the second half, “They played for each other late in the game, and the difference was noticeable! We played with tons of heart and love for each other – even the crowd was roaring ‘Row the Boat’ – that energy is contagious,” quipped Hernandez.

The Pirates fall to 1-8, 0-3 for the season and have a home game for their last game of the season this Friday against the Bernalillo Spartans (4-5,0-3) who are just coming off a 6-0 win over the Valencia Jaguars (6-4, 2-2)

In other sports the GHS volleyball team played well, however they dropped their latest series with St. Pius 3-0 (25-19, 25-16 and 25-12) and currently are 11-9, 3-2 going into an away district game this Thursday against the Valencia Jaguars (7- 12, 3-2). The lady Pirates remained second in district 4-A 5 in the standings just behind the district leader St. Pius (8-9, 5-0).

The lady Pirates soccer team ended their season 7-10, 2-6 after they defeated the lady Eagles in a recent district soccer match 6-0 on Thursday, October 21. Seniors for the lady Pirates are Trysta Pena, Marina Lucero and Oliyay Murray. The GHS boys’ soccer team ended their season 1-6 and 0-8. Seniors on the team were Troy Fernandez and Joshua Talamante.