Los Altos falls to Gunn in Homecoming Game

By Mayu Alten and Anya Sharma

The Los Altos varsity football team played Gunn on Friday, October 19 for the annual homecoming game. The Los Altos stands teemed with fans in the last game at Foothill College for the season. After a lengthy back-and-forth between the teams, Los Altos lost against Gunn with a final score of 13-14.

In preparation for the game, Los Altos focused on stopping Gunn’s running game. Defense practiced different plays that could be used against Gunn while offense focused on breaking through various formations.

“Gunn just runs the football up and down the field, so [we worked] on [stopping] Gunn’s offense,” said varsity head coach Trevor Pruitt.

This strategy paid off as the game got off to a slow offensive start: both teams had strong defensive performances in the first quarter and neither team was able to score any points.

However, in the second quarter, Gunn’s offense broke through and scored a touchdown, putting the score at 0-6 in Gunn’s favor at halftime. In the third quarter, however, Los Altos scored a touchdown, tying the game at 6-6.

“[Our] defense did a really good job stopping their offense for sure because they only put up 14 points, which was really low,” senior Brandon Fan said. “So they did a really good job throughout the whole night.”

In the fourth quarter, Los Altos landed another touchdown which put them in the lead with 13 points to six. But in the last few seconds, Gunn drove down the field to score a touchdown. Gunn successfully scored the two-point conversion, gaining an extra two points and edging out Los Altos by one point, ending the game with a 13-14 loss for Los Altos.

“It was a little disappointing at the end when we lost, especially to Gunn, which is a team we could’ve beat,” Brandon said. “But I think as a team we played decently. We definitely showed a lot of effort and heart, and we just made a few mistakes that cost us the game. We played our hardest. We just didn’t get the outcome we hoped.”