WATSONVILLE — With a nimble little step sideways, Pajaro Valley saw its huge step forward last year go all for naught.

Joey Ponzio, Watsonville High’s punt return-man, shimmy-shaked the Grizzlies’ defense with only five seconds remaining in the last game of the year — with a playoff spot on the line for Pajaro Valley — and returned a kick 65 yards for the game-winning touchdown:

Watsonville 25, Pajaro Valley 20.

The loss left the Grizzlies with a 6-4 record — a massive improvement from a year earlier, but still on the outside, looking in come playoff time.

“No one talks about it,” Grizzlies coach Mike Palmer said of the game during an early August practice, “except for me. I’m not so sure I’m over that, still.”

Quarterback Chris Jackson spent most of the offseason eager to step back out on the field and enact some revenge.

“I was devastated,” he said. “Even the next day. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. … It was like the Super Bowl.”

But the Return — surely the most exciting moment in what is still a nascent but totally unparalleled rivalry in this area — tends to obscure even a fairly fresh memory of how far the Grizzlies had actually come in a year.

In 2006, Pajaro Valley’s first varsity season, the team went 1-9 and was shut out four times. The team lost games 50-0, 51-0, and 41-0 during the season. In ’07, though, bolstered by a power running game and a stout — if undersized — defensive front, the team outscored its opponents 272-170. Its defining moment (up until The Return) came in a 23-8 whipping of playoff-bound North County.

“It was a great play,” Palmer said of the Watsonville game. “But it shows you that Watsonville, Pajaro Valley — it’s the same kids; they’re on the same level. Now it’s even.”

Armed with the confidence gained from last year’s positives, and rejuvenated by a long summer to forget its negatives, the Grizzlies enter 2008 a hungry bunch.

The star players from the 2007 squad are mostly gone. Running backs Race Nelson and Jesus Hernandez, and 250-plus pound lineman Andrew Buckman, who together formed an impressive running game, all graduated. In their place, though, are a group of young, eager players ready to prove their worth.

Daniel Hernandez seems the likely successor to Nelson and Jesus Hernandez. Six-foot-five Jackson, who started the Watsonville game (and only that one) will get his shot at quarterback, though he has competition for the job from 6-foot-1 Adrian Martinez. Both can, and will, play, according to Palmer, who is not known for mincing his words.

Palmer said he hopes to better utilize the passing game this year. In 2007, Grizzlies quarterback Richard Medina attempted only 34 passes — fewest among MBL starters — and threw only two touchdowns. This season, though, Palmer envisions Jackson or Ramirez — whoever ends up winning the starting gig — stretching defenses out a bit more.

“We’re working in a lot of passing,” Jackson said. “Hopefully that should fool them.”

Junior defensive end Jesse Ramirez, the defensive captain, sees this year’s team as potentially better than last year’s bunch.

“I think we’re an all-around team,” he said. “Our running is just as good (as last year), and it’s an upgrade in every other section — that’s just how we all think. The passing is getting better. That just makes us more of an all-around team.”

Another factor that suggests the Grizzlies will take to the air more often this year is the fact that the offensive line is quite young, meaning there is no guarantee that the unit will be able to man-handle opponents the way it did last year on running plays.

The schedule won’t be as kind to the Grizzlies this year as it was a year ago, when the team went 5-0 in non-league play. Pajaro Valley gets Greenfield, Monterey, Seaside and North County — all playoff teams last year — in sequence after opening with also-rans Harbor and King City.

“I believe that we can compete,” Ramirez, the defensive end, said. “We’re just as good as anyone else.”

In fact, Pajaro Valley statistically outplayed Watsonville in almost every regard in 2007. The Return, though, meant the Grizzles had to wear the badge of Younger Brothers for yet another year.

They’re ready to do away with that label now.

“That game really lit a fire,” Jackson said. “Now we have to take that fire to every game — every play — not just against Watsonville, but against everybody. If we just give 100 percent, we’ll get ours.”



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(Published on Aug. 23, 2008)

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Photos by I.A. Stewart/Register-Pajaronian



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