The game is big in Half Moon Bay
Surf, pumpkins, golf and dining — all pillars of Half Moon Bay, a year-round weekend getaway for many and a Halloween haven in October.
Those in the town will tell you something else belongs on that list: high school football.
On Friday nights, the picturesque coastal San Mateo County city of about 11,000 residents all but shuts down, turning itself into Central Texas or Western Pennsylvania.
“There’s not a lot to do on Friday nights around here,” Half Moon Bay football coach Keith Holden said. “There’s no movie theater in town. There are some nice restaurants. But basically in the fall, if we have a home game, everyone shows up at the game.
“The stands are filled. The concessions are super busy. Families bring all their young kids. The old-timers are up on the hill judging everything we do. Everyone is super supportive and fired up. Win or lose, it’s a great place to play and coach.”
The Cougars have done a lot more winning than losing in recent years.
Half Moon Bay, coming off the school’s second Central Coast Section championship last season, is 4-0 this season and ranked a best-ever No. 22 by The Chronicle.
The Cougars visit another 4-0 team — Menlo School-Atherton — at 3:15 p.m. Friday in a Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division opener.
Holden, a 1992 Half Moon Bay graduate, said the winning and championships have been great. As a two-way all-league lineman, Holden helped start a streak of five league crowns in 1990.
There were some lean years before Matt Ballard took the job in 2002 and he and Holden, his offensive coordinator, led the team to its first CCS crown in 2005.
“Even on some winless teams, I remember looking around and seeing everyone coming to the games,” Holden said. “I remember thinking, ‘Everyone is still here.’ ”
Ballard took the head-coaching post at Redondo Union (Redondo Beach, Los Angeles County) in 2012 and Holden went 1-9 in his first season, then 3-7 in his second. Since then, the Cougars are 22-6.
Moving up to a tougher division and the process of learning a triple-option/double-wing toss offense were reasons for the slow transition.
But behind two-way back Chase Hofmann, middle linebacker/right tackle Sean Baird, and second-year starting quarterback Gavin Tomberlin, the Cougars are rolling.
They lost a lot to graduation in June, but with a larger-thanusual 35-man roster, reinforcements from a 9-1 junior-varsity team, and 716 yards rushing and nine touchdowns from Hofmann (a 6-foot, 180-pound junior), the Cougars are well equipped to play in an Ocean Division that features four 4-0 teams.
“It’s all about attitude,” Holden said. “We ask a lot of these guys. They sacrifice a lot of time and effort. It’s not easy. We run the ball pretty well and play hard on defense.”
The triple option and running double tight-end sets aren’t “that cool or attractive,” Holden admitted, “but we like the results.”
Holden thinks Friday’s matchup between Hofmann and Menlo’s two-way player Charlie Ferguson (730 rushing yards, 14 total TDs) will be worth the price of admission.
“With all due respect to many others, I think they are probably the two best players in the league,” Holden said. “It should be a lot of fun.”