But that's just what happened to the Los Altos Eagles last Friday night when they challenged powerful Los Gatos at Helm Field.

The Gatos defense shut Los Altos down cold and rolled to the 49-0 non-league victory in the process.

The win was the 32nd straight for the Wildcats and pushed their record to 6-0 for the year.

Los Gatos will try to keep the string alive this week when the Wildcats travel to Wilcox on Oct. 25, 7:30 p.m., to face the winless Chargers. But Los Gatos coach Butch Cattolico expects a tougher test this week than the past two weeks, when the Cats rolled over Santa Clara and Los Altos.

"They're a scary football team," said Cattolico of the speedy Chargers. "When they're not fumbling the football, they look better than the teams they're playing."

Unfortunately for the Chargers, they've fumbled away game after game this season.

"But I'm a little worried about them," admitted Cattolico. "They have the talent to play with anyone if you don't play well and they don't shoot themselves in the foot."

The Los Altos Eagles didn't exactly shoot themselves in the foot last Friday. Had they tried, they'd probably have missed—that's how bad things were going for the Eagles.

"They didn't make a first down—I don't remember that ever happening," said Cattolico after the win. "They ran 24 offensive plays, and they finished with negative-two yards offensively."

Los Altos never crossed the 50-yard line in the game. In fact, the Eagles barely got past their own 30!

The Wildcats jumped out to a quick lead, and were up 28-0 with 4 ¹/2 minutes to play in the first quarter.

The Eagles started at their own 9-yard line after the opening kickoff and promptly threw a pass that was intercepted by Matt Rose at the 16. A play later, Dennis Freeman raced 16 yards for a touchdown.

After three plays and a punt (a common occurrence for the Eagles on Friday night), Alex Rollin tossed to Cameron Fee for 14 yards, Freeman ran for 21 more and Travis Howell had a 9-yard run to set up Freeman's 1-yard TD blast. Nick Reimnitz kicked the second of his seven extra points, and it was 14-0.

Drew Hoffman sacked the Los Altos quarterback for an 11-yard loss and sent him to the sidelines for the rest of the night before the Eagles had to punt the ball away again.

Rollin tossed 12 yards to Tom Dittman before hitting Fee with a 26-yard touchdown pass.

Rollin finished the night hitting on 5 of 6 passes for 94 yards, all in the first half. He has now completed 36 of 47 passes this season for a 77 percent completion average.

A 22-yard punt return by Brian Miguel and four carries for 30 yards by Freeman accounted for another score. Freeman, who led the Cats with 101 yards on 11 first-half carries, scored on a 1-yard run.

Derek Tam appeared to score on a 49-yard reverse, but the play was called back because of a holding penalty. Miguel ended up scoring on a 12-yard run early in the second quarter.

A 14-yard run by Freeman and an 18-yard run by Danny Bates set up Howell for a 4-yard TD run before the half.

Bates returned the second half kickoff 26 yards, Andrew Willheim ran 15 yards and Ivan Batinich had an 18-yard run before Miguel scored on a 17-yard run to close out the scoring.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Los Gatos football coaches Eric Van Patten (left) and Mark Magagna were named as winners of the AFLAC Insurance Company­sponsored Unsung Hero Awards. Van Patten and Magagna were selected for the award for their 'outstanding service to the football program as assistant coaches.'

"They opened the way for a lot of running," said Cattolico of the offensive linemen.

Miguel finished with six carries for 56 yards, Batinich and Bates each had 31 yards on four tries, Adam Breslin ran four times for 26 yards, Howell had three totes for 24 yards and Tam carried once for 20 yards.

Fee pulled in three passes for 75 yards. Dittman had the one catch for 12 yards and Mark Ericson snagged a pass for seven.

Miguel and Howell were tackling leaders with six stops apiece, and Eric Brown and Andrew O'Gorman had five each. Allen and Hoffman each had four.

O'Gorman, Hoffman, Chad Blanchard and Batinich each sacked the Los Altos quarterback. Eric Pape, David Holtzman, Shaun Sullivan, Andy Betzina, Bates, Brett Cavanagh, Blanchard, David Kleinschmidt, Greg Kelly, Bryce Murray, Rose, Perry Richardson, Ericson, Smith and Chris Danser were others in on tackles.