The good news was that the Mustangs couldn't stop the Los Gatos offense as the Wildcats rolled up an incredible 527 yards on 63 points on the road to a Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division victory.

The bad news, though, was that the Gatos defense had trouble stopping Homestead.

"I wasn't pleased with our defense," said Gatos head coach Butch Cattolico. "We seemed to play well at the beginning of each half, but defensively we just didn't seem to be as physical as we've been in the last couple of weeks."

The coach knows that his defense will have to turn it up a notch this week if the Wildcats hope to remain unbeaten in the De Anza Division. The Cats will host powerful Milpitas on Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m., at Helm Field.

"We're going to have to play better football against Milpitas, or we're going to be in trouble," said Cattolico. "We've got to play better defense. Because if they're on, they've got some talent."

Right now, the coach is less concerned about the Trojans and more concerned about his Wildcats.

"We've got to keep improving," he said. "Offensively, we're doing some good things. So we'll be concentrating on the defensive side of the ball to see if we can't get better."

The offense certainly did some good things last Friday night. The Cats ran just 42 offensive plays, but scored nine touchdowns.

"Our longest touchdown drive was six plays," said Cattolico, and the Cats scored on their first five possessions of the night. Unfortunately, Homestead answered three of those TDs with scores of their own and trailed just 35-17 at intermission.

Danny Bates led an awesome offensive display for the Cats. The senior back raced for 217 yards on 17 carries. Michael Brienzo supported with 91 yards on four tries, Alex Ghanavati added 48 yards on three carries and John Davidge picked up 44 yards on four attempts.

"We rushed the ball extremely well," said Cattolico. "They couldn't stop us."

A big reason for the that was the play of the boys up front in the offensive line.

"We made an adjustment," said the coach. "We moved Evan Wynne to left guard and Liam Smith to left tackle. They seem to be getting used to each other, and they both did an outstanding job."

Cattolico also praised the work of Danny Starick at center, Ryan Lecznar at right guard and Chris Danser at left tackle.

"Offensively, we really pushed some people around, and Mark Ericson [tight end] and Ivan Batinich [fullback] are part of that combination," he added.

Ironically, it was the defense that set up the first Los Gatos touchdown of the night on Friday. The defensive unit stopped the Mustangs on three plays to open the game. Homestead's punter bobbled the snap on fourth down, and Derek Thomas was there to drop him at the 15-yard line to give the Cats a short field.

Brienzo ran for nine yards before Bates went six yards for the touchdown. Nick Reimnitz kicked the first of his nine extra points, and it was 7-0 in a hurry.

Homestead kicked a field goal to cut it to 7-3, but Ghanavati ran back the ensuing kickoff 37 yards to give the Cats good field position again. Bates carried four times for 35 yards before Brienzo took a reverse 22 yards for the score.

Homestead went three and a punt again, and Gatos scored five plays later. Matt Martini ran for 14 yards and Bates carried three times for 36 yards before Alex Rollin hit Brienzo with a 34-yard touchdown pass. Rollin finished the night hitting on 5 of 8 passes for 104 yards, completing three passes for Ericson for 66 yards, one to Martini for four and the one TD toss to Brienzo.

The Mustangs came right back to break a 68-yard touchdown run to cut the lead to 21-10, but then the offense went to work again.

Brienzo took off on a 50-yard touchdown run, and a 45-yard run by Bates set up his own 21-yard TD dash to make it 35-10.

Still, the Mustangs came fighting back to score before the half to cut it 35-17.

The offense added to the Gatos lead in the third quarter. Bates had all four carries on a 65-yard touchdown drive, scoring on an 18-yard run for his last carry of the night.

A few plays later, Vince Bellotti returned a Homestead punt 70 yards for a touchdown to up the lead to 49-17.

Homestead failed to field the kickoff and David Holtzman pounced on the loose ball at the 15-yard line. Davidge ran for six yards and Devin Lopez went for eight before the Cats fumbled the ball away at the 1-yard line. The Mustangs then drove 99 yards for a touchdown to make it 49-23.

A couple of Rollin passes to Ericson for 52 yards set up a 1-yard touchdown blast by Batinich, and Ghanavati broke free for a 42-yard touchdown run.

Batinich, Chas Talpas, Chad Blanchard and Brian Perin were in on 11 tackles each to lead the Gatos defense. Holtzman and Bellotti were in on eight tackles apiece, Devin Scott had seven, Matt Kinser six, Danser five and Thomas three.

Batinich, Scott, Smith and Chris Cuthbert each had quarterback sacks and Cuthbert recovered a fumble.

Matt Schowalter, Wynne, Lopez, Mario Borbas, William Hartsell, Brian Bolandi, Jeff Collins and J.C. Thiel were also in on tackles.