Sometimes a “bye” in the season schedule helps a football team recover from moderate injuries, allowing numerous bruises and sprains to heal and generally return to a full roster of  healthy bodies when the schedule resumes.
And sometimes, a team’s momentum might be interrupted at just the time it is coming together to play its best football of the season.
For Point Loma’s Pointers, the latter may be most accurate to describe a team that has put together a three-game winning streak as it heads into the Western League season.
Last Friday night, it was a good Olympian High School team that took the field in Pete Ross Stadium with a 3-1 record only to see the hosts jump out to a 28-0 lead before they fought back to make a game of it in the second half.
“Our kids were in good spirits, they came to play,” said Pointer head coach Mike Hastings later. “They digested the game plan the coaches taught all week really well. There was good energy in the air.”
When the non-league contest ended, the Pointers posted a 38-28 victory to run their record to 3-2 while dropping the Eagles to an identical mark.
Over their last three games, the Dogs have scored 36, 50 and 38 points to average just over 41 per game after averaging just 13 in a pair of season-opening losses. And against the Eagles, they did it with big plays.
First it was JL Skinner, using his 6-foot 3-inches tall frame, to leap and grab a Kyle Grady pass before finishing off a 77-yard scoring play after the Pointers were penalized twice for holding.
Next was Malik Moore, who followed another holding call on the Dogs by running a sweep play with great blocking, that covered 90 yards, upping the lead to 14-0.
“I took the handoff,” Moore said following the game, “and saw my boys had really good blocks, so I just took it and followed my blocking. They did it all and when I saw the hole, I just took off for the touchdown.”
The play helped Moore lead all Pointer ball carriers with 138 yards, with Josh Ball adding 108 yards and Grady 82 to the team’s total of 359. Grady threw for 183 yards for the game as the Pointers again totaled over 500 yards of offense.
Then before the first quarter ended, Ball finished a drive with a six-yard run good for a 21-0 margin before tacking on a 17-yard run in the second quarter for the big lead before the slumbering Eagles began to stir.
While the Eagles outscored the Dogs 28-10 the rest of the way, Grady’s 59-yard run and a 29-yard field goal by sophomore Andy Medina kept the Eagles from soaring.
Medina was accurate on all five PAT’s to give him eight total points in the game.
One of the Eagles’ touchdowns came on a questionable call by officials, who ruled Moore was not legally down before a defender grabbed the pigskin from atop his chest and sprinted 93 yards for a touchdown.
“I ran the ball,” Moore said, “my knee hit the ground and I rolled on my back. The defender took the ball out of my hands and ran it back. The ref said I wasn’t down yet.”
Fortunately, the play had no effect on the game’s outcome.
“I’m real proud of our kids,” Hastings said. “They finished the game the way they were supposed to. Now we have our league schedule ahead of us and a bye week to get ready for it.”
The Pointers next take the field at Mesa College on Oct. 6 against league rival and nemesis St. Augustine. The Saints have only a 2-3 record but have played powers such as Canyon Springs (Las Vegas), Loyola (Los Angeles) and local Helix. Extra points
– The Pointer JV team (2-3) beat Bonita Vista 48-12 before losing to Olympian 18-7. The freshman team (5-0) edged Bonita 8-6 and blasted Olympian 37-16.
– Moore is considering extending his football career at several schools who have contacted him including USD, BYU, Sacramento State and possibly Columbia. He said he carries a 3.5 overall GPA with a 4.0 during his junior year.