Whitney opens new stadium with a win

The Whitney High junior varsity football team made its first home game a memorable one on Thursday.The Wildcats beat Cesar Chavez 7-6 in front of a large crowd and improved to 2-1 on the season.Jeremy Buendia scored Whitney's lone touchdown, a one-yard run on the first drive of the game. The Wildcats' defense did the rest. Aside from a 57-touchdown pass, Whitney allowed just 13 yards in the game. Technically, Whitney didn't allow a single first down all night."I've never heard of anything like that, it's a pretty cool stat," Gimenez said. "We have focused a lot on defense and we're a little behind offensively. Defense is the number one priority, at least at our school."Jordan Angel led Whitney's rushing attack with 128 yards on 24 carries. Linebackers Cory Fratis, Jake Snyder and Buendia led the defense along with Tim Meeker and Josh Dentry.Austin Wentworth, who starts on Whitney's offensive line and also plays on the defensive line, says his team was fired up to play the school's first home game. "It pumps you up, knowing everything we do people will look back on the first team to do it," said the 6-foot-3, 270-pound Wentworth, who had never played football before this season. "In some ways we do feel like a varsity team. Because although we know we can't compete with other varsity teams, we are the top team at the school."Gimenez was bothered by some penalties in the first half but he says the Wildcats are "playing well and getting better" against the bigger schools in their league of new schools."Of all the schools in our league, we're smaller by everyone by about 200 kids and Cesar Chavez has 1,400 kids twice our size," Gimenez said. "Two of the six schools are going to be Division I next year and we'll be D-IV."Whitney's freshmen beat Cesar Chavez 36-6. They will host Central Valley at 5 p.m. on Thursday and the JV will hit the field at 7 p.m.