Playoff-bound BHS Looks to Build on Surge

Beyond the obvious school pride implications, Burlingame High football coach John Philipopoulos figures the stakes are high for his Panthers when they visit San Mateo in the 84^th Little Big Game on Saturday.

No, a league championship is not at stake – as one was two years ago, when San Mateo edged Burlingame 25-20 in a de facto Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division title game.

And no, a postseason berth isn’t in the offing -- as was the case in that 2009 thriller. Burlingame (4-5) locked up an automatic Central Coast Section spot by beating The King’s Academy last week. And San Mateo (1-7-1) has been far out of the playoff picture for weeks.

But in large part because the Panthers are headed to the playoffs next week, Philipopoulos thinks their performance in the Little Big Game looms as significant.

Burlingame hasn’t won a CCS game since 2006, and Philipopoulos believes its first-round ousters the last two years can be attributed largely to teams that took big momentum hits at the end of the regular season.

The Panthers were in position to clinch the PAL Ocean title in the 2009 Little Big Game and no worse than a PAL Bay co-championship in a league-ending game at Menlo-Atherton last year. But they wasted both opportunities – giving up a game-winning touchdown in the last minute in the former and surrendering a 27-0 lead in the latter – and CCS flameouts quickly followed.

This year, Burlingame enters the Little Big Game having gained solid momentum after a rocky start to the season, so its goal is to build on that with a big victory over its rival. After losing their first three league games, the Panthers responded with clutch victories in must-win games over Jefferson and The King’s Academy to earn the PAL Bay’s final CCS berth.

“You could just feel the change, the evolution. We’ve been playing significantly better,” said Philipopoulos, adding that the seeds of his team’s growth came in one-score league losses to Sacred Heart Prep and Terra Nova. “This year, we’re not playing our best football (at this point), but we’re close. We’re a confident group.”

Burlingame wide receiver and defensive back Cody Johnson said a sharp focus has yielded results in terms of the players’ mind-set and performance.

“I think coming in with the two wins is huge for us,” said the senior, whose team owns a 47-32-4 edge in the Little Big Game and has won 13 of the past 16 meetings. “We’re definitely not playing for the future. We’re playing for right now.”

Even though San Mateo enters the game with an underwhelming record – the Bearcats owned a 16-game winless streak until they beat Mills last week – Burlingame knows rivalry games carry an inherent warning sign.

“As of now, records don’t matter. When we play our rivals, we always know records don’t have a say in it,” said junior Benji Palu, a two-way lineman. “It’s another business trip. We have to go and take care of business.”