Tracy football outlasts Kimball to win the battle of top dogs in Tracy

Once Tracy and Kimball football made their way to the Wayne Schneider Stadium you could feel the tension brewing between the crosstown rivals.

Week 0 of the 2023-24 high school football season pitted the two Tracy schools against each other. The matchup would keep both crowds on the edge of their seats with handfuls of flags, fumbles and interceptions.

The Bulldogs went on to mark their territory beating Kimball 24-14 and marking its first victory of the season.

“It always feels amazing beating our crosstown rivals,” said Jeff Pribble, Tracy’s head coach. “There’s a lot of positives that do come from winning a game like this. As a teacher and a coach, there’s a lot of things we can break down for our guys when we watch film.”

Here are some of the key takeaways from Tracy’s win over Kimball.

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Turnovers galore

With the pressure at an all-time high for both squads, you could expect a good amount of errors, and that stood true for the Bulldogs and Jaguars. Kimball’s sophomore quarterback Josiah Wilson kicked things off by throwing an interception just a few minutes into the game.

On the other side, Tracy couldn’t hold on to the ball fumbling it not too long after.

Wilson ended the game throwing five interceptions thus quieting the Jaguars passing game. The 5-foot-8 quarterback still got things done on the ground and threw for his first touchdown of the season, a 22-yard connection with senior Noah Reffell.

“Moving forward Jojo (Josiah Wilson) is our quarterback at the end of the day,” said Derek Graves, Kimball’s head coach. “He’s a sophomore and he’s going to grow from this moment. When it’s all said and done Jojo will be one of the best players to come out of the city of Tracy.”

For the Bulldogs, its mistake began piling up in the first half. After senior Tommy Hayes’ fumble at the start of the game, Tracy would lose the ball three more times. Struggling with protecting the ball gave Kimball the momentum and an eight-point lead.

Despite the rough start, the Bulldogs had a secret weapon in their senior kicker Oluwasemilore “Shemmy” Akinleye. Tracy decided to use its final few plays of the half to get Akinleye in field goal range instead of going for a touchdown that would put them within one point of Kimball. He nailed the 45-yard kick, thus changing the course of the game.

“That was a momentum-changing event because my team was down and not understanding why we were running the ball,” Pribble said. “We wanted to give Shemmy a chance to make us excited about what we're doing here tonight instead of focusing on the turnovers at halftime.”

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Aidan Van Os leads Tracy’s offense

Along with Akinleye’s timely field goal, Tracy’s Aidan Van Os played a big role in beating Kimball. Van Os took control of the game showcasing he can get things done on the ground.

“The Tracy offense kind of forces you to be a dual-threat quarterback but I love it,” Van Os said. “I love to embrace. I enjoy it and it makes the game just that much more exciting.”

Van Os took snap after snap to rack up close to 100 rushing yards and all three of the Bulldogs’ touchdowns. When his team needed the chains moved, the senior answered the call.

“Aiden is our leader physically and socially out there,” Pribble said. “He took the ball and he told these kids it wasn’t about the big play. He was a solider out there and he took a lot of hits out there to get us second, third opportunities.”

Van Os and the Bulldogs will get to rest up next week as they have a bye week. Kimball will have to bounce back quickly for its next week's matchup against another 209 powerhouse in Lincoln.

Record reporter Shannon Belt covers sports. She can be reached at sbelt@recordnet.com or on Twitter @ShannonBelt3. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Takeaways from Tracy football's win over crosstown rival Kimball