State coaching honor for Sacred Heart Prep’s Lavorato

It was a big year for head coach Pete Lavorato and his Sacred Heart Prep football team. The Gators set a school record for most single-season wins during a 12-1 year that included the program’s second Central Coast Section Division IV title.

Lavorato was named the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division Coach of the Year. He topped that recently as he was named the Cal-Hi Sports Small Schools State Coach of the Year.

This marks the first time that a coach from the CCS has been awarded this honor.

Once called the “guru of the fly offense” by current San Francisco 49ers’ head coach Jim Harbaugh, Lavorato led the Gators to their second section title in the past three years in addition to their fourth league crown in 2012.

Lavorato grew up in Canada and played college football at Utah State before playing professionally for the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League. On a team that featured future NFL Hall of Famer Warren Moon as the quarterback, Lavorato was a part of five Grey Cup championships and in 1977 was selected to the CFL All-Star team.

After many coaching jobs in California and Canada in the 1990s, he was hired at Sacred Heart Prep in 2003. While the school was not known for football at the time and clearly took a back seat in the sport to arch-rival Menlo School, Lavorato nonetheless has built the program into a small school perennial power in Northern California.

In his 10 seasons at Sacred Heart Prep, Lavorato has a record of 83-30-1. He has never had a losing season at SHP, coming close only once in 2006 with a 5-5 mark. He won 11 games twice (2008, ’10) before surpassing that this past season. His record over the past five seasons is a remarkable 50-12-1.

In other football news, Palo Alto junior quarterback Keller Chryst was named to the MaxPreps 2012 Junior All-American Team.

The 6-foot-4, 230-pound Chryst was named to the second-team offense after throwing for 2,489 yards and 28 touchdowns this past season. He shares the quarterback position with Shuler Bentley of Byrnes (Duncan, S.C.), who completed 299 passes for 59 touchdowns and just 13 interceptions in 462 attempts.

Chryst also was ranked No. 63 in the nation by Tom Lemmings in his Class of 2014 Top 100 list on MaxPreps.

By Palo Alto Online Sports/Cal-High Sports

By Palo Alto Online Sports/Cal-High Sports

By Palo Alto Online Sports/Cal-High Sports