After four weeks of school, Mountain View is finally ready for football season. The Spartan Varsity team opened their season on Friday, September 7, against the Sacred Heart Prep Gators.
“I’m extremely excited,” said senior Mike Densmore before the game on Friday. “It’s our first home game of the season which is always a great morale booster.”
Planning to start their season off on a good note, the Spartans burst onto the field with extreme intensity and hunger for victory in their eyes. Right from the start though, things did not go as planned.
After a subpar kick that gave Sacred Heart field position of their own 40, the Gators started out with a 15 yard run and then converted a 45 yard pass down field to the tight end for a touchdown giving them an early 7-0 lead.
Mountain View’s offense looked like they would return the favor on their opening drive after senior Marcus Jones picked up three first downs in three carries, but the Spartans turned the ball over after going for it on 4th down on Prep’s 35 yard line. This pattern seemed to reoccur through the rest of the game for Mountain View’s offense as they failed to convert on multiple 3rd downs after easily marching past SHP’s 40 yard line.
The offense failed to heat up after their early problems and only scored 3 points throughout the rest of the game which came on a field goal by senior Chauncey Neyman.
Senior Marcus Jones showed that he has not lost his form of last season as he rushed for 166 yards on 20 carries. As the new starting quarterback, junior Will Fischer-Colbrie had a rough first half, but bounced back in the second with multiple completions including a perfect pass to Austin Johnson who took a hard hit immediately following the catch, but was able to hold onto the ball. Fischer-Colbrie’s outing ended with an interception in the red zone, but a bright future is in store for the quarterback.
On defense, the Spartans showed resilience after their first go round by forcing a three and out on the Gator’s next possession and forcing a fumble and turnover on their own goal line to keep SHP within 4 points (7-3) at halftime.
The defensive intensity did not carry over to the second half though. The Gator’s piled on 20 more points in the second half to give themselves a blowout victory of 27-3.
After the game senior Alex Guttierez put their offensive and defensive woes into words.
“On offense we just need to get our passing game up, our running game was pretty good. On defense we just need to stop the run more,” said Guttierez.
When asked how they would bounce back for the next game Coach Toure Carter said, “We just have go to the drawing board, watch our film, correct our mistakes. We have to get better every day.”
The Spartans will have a chance for redemption after their opening loss on Friday, September 14 at Burlingame at 7:00.
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