MVHS flag football suffered a tough 14-25 loss in their senior night against Santa Clara on Wednesday, Oct. 15. It was the girl’s second time playing Santa Clara, losing 7-34 back in September. 

“We definitely played them a lot better than we did the first time,” head coach John Payne said.

Spartans started 7-0 strong with a touchdown from Junior Nika Keshavarzi and a successful conversion. Santa Clara answered in the first quarter with a conversionless touchdown. They then scored another two conversionless touchdowns in the second quarter as MVHS’s defense struggled, going up 7-18 over the Spartans.

“We have some things that we need to kind of tighten up on our defense,” Payne said. 

MVHS stayed in the fight in the third quarter with a lone touchdown and conversion to reach a four point difference. 

Payne said he was proud of the two touchdowns the offense scored, as they had been implementing a triple option offense. 

“We’ve been really working on our offense,” Payne said.

In the final quarter, Santa Clara secured a touchdown and a conversion to win the game. 

“Although we lost this game, I’m proud of the girls. They fought all the way through,” Payne said.

The Spartans’ next game will be against Los Gatos on Monday, Oct. 20, whom they had previously lost to earlier this month.

“Next one’s gonna be a tough one,” Payne said. “We hope to go ahead and do the same thing and to be able to get a few more touchdowns.”