The Vikings (9-0, 5-0) defeated the Mountain View Spartans (7-2, 4-1) 42-20 on Senior Night Friday, despite eight turnovers and five absent starters.
Palo Alto High School lost five starters last game against Homestead High School, and therefore had to insert less experienced players into the lineup.
Offensively, the Vikings were able to produce, but evidently the changes in the offensive line made play more difficult. Of six fumbles committed by Paly, four of them were recovered by the Spartans, one of which coming as the offense set up a yard from the goal line.
“We have two kids in there that never played center before,” head coach Earl Hansen said. “We were working hard, they got better and better all week. They’re going to get better, they’ll be fine.”
The Vikings scored first, two minutes into the game, with a nine yard pass from quarterback Christoph Bono (‘11) to tight end T.J. Braff (‘11).
The touchdown came just seconds after running backs Morris Gates-Mouton (‘12) and Dre Hill (‘12) ran for 51 and 15 yards, respectively.
Bono finished 6-of-11 passing with two interceptions and three touchdowns. Hill, who normally plays along side injured running back B.J. Boyd (’12), took over the running game with help from Gates-Mouton. The duo combined for 227 yards and three touchdowns. “B.J. is my guy,” Hill said.
“We block for each other and I told him that for this game, because he was out, I was going to try my hardest to fulfill his spot. Morris did great though, to be coming back to running back, he played great tonight.”
Mountain View responded with a 40-yard touchdown run by Marcus Jones (‘13) and fed off of Paly mistakes, to keep the Vikings from blowing the game open. Viking defensive end Tory Prati (’12) acknowledges that his team made several errors throughout the game.
“We had to overcome a lot of mistakes on our own part and we just have to come out next week and clean them up,” Prati said. “They made some good plays but we’ll look at the film, and we’ll get better from this.”
In spite of the turnovers, scoring came in big plays, including an 87-yard touchdown punt return by wideout Maurice Williams (‘11) to start off the second quarter. In the second half the Vikings came up with two more touchdowns that were answered by a final 70-yard pass by the Spartans, followed by a 10-yard touchdown run.
“Hopefully we have a good week of practice, Saratoga is not a bad team, and we need to stick it to them and keep getting better every week going into playoffs,” Bono said.
As a result of West Catholic Athletic League powerhouses Bellarmine and Valley Christian both sufferering losses tonight, the Vikings have a chance of receiving the number one seed in the Central Coast Section (CCS).
The Vikings will play their final regular season game next Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Saratoga High School.
