The evening air was crisp, the roar of the crowd was loud and people in the stadium could see the Bonita Vista High (BVH) Barons representing their school at Southwestern College (SWC). From the crowd, BVH’s fight song played by Club Blue could be heard. On September 17, BVH’s Varsity football team played against Patrick Henry High (PHH) and lost with a score of 0 to 47.

The game started with PHH reaching the Baron’s end zone within 5 minutes of the first half. PHH scored for most of the first half resulting in a score of 26-0. They scored 2 touchdowns (six points each) with extra points (one point each). However, BVH’s students did not give up hope, which was shown through the crowd’s enthusiasm and chants that were made to motivate the Baron’s football players. BVH’s quarterback and senior Nathan Roble Cristobal passed for a total of 37 yards throughout the game.

“I think we practiced like we played. We need to obviously step it up and Patrick Henry High is a great team. We need to get better overall,” Varsity Football Coach Anthony Joplin said.

 And as the sun went down by the second quarter so did PHH’s ability to score. The Barons pushed the opposing team further away from their end zone and were able to prevent the opposing team from scoring as easily with many complete sacks (to tackle behind the line of scrimmage) and blocks. Their point average per quarter decreased by 6 points in the last 2 quarters. The game consisted of several effective defensive plays, but not as effective offensive ones because the Barons had a more clear defensive pattern in completing plays. 

“We could have done better. We had a lot of mistakes that need to be fixed,” senior offensive tackle Quentin McClure said. “We’re working on it during practice [for] the next five weeks.”

The BVH football team has practices that consist of contact exercises from Monday through Wednesday. Then a final practice that includes all the different parts of the game is held on Thursday before the Friday football game.

“We’ll see [PHH] in the playoffs hopefully. I think if we capitalize on the mistakes we made in the game, we’ll have a good game with them,” Wide receiver and senior Malossi Luli said. The Barons hope to see Patrick Henry again if they make it to the playoffs later this season.