Day After Report: Mountain View 42, Prairie 14
This should not surprise anyone.
This result, nor any of the other results featuring Mountain View in the Class 3A Greater St. Helens League.
Sure, the Thunder graduated a ton of talent from last season’s squad. But they are still well coached, they still have a strong offensive line, and they still expect to get better from Week 1 through Week 9 … and then beyond.
Oh, and of course the Thunder dropped in classification, too. That helped, going from one of the toughest 4A leagues in the state to a league that is not considered one of the best in the state. (Hope that’s fair.)
Before the season, coaches acknowledged their overall record might take a beating with a tough non-league schedule. Sure enough, the Thunder did go 1-3 in those games.
But here we are, eight weeks into the regular season, and the Mountain View Thunder are celebrating a league title.
They improved to 4-0 in 3A GSHL play with Friday’s win over Prairie.
Surprising absolutely no one.
More to Prairie than that record:
Yes, looking at the win-loss record, Prairie is a struggling program. Can’t deny that.
However, the Falcons showed fight in them Friday night, showed passion.
Let’s face it, we’ve all seen struggling teams just kind of give in toward an end of a season, especially when facing the top team in a league.
The Falcons, though, refused to give in to their record, to the predictions. Sure, in the end, it turned into a 42-14 loss. But the Falcons had the lead early. And the Falcons scored the last touchdown of the first half to keep things interesting when it would have been easy to fold.
Kevin Aguirre rushed for 135 yards and two touchdowns. Dakota Detter added 87 yards on the ground for the Falcons. Defensively, Bryson Pena had a couple tackles-for-loss, including a sack for a 16-yard loss.
Oh, that sack? It led to a safety. Mountain View was pushed from its own 31-yard line to the 15-yard line and then the snap went awry on a punt. Two points for Prairie.
The Falcons will look to improve to 2-7 overall, 2-3 in league, with a win next week against Fort Vancouver.
They showed some good signs against the Thunder.
Next week, they want to finish the regular season with a victory.
Chase watch:
Darien Chase just keeps playing football games and just keeps scoring touchdowns. A sophomore, Chase scored again Friday night, giving him at least one TD in the past nine games, dating back to last season … when he was a freshman.
This would be quite a feat for anyone, but it is a bit easier, for example, for a No. 1 running back to score in nine consecutive games. Or perhaps a running quarterback.
Chase, though, is a wide receiver.
Not only that, but he does not play on a team that throws 30, 40 times a game.
Sure, Mountain View is throwing the ball more things days than in the recent past, but you would, too, if you had Chase on your team.
Still, there are going to be nights when the passing game is not there. Like last week, when Mountain View rolled over an overmatched opponent and won by 60-plus points. The Thunder only completed four passes that day. Only one went to Chase. Oh, and Chase did not have a receiving touchdown in that game.
Yet, he still scored a touchdown.In that game, it was on a punt return. In other games, it has been defensive touchdowns.
The guy is a threat to score any time he has the ball in his hands.
And because he is a sophomore, the rest of us football observers in Southwest Washington are in for a treat for two more regular seasons, plus a few playoff games.
Scheer schines:
If you saw my game story, you saw that Mountain View quarterback Andre Scheer had some video game moments in the Thunder’s victory. He broke free on an 83-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. Earlier in the game, he had a 33-yard TD run. He carried a defender into the end zone on the last five yards of that run.
In all, it was a season-high 207 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns. Plus he had at 58-yard TD pass to Chase.
