It wasn’t the prettiest of endings, but the Valencia Vikings football team found a way to win on Thursday.
Leading by as many as 23 points, the Vikings pulled away from the visiting Paraclete Spirits, 49-40, at Valencia High School’s Dr. Paul A. Priesz Stadium to end their two-game losing skid and even up their record at .500 heading into the Foothill League campaign.
“It was critical that we got ourselves kind of back on track and playing Viking football,” said Valencia (2-2) head coach Larry Muir. “We weren’t perfect, obviously, and we weren’t entirely dialed in everything what we needed to be, but I thought we made strides and we made steps on some of the things that we needed to, and I was proud of the guys.”
Valencia sophomore quarterback Evan McCalister showed his promise under center all night. He finished with 185 yards and a touchdown, adding 31 yards and a touchdown on the ground. But his night was ended early after suffering an apparent lower body injury while attempting a QB sneak near the close of the third quarter, and he remained with trainers for the first few minutes of the fourth quarter. Muir said there shouldn’t be any issues with his starting quarterback moving forward.
“It was great to see Evan leading the offense, doing a great job,” Muir said. “(Ariza) Sanchez did a great job of stepping in at the end there.”
Senior Nico Funez bull-rushed his way through the Paraclete defense as he racked up 222 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. Paraclete defenders had a difficult timebringing down the Vikings’ big man in the backfield, including on a 66-yard run to set up the Vikings’ first touchdown of the game when he broke multiple tackles.
Funez is taking over as the lead back for the Vikings after the departure of Brian Bonner, who is now a member of the University of Washington football team. A track star at Valencia as well, Bonner was known for outrunning defenders, while Funez has shown his way of power running can work just as well.
“You just got to run through guys’ faces,” Funez said. “But also credit to my O-line. You know, there were some times where I felt like some guy would stop me, but they would also push me into the end zone. And that’s our culture. Coach Muir always emphasizes on winning the push, and today I felt like we did an amazing job with that.”
Senior Caysen Badawi had perhaps the highlight of the night to kick off the second half. He returned the opening kick from end zone to end zone, going the last 50 yards essentially on his own. Also the owner of a 55-yard catch on Thursday, Badawi said the touchdown to start the second half was key to the win.
“Coming out the second quarter, you know, I wanted to bring the energy,” Badawi said. “Last year, they came out and they actually came back on us. We had a huge lead, and so I kind of just wanted to send a signal, you know, let them know that’s not happening again. Just took it back, hit that hole, and took it to the crib.”
The Vikings had their way on offense in the first half, racking up 236 total yards and 10 first downs, and of their five possessions in the opening two frames, they scored on four of them.
The Spirits used up more than half of the first-quarter clock on the first drive of the night en route to taking their sole lead of the game. Valencia went on to score 21 unanswered points before Paraclete added a second score midway through the second quarter on a 70-yard catch-and-run from senior Nick Gonzales. But the Vikings added a late first-half touchdown of their own to take a 28-12 lead into the break.
That lead evaporated throughout the second half, but the Vikings never gave in. Funez was key to winding down the clock with some big first-down runs late in the fourth quarter.
“You just gotta keep your feet moving,” Funez said. “You know, it’s that simple. It was a close game. They fought back. I thought they did a great job of that. But I just wanted to keep moving forward. This week was really important on being us and being the best version of ourselves and living up to that standard that we created. So that was a huge motivation for me to just keep going forward.”
The Vikings may have won on Thursday and evened up their record heading into the start of the league season, but Muir knows that his team will need to tighten things up if the Vikings want to secure a fourth straight league title — and potentially make some noise in the playoffs.
Paraclete recorded 447 total yards on Thursday, and the Vikings had trouble against CIF Southern Section powers Chaminade and Bishop Amat — both ranked in the top 20 of MaxPreps’ Southern Section rankings as of Thursday afternoon — the two games prior to Thursday.
Valencia will enter league play with a 19-game winning streak against league opponents, dating back to the final regular-season contest of the 2022 campaign.
“The standard is the standard,” Muir said. I think it’s a process for us, especially this team. It’s a new team. The standard is continually to try to work to and develop in the process of the little things that we’ve got to keep fixing, and it’s a process … Sometimes that process is ugly. Sometimes that process is hard.”
Valencia kicks off the Foothill League campaign next Friday when the Vikings host Castaic at Valencia High School.
