By Matt Lechuga
For The Signal
With an even offensive attack, the Valencia Vikings cruised to a 42-0 win over the visiting West Ranch Wildcats Friday night at Valencia High School.
Valencia (4-2, 2-0) didn’t waste any time taking control of the game with its first possession. A 20-yard rush by Nico Funez and a 29-yard pass from Evan McCalister to Deshawn Palmer got the Vikings immediately into scoring range where Funez capped the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run up the middle.
It was the Funez and McCalister show, with the senior/sophomore backfield tandem accounting for all of the Vikings’ scores. Funez finished with 176 yards and three rushing touchdowns, and McCalister went for 199 yards and three scores through the air, highlighting the offensive balance Valencia looks to achieve weekly.
“We’ve always strived to be balanced,” said Vikings head coach Larry Muir. “We did a pretty good job of that tonight. That’s always important to us, to be balanced in that way.”
On Valencia’s third possession, Funez broke a 55-yard touchdown to push the Vikings’ lead to 14-0 and get himself over the 100-yard mark with over three minutes to play in the first quarter.
The Vikings scored on all three of their second-quarter possessions, a 61-yard pass from McCalister to Michael Wilder, a 29-yard run from Funez and a 47-yard toss from McCalister to Anthony Vernon to push the Valencia lead to 35-0 at the half.
“My running back coach, coach Bell, tells me to go first and then think,” said Funez. “If you think and then go you have to let the holes develop and then make cuts, so it’s really just a timing thing. So like I said I just gotta go and then think. And credit to my O-line for making holes for me tonight.”
In what was a pretty dominant first half, the Vikings must have felt like they left some points on the field. A 65-yard passing touchdown from McCalister to Vernon and an interception returned for a score by Wilder were both called back on penalties.
“Regardless of the scoreboard, it has to be to the program standard,” said Muir. “There were a lot of things happening that weren’t to the program standard. And there have been a lot of guys that have come before us that have lifted that standard to a level that you strive for and you have the responsibility to uphold that.”
McCalister finished off the scoring when he hit Hudson Sanders on a 13-yard scoring pass to make the final score of 42-0.
While it was a loss West Ranch (1-5, 1-1) would like to move on from, head coach Sean O’Brien was still proud of his team.
“You never want to make this excuse but we’re unbelievably under strength,” he said. “We were coming with 18 injuries, so just about half strength. But we just continued to battle. It was just next man up. So I’m really just proud of the way guys fought. Guys were in positions they don’t normally play. They kept fighting and I think we gave Valencia a game for the strength we were at.”
Valencia will look to keep its Foothill League momentum going next week at Saugus while West Ranch will try to get back on track when it takes on Hart.
