Loading ...The sound of the crowd became deafening. All the hard work. All the sweat. It all came down to one play.
From less than one yard out, senior quarterback Nick Goodspeed handed the ball off to junior fullback Sione Mataele, who gloriously scrambled into the end zone for the Vikings’ winning touchdown.
Regulation play ended in the semifinal match against the Palma Chieftains (10-2) with a 14-14 tie, pushing the game into overtime. By the new California Tiebreak rule, each team is given four downs from the opponent’s 10-yard line to score, similar to college overtime. If one team is not ahead after a round of this play, then another round is started. Both the Vikings and the Chieftains scored three touchdowns and three extra-points consecutively.
In the fourth round of overtime, the Vikings stifled the Chieftain offense on the five yard line, forcing a Chieftain field goal. The Viking offense took the field and three plays later, Mataele dragged the pile across the goal line and into the end zone securing the win, 41-38.
Matele rushed for 120 yards on 20 carries, scoring a total of five touchdowns.
"I don’t know how Sione did it," said Goodspeed after the game. "He just stepped it up."
The Vikings (11-1) were pumped up coming into the game, fueled by last week’s late
The Palma Chieftains, the Tri-County league champions, came into the game with extra momentum after demolishing seven-seeded Archbishop Mitty 34-6 in their quarterfinal game. The Chieftains’ only loss this season was to the number one team in the state, De La Salle.
Last year, Palma made it to the Open Division title game only to lose 35-14 to Valley Christian. Palma is a private, all-boys Catholic school and a football powerhouse. It has won three CCS titles in the past six years.
Both teams came in riding eight-game winning streaks and both teams outscore their opponents by over 23 points a game.
"We know it will be tough," head coach Earl Hansen said before the game. "They have speed and they have power. We just can’t make mistakes."
In the first quarter, the Viking offense marched into Palma territory, but after eight plays including a 30-yard run from senior running back Will Frazier, Paly turned the ball over on downs.
After a Chieftain punt, the Vikings drove back down to the field with four first downs before turning the ball over on downs yet again. As the teams tried to establish themselves, the play went back and forth and ended scoreless in the first quarter.