Already two touchdowns behind in the first quarter Thursday evening at home, the Palo Alto High School Vikings (0-2) were desperate to put points on the board against the Burlingame High School Panthers (1-1). Working well under pressure at the start of the second, junior quarterback Justin Fung sprinted towards the sidelines as he lobbed a ball across the field to his junior running back, Nathan Rodriguez, who tiptoed across the out-of-bounds line against a defensive player but first managed to capture the ball.
Rodriguez said the catch surprised him as much as the crowd.
“I didn’t even notice I caught it until it was right there in my hands,” Rodriguez said. “I know it looked so crazy and I’m honestly so lucky that I didn’t get hurt.”
The moment was a high point for the Vikings, but this surge of momentum proved short-lived, with the Vikings ultimately falling to their opponents, 35-14.
According to Viking head coach David DeGeronimo, the Vikings need to go back to the basics to perform better in future games.
“We [Vikings] have to learn football,” DeGeronimo said. “We’re a very young team and we have a lot of juniors playing varsity for the first time. The other thing we need to do is we need to get back to fundamentals. I know that sounds cliché, but we just didn’t tackle well tonight. We made too many mistakes.”
In the first quarter, the Panthers were quick to establish dominance, scoring two touchdowns with strong safety Hayden Haba and extra points by kicker Dylan Rosen, resulting in a 14-0 Panthers lead at the end of the first quarter. However, a long drive by the Vikings allowed them to score their first touchdown — a 26-yard pass from quarterback Justin Fung to wide receiver Clement Romanski — at the start of the second quarter.
With the score tied late in the first half, Burlingame wide receiver and cornerback Will Armstrong pulled in a short touchdown to swing momentum back to the Panthers.
“I felt good because it was a tie game going into half and getting the lead before the third quarter was pretty big,” Armstrong said.
The score at halftime was 21-14, Panthers.
According to Haba, his two touchdowns were only possible because of the hard work he had put in before the game.
“We’re [Panthers] just excited,” Haba said. “We’re rolling and moving fast. We’ve been working all year for this, so it’s good to see it come through. Both teams are 0-1, but one team’s going to walk out 1-1 — it’s going to be us.”
The Panthers started strong again after halftime with another touchdown by Haba. In the fourth quarter, Fung threw an interception and later fumbled, relinquishing possession again. Burlingame’s momentum continued later in the fourth quarter with another touchdown by running back Harrison Evars, resulting in a 35-14 Panthers victory.
According to Burlingame defensive coordinator Jason Selli, the only way for the team to perform at its best was to avoid errors.
“We need to keep eliminating our mistakes,” Selli said. “Our defensive side needs to button it up a little bit in the passing game and kind of take care of some other crossing routes.”
According to Rodriguez, the Vikings need to keep practicing their run game so they can eventually win.
“I’m going to just keep working, the team’s gonna keep working and we’re gonna get better,” Rodriguez said. “We need a win. There’s some problems that we need to fix, especially being able to run harder. Overall, we have really good players, great athletes, and as long as we put it all together, we could be a really good team.”
The Vikings are set to play Christopher High School Cougars (1-1) on Friday in Gilroy.
