Following a two-game skid and facing elimination from CCS (Central Coast Section) playoff contention, the Palo Alto Viking football team’s (6-3, 4-1) Senior Night could have proved a disaster. However the Vikings answered the call of desperation with one of their finest games of the season, manhandling the Mountain View Spartans, 56-0, in front of hundreds of family members who were fortunate enough to make it out to the team’s last home game of the regular season.
The Vikings’ noticeable intensity brought them to a quick lead and they never seemed to look back. It took the Vikings a mere 1 minute, 59 seconds to score their first touchdown of the game.
“We definitely came to play today. We knew what was at stake,” senior cornerback Paul Brown said. “The first half was probably our best half of the season.”
After senior running back Sam Tompkins-Jenkins busted out a 20-yard run on the second play of the game, senior quarterback Will Brandin hooked up with senior tight end Steven Gargiulo over the middle for a 37-yard gain. The ball then went back to Tompkins-Jenkins for a 9-yard touchdown run, in which Tompkins-Jenkins walked into the end zone untouched.
“He [Tomkins-Jenkins] ran the hardest he has all year,” junior linebacker Jared Beeson said. “If he keeps running like that, we will do big things in the rest of the season.”
After forcing a three-and-out on the Spartans’ first possession and punting away one of their own, the Vikings flashed some defensive prowess. Senior defensive end Andy Maliska flushed the Spartan quarterback out of the pocket to where he had to make an off-balanced throw. The ball landed right in senior strong safety Will Holder’s hands. With an open field ahead of him and some of the fastest legs on the team, Holder ran it in for a 50-yard touchdown, giving the Vikings a 14-0 lead.
After halting the Spartans’ offense, the Vikings went back to the same offensive scheme. A 15-yard pass to Gargiulo set up an electrifying 41-yard run from Tompkins-Jenkins, who woke up the crowd as he annihilated a Spartan defender. Senior running back Kacey Fields did the rest, punching it in from 10 yards out. Junior place holder Scott Witte improvised after a bad snap on the extra point. After the ball bounced around on the snap, he picked it up and flipped to the kicker, Holder, who evaded a couple Spartan defenders and passed to Beeson in the end zone for the two-point conversion.
Junior guard Marco Scola found himself in the right place at the right time and helped the team score its fourth touchdown on one of the more improbable plays of his career. After Brandin threw another long pass to Garguilo and Tompkins-Jenkins ran the ball to inside the ten, the Vikings gave the ball to Fields again. Fields fumbled at the two, but the ball seemed to bounce right into the hands of a waiting Scola. After taking one half-step into the end zone, Scola made the score 29-0.
With a Viking possession looking like a guaranteed score, all the Vikings needed to do was get the ball in their hands. Brown did that for the Vikings, intercepting the Spartan quarterback on their next possession. Brown had two of the Vikings’ four interceptions of the night.
Starting from their own ten-yard line, the Vikings needed to travel 90 yards if they wanted another score. It took them four plays. Two long runs by Tompkins-Jenkins and a 51-yard pass to Holder set up a 15 yard touchdown pass from Brandin to Holder, setting the score at an insurmountable, 36-0.
“Our defense had a high intensity and our offense dominated the line of scrimmage,” Maliska said. “We played a complete game.”
The Vikings threw on another touchdown late in the first half. Brandin threw to junior wide receiver Joc Pederson for 39 yards to set up a 32-yard touchdown pass to Holder.
Tompkin-Jenkins did just about all the work on the next drive, running seven times for 51 yards to the 1-yard line. Fields then ran in for his second score of the night and made it 49-0.
Senior cornerback Harry Woolson, playing with a broken thumb, intercepted the Spartans’ quarterback a few drives later. With sophomore quarterback T.J. Braff leading the offense, the Vikings drove 50 yards to another score. Fields, once again, was there to put it in.
“I think we all just wanted to bring our best today,” Tompkins-Jenkins said. “We had a lot of frustration over the last two games.”
The Vikings will now play at Los Gatos (7-2, 4-1) for their final game of the season. As it stands, the Vikings are third place in league behind Los Gatos and Milpitas (8-1, 5-1).
The team’s fate, as far as the playoffs go, is not known. They certainly will not be playing in the open division but, depending on outcome of the Los Gatos game, may make the CCS Medium School Division playoffs. They do not necessarily need to win Friday to be in the playoffs, but they do not want to leave it up to chance.
“If we struggled today we were going to have trouble against Los Gatos,” head coach Earl Hansen said. “We sustained things pretty well though, so we should be ready.”