Mountain View comes out strong, stays unbeaten

In a tale of two halves, Mesa Mountain View held on to win 45-20 against visiting Westwood to continue its unbeaten season Friday in a 5A-I East Valley Region game.

 SLIDESHOW: Friday night high school football

The Toros started off strong, scoring on every possession in the first half except a 56-yard field-goal attempt with the clock reading zeros at the end of the second quarter.

At first, the offense was unstoppable for Mountain View (8-0, 2-0). Senior quarterback Blake Decker completed 7 of 10 passes for 140 yards and three touchdowns before resting in the second half. Twice he connected with wideouts for 40-yard touchdown plays.

Tailback Jacom Brimhall took a dive through the middle and then found the edge on his way to a 64-yard touchdown run midway through the first quarter. As Brimhall approached the red zone, he received a brutal downfield block from a Toros receiver to clear the final stretch.

Westwood showed up to play as well. On the Warriors’ second drive, quarterback Marshall Davis deceived the defense with a play-action quarterback keeper and ran the ball 74 yards to the Toros 11-yard line. That set up an 8-yard pass to Michael Romero, his favorite target of the night, with whom he connected four times.

That was all the Warriors (1-8, 0-3) could sneak by the Toros’ defense in the first half. Constant pressure from the Mountain View front line kept Davis scrambling every time he dropped back to pass. The Toros’ secondary played physically, especially in the first half. Jacob Adams picked off one of Davis’ passes when the Warriors were approaching the red zone.

Defensive back Daniel Diaz nearly knocked several Westwood receivers out of their spikes with big hits to break up passes.

After outgaining their opponent 257 to 149 in the first half, the Toros struggled in the third and fourth quarters.

“We gave up too many big plays,” said Mountain View coach Tom Joseph after the game. “We had a much better first half.”

The Toros had only three possessions in the second half due to some long, run-committed drives from the Warriors.

As a team in the final two quarters, Westwood put up 170 rushing yards on 30 attempts. They converted 10 first downs and outscored the Toros 13-7.

Westwood running back Jake Tyra exchanged blows with Toro linebackers on his way to a 29-carry, 133-yard rushing day.

Westwood scored on the final play of the game despite botching a reverse-run. The scoring attack launched by Mountain View in its first six drives was too much to overcome, and the Toros maintained their unbeaten season.