Mission Bay High School rebounded from its first loss of the season last week at the hands of Montgomery High School with a 48-30 home victory over Holtville on Sept. 23. After both teams went scoreless in the first quarter, the Bucs kicked it into gear outscoring the visitors 21-6 in the second quarter.
“I feel like our defense played great, I would like to see more physicality at the point of attack but they executed our game plan,” said head coach Greg Tate. “Our offense looks to have gotten back on track after having an off week last week, we had guys like Ricky Esquer step up.”
Esquer made his first start this season at running back filling in for HaTan Nguyen and finished with 129 yards with two touchdowns. The team also got another impressive performance from quarterback Ethan Silber who finished with four passing touchdowns and one rushing along with going 16 for 24 for 184 yards with another 71 yards on the ground on eight carries.
“After last week’s slow start and tough loss we wanted to start strong against Holtville,” said Silber. “Their first drive used up the entire first quarter. Our first drive at the start of the second quarter stalled, so to settle down we focused on making the easy plays that gave us the momentum we needed to score on every drive after that.”
Mission Bay finished the third quarter with a 34-14 lead, which allowed several backups to get valuable playing time and close out the game. “Our running game really got going this week and we had a good balance between pass and run,” Silber added.
Among other noteworthy positions was the receiving core of Jacob Sloan, David Maier, and Gavin Marzion who finished with eight receptions for 98 yards, four receptions for 44 yards plus a touchdown, and two receptions for 26 yards and a touchdown, respectively.
“Our offensive line stepped up big this week as well,” Tate added. “Special teams were solid and we had some big returns. This week we have a big challenge with University City. It’s the start of league play, they have a team full of athletes and we have our work cut out for us.”
The Bucs now sit with a 5-1 record and will travel on Sept. 30 to face University City, which has a 3-2 record after a 49-46 win over Bishop’s.
