Turnovers Help Warriors Blow Out Mustangs

A natural rivalry got off to a great start last year when Metea Valley lost to  by a single point last fall without a single senior on its roster.

When the two  schools took to the field Friday night with identical 3-1 records, the stage was set for another great contest in front of large crowd at Metea Valley.

But an amazing three touchdowns in the final minute of the first half helped the Warriors (4-1, 2-1) turn a 10-0 lead late into a 31-0 halftime lead. The Mustangs, who were playing without injured quarterback Jarrett House, didn’t fare much better in the second half as came away with a surprisingly easy 51-0 triumph.

Warriors running back Austin Guido, who rushed for 100 yards and two touchdowns, said his team prepared well for this new rivalry game. But even so, he was amazed by his team’s three scores in just 36 seconds late in the half.

“Last year we only beat them by a point, so they definitely thought they could beat us,” he said of the Mustangs. “We knew we had to step it up in practice and it was one of our best weeks of practice.”

Even so, it was just 7-0 after one quarter and then 10-0 late in the half following a Tyler Mellecker 20-yard field goal. But the lead grew to 17-0 on Guido’s 1-yard dive with 58.4 seconds left.

Metea had called two timeouts on that Warriors’ scoring drive, hoping to regain the ball, but back-to-back fumbled snaps by quarterback Peyton Mitchell helped the Warriors blow the game open in a matter of seconds. First linebacker Hugh Griffin returned a fumble 3 yards for a touchdown, then the next turnover led to an 8-yard pass from Dylan Warden to Dimitrius Gray in the corner of the end zone.

“When you’re down there and it’s the first half, you’ve got to go for the kill and try and put them out of their misery,”  coach Paul Murphy said. “Twenty-four nothing is nice, but 31 is better.”

Things could not have gone any worse for the Mustangs, whose 3-0 start has now been followed by back-to-back, one-sided losses. Four lost fumbles and an interception all led to Warrior scores Friday, and a blocked punt also set up a score by the visitors.

“We were hoping we wouldn’t take such a big step backward,” said Monken, whose team now faces another tough rival test next week against . “But to sit here and blame Peyton Mitchell would be wrong. He wasn’t the only one who made mistakes.”