After almost becoming an ex-Spartan over the summer, Arturo Hernandez emerged as the X-factor in Mountain View High’s season-opening football game Thursday night (Aug. 25).
The junior running back came off the bench in the second half to score a pair of touchdowns in the Spartans’ 35-20 win at The King’s Academy.
“We thought we were going to lose him this year,” Mountain View coach Tim Lugo said. “When the summer started, his mom was going to move them out to the Central Valley. Then when we came back for conditioning in August, he walked into the weight room and said they weren’t moving. It was huge for us.”
Hernandez played a bigger role than expected Thursday, inserted early in the third quarter to help replace injured starter Dillon Daniels (concussion protocol) in the backfield. On his first carry, Hernandez slipped several tackles en route to a 45-yard touchdown.
“I felt hands on me, but I just went through them and got to the end zone,” he said.
Viliami Sekona tacked on the extra point, pushing Mountain View’s lead to 21-0 with 7:39 left in the third.
King’s countered with a touchdown on the last play of the quarter, but Hernandez soon negated it. On the sixth play of the fourth, he barreled into the end zone on a 13-yard run up the middle. He finished with a game-high 90 yards on seven carries.
“It was just a time where one of my brothers went down and I just had to step up for him,” Hernandez said of Daniels, who scored the Spartans’ first touchdown on a 9-yard run early in the second quarter and gained 66 yards before getting injured.
Sophomore teammate Diego Ortega-Gerow matched Daniels’ rushing yards, and quarterback Kevin Conway gained 44 yards on the ground. Conway also hurt the host Knights with his arm. The junior completed 16 of his 25 passes for 172 yards, tossing two TDs in the process.
“He did a great job tonight,” Lugo said of Conway. “His first game, trying to manage all the different things we do, and he was really composed.”
Conway connected with open receiver Lex Silver on a 48-yard touchdown throw on the last play of the first half, putting Mountain View up 14-0 after Sekona’s extra point. Silver led the Spartans in receiving with six catches for 73 yards and on defense recovered a fumble in the third quarter that led to Hernandez’s first TD.
Late in the fourth quarter, Conway threw a 28-yard scoring strike to receiver Drake Wilkening, who slipped running his route over the middle but got up just in time to snare the pass.
“That was a pretty important touchdown,” Lugo said of a score that extended Mountain View’s advantage to 35-14 after Sekona’s PAT. “We had probably started subbing out a little bit too early.”
King’s answered two plays later on Reid Black’s 72-yard TD pass to receiver Tylek Barnett. The senior went over 200 yards receiving in the game.
The Knights would have surely gone to Barnett again, but they never got the ball back. The Spartans recovered their onside kick with 2:44 to play and ran out the clock.
Mountain View is scheduled to host Mitty 7 p.m. Friday in another non-league game.
