Friday Night Lights returned to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Friday, September 18. The second meeting for high school football teams featured a triple-bill evening, starting with Santa Clara’s Wilcox Chargers facing off against San Jose’s Pioneer Mustangs. Other games featured Scotts Valley Falcons defeating Watsonville 7-0 and the Valley Christian Warriors narrowly defeating the Milpitas Trojans 22-21.
The Chargers entered the game with a record of 2-0 compared to the Mustangs’ 0-2. The Mustangs lost their previous two outings; being shutout with a margin of no less than 48 points (Valley Christian won with a score of 54-0 and Salinas High won with a score of 48-0).
Coming off of a rout last year at Levi’s Stadium against cross-town rival Santa Clara, the expectations were high for the Chargers in their match up. They were more than up to the task and easily defeated the Mustangs. The Chargers simply outplayed the Mustangs at nearly every turn with impressive defense and an offense that was too much for the Mustangs.
The Chargers scored early and never stopped. After Pioneer’s first series ended with a blocked punt, Wilcox moved the ball back to the Mustang’s 32-yard line. From there, Chargers’ running back Manu Turituri, on the Chargers’ first offensive play, ran into the end zone, giving the Chargers an early 6-0 lead. Turituri scored again with a 65-yard run increasing Wilcox’s lead to 14-0. The score went to 22-0 after Turituri ran 59 yards. By the end of the first half, Turituri had 178 yards, with three touchdowns on nine carries. Chargers quarterback, Eduardo Andrade, showed his skills by leading the offense in the rout and contributing his own 31-yard TD run to increase Wilcox’s lead to 38.
Mustangs’ quarterback, Louis Coulombe, showed considerable skill at staying out of trouble, but was unable to find an open receiver and was forced to scramble.
The end of each quarter told the story of the game – the Chargers were leading 14-0 at the end of the first quarter; 24-0 at halftime; 31-6 at the end of the third quarter and finally 52-6 at the end of the game.
The Chargers will host the San Benito Balers on September 25 with JV starting at 5pm and Varsity following at 7:30pm.