The Rancho Cucamonga High School varsity football team is starting out the season strong with a 2-0 record, defeating both Murrieta Valley and Servite. Rancho defeated Murrieta Valley 29-27 in the first game of the season on Friday, August 18, 2023. In the second game of the season, Rancho defeated Servite 34-31.
In the first game against Murrieta Valley, Rancho scored on four straight drives to end the game. It was a comeback after coming back ontot the field down 3-7 at halftime.
Despite Rancho’s 9-3 record last season, for many of the players and for varsity football coach Mr. Brian Hildebrand, it feels like the team has unfinished business going into the year after losing to Inglewood 7-13 to end last year’s promising season.
Rancho started off the season by playing one of the hardest games on their schedule. Murrieta Valley finished the year 6-5 before losing in the Division 2 Playoffs against Bishop Amat High School, another team Rancho will face later this season. Murrieta Valled have returning talent including one of the highest ranked quarterbacks in his class in Bear Bachmeier.
Rancho outpassed Murrieta Valley 289-218 yards and outran them 206-169 yards. A huge part for Rancho’s 206 rushing yards was senior running back Trey Wilson, who ran for 123 yards on 17 carries, giving him a 7.2 average per run. Wilson also scored three touchdowns. He was pretty ecstatic about his week zero performance.
“It feels good,” Wilson said. “First game back, just feels good to have a good game.”
Wilson was also impressed with how the team stayed together even when they faced obstacles around the way.
“We stayed together as a team,” Wilson said. “We stayed focused. We didn’t turn against each other. We played hard. Just stayed focused, and everyone is just together as a family.”
While Wilson played a big factor in the win, he wasn’t the only one who contributed and came up big for Rancho. Hildebrand was also proud of the team’s victory.
“Really looking at how guys stepped up, I thought we had a couple guys go out, like freshman Raymond Jacobs, who played pretty well when we really needed him,” Hildebrand said. “You know Dakota Mendoza, who had two interceptions on defense that were really at key moments in the game to help change momentum in our favor.”
For the second game of the season, Rancho traveled to Norwalk, California and defeated the Servite Friars. Servite, who plays in one of the toughest division in California, also lost to Rancho last year 28-7, who could only score in the final minutes of the game.
“Servite week, we just want to make sure we’re playing our best football and improve on things that we struggled on the first week,” said Hildebrand. “Want to start faster, and then do a great job converting in the red zone on offense, and do a better job tackling on defense.”
Rancho will play its first home game of the season this week against Norco High School on Thursday, August 31 at 7 p.m.
