Highland rushes for nearly 500 yards, overwhelms Valley

Highland executed its ground-and-pound offensive attack with maximum efficiency.

The Hornets ran at will against Valley, spoiling the Vikings’ homecoming with a 48-20 victory in a District 1-5A matchup at Milne Stadium on Friday. Highland (4-2, 2-1) reached its season high for points by the second quarter as it raced to a 42-7 halftime advantage in what was a surprisingly lopsided outcome.

“We focused on us,” said Highland coach Philip Lovato. “We’ve been making a lot of mistakes the past few weeks. It had nothing to do with the opponent; it had everything to do with us. We cleaned up a lot of mistakes.”

Working almost exclusively from the full house backfield, the Hornets gradually wore down Valley (1-5, 1-2) with its physical running game. That was most evident during a 36-point second quarter.

Senior running back Jose Tapia was at the center of the onslaught, as he rushed for 283 yards and three touchdowns in the first half alone. Tapia finished with 362 yards on 30 carries with four touchdowns for the game, and the Hornets as a team racked up 496 rushing yards total.

“Today was like a redemption game for us,” Tapia said. “We felt like we’d been in a funk for a while, and we knew we had to get it going today.”

While the Hornets sometimes chipped away with short gains, they also ripped off a number of big plays. Tapia scored on runs of 48 and 78 yards, and Carnell Platt opened the scoring with a 39-yard jaunt on an inside trap with 3:17 remaining in the first quarter.

About the only hiccup, so to speak, occurred when Tapia vomited on the field late in the second quarter, which prompted an official’s timeout to clean up the mess. Considering his massive workload — Tapia was also playing defense — he probably deserves a pass for sullying the Milne turf.

“I ate a little too much at lunch,” Tapia quipped. “It just all came up after those big runs.”

According to Lovato, Tapia’s breakout game was something that had been building for quite some time.

“He trusted the process,” Lovato said. “We just told him, ‘Stay on your path, and trust me, it’s going to be there.’ And it was.”

Valley enjoyed a brief flicker of momentum at the end of the third quarter, when quarterback Jonah Marez threw a 55-yard touchdown pass to Joshua Sanchez, and then the Vikings returned a fumble 45 yards for a score on Highland’s next play to cut the deficit to 42-20. However, Tapia put the finishing touches on the victory with a 10-yard scoring run to provide the final margin with 6:20 to play.

“Honestly, give all the praise to my line,” Tapia said. “They’re blocking their butt off. They’re just doing what they’ve got to do and working as hard as they can.”