Sports
FOOTBALL: Milpitas Wins Third Straight
Trojans first four quarter effort of the season is a gem. Three scores on the ground help lead team past Newark Memorial Friday night in Newark.
Trojans’ fans have been waiting all season to get to see a full four quarters of Milpitas High football.
On Friday, their wish finally came true as the Trojans triumphed over Newark Memorial-Newark 31-12 on the road and completed an entire game of football for the first time this season.
After their first game of the season ended in the fourth quarter due to a fight and bad weather interrupted their next game in the second quarter, it looked as if Milpitas would never get to finish a game.
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But in their third game of the young season, the Trojans finally got to show off how dominating their team can be during four quarters of play fueled by it’s suffocating defense and punishing running game.
Three of the Trojans touchdowns came on the ground and their defense had another stellar game with two interceptions and forced Newark to turn the ball over on downs on multiple occassions.
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“I was very pleased with the win tonight,” said Milpitas Coach Kelly King. “I thought we came out and played hard. And I think we improved on a lot of things we were trying to improve on which was nice.”
The Cougars got on the board first with an early touchdown in the first quarter, but the Trojans responded a few minutes later with a five-yard run by senior running back Sammy Fanua.
Senior kicker and quarterback Tony Sauceda added a 29-yard field goal to put the Trojans up 10-6 later in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Coach King used a mixture of his running backs Squally Canada, CJ Reyes, Brandon Sualua, and Fanua to move the ball down the field and keep the pressure on the Cougars defense.
The Trojans hard work by the running unit paid off with two one-yard touchdown's by Canada and Sualua to put Milpitas up 24-6 heading into halftime.
Milpitas started off the second half with a 33-yard touchdown pass from Sauceda to senior wide receiver Jordan Lockett to give the Trojans a commanding 31-6 lead.
With his team up by a large margin in the second half, it gave Coach King a chance to put in some players who hadn’t seen much playing time this season.
One of the bench players he was impressed with the most was sophomore quarterback Ronnie Reed. King said he wanted to give Reed a few reps during the game because he had earned it.
“Ronnie worked his tail off all summer,” King said. “He’s been working hard in practice and I wanted to get him into a game during a positive situation where he could do some positive things. He’s a great talent.”
Newark tacked on a late touchdown in the third quarter to bring the score to 31-12, but Milpitas shut down the home team the rest of the way to earn its third victory of the season.
Milpitas has a bye next week and will return to play on September 30 against Mountain View on the road as they look to extend their winning streak to four games.
On Wednesday, Milpitas learned that Alvarez had decided to forfeit its postponed game against the Trojans. Earlier in the week it was decided that the game would be resumed on Monday, meaning Alvarez would have had to play three games in eight days.
“They were put in a really tough spot,” Coach King said. “I do feel bad for them. Their coach and athletic director had to make a tough decision. Three games in eight days is too much to ask from a team and we respect their decision.”
