Emotional win marks end of football season

Both teams put up a valiant effort, but the San Jose City College Jaguars came out on top 19-7 for their final game of the season against the West Valley Vikings on Saturday, Nov. 16.

“It’s a bittersweet ending,” Connor said. “We won the game, but now I lose some kids that are pretty good kids and we just have to transition to the next team.”

The game was emotional for many Jags sophomores who are transferring to different schools next year.

“We stuck together,” said Carlton Connor, head coach of the Jaguars. “At any point during the night, we could’ve turned on each other; we could’ve given up, but we stuck with the basics of what we do.”

Connor said it is going to be an intensive off-season for the team to mature and get better, with weight training, conditioning and recruiting being some of the main priorities.

The game got off to a slow start and did not look good for the Jaguars when the Vikings recovered a fumbled punt for a touchdown, but the Jags made sure it was their last touchdown of the night.

“Our offense was doing really well moving the ball,” Jags cornerback Jerardo Caro said. “Our defense was doing really well stopping them on third down.”

Both sides relied heavily on handing off the ball, with freshman quarterback Caleb Pruneda and freshman running back Gabriel Davis steadily moving the Jags down the field for three touchdowns.

Vikings quarterback Ryan Jones made several strong attempts to run the ball or hand it off to running back Dre Hill, but the Jags’ defense prevented them from getting very far and intercepted the ball several times.

The game was the last of the season for the Jags, but may have been the last one, period, for the Vikings. Vikings players Drew Rios and Maze Galeai said a rumor that West Valley is cutting football is all over campus.

“Our school has to reduce the budget by $1.5 million or something like that,” said Jim Winkler, head coach of the Vikings, “and getting rid of football is one of those proposed cuts.”

Winkler said the district believes cutting football would save $175,000 since it is one of the more expensive sports, but he did not think the actual figure would be quite so high.

“We’re going to fight it,” Winkler said. “It’s at the chancellor’s office right now and then we’ll have the chance to fight it when it goes to our board of trustees, of course we don’t know when that’s going to be.”