Photo credits to Bob Dahlberg
On Saturday afternoon, the football team lost 28-13 to the Menlo Knights, making that M-A’s first loss at the hands of the Knights since 2014.
Senior safety James Gray said, “We have to better prepare, we have to take practice more seriously. We are lazy in practice, our execution has got to change so we can be a better team on Fridays and Saturdays.”
Menlo started the game off with an onside kick recovery before a sack by junior linebacker Devin Hyde forced an early three and out.
After the Bears were stuffed on an early fourth and short, Menlo converted a long touchdown pass to make the score 7-0 with 4:20 left in the first quarter.
On M-A’s next drive, senior tight end Owen Van Loben Sels hauled in two major catches to put the Bears into scoring range before a questionable intentional grounding call derailed the drive.
After two more Menlo touchdowns, the Bears found themselves in a deep 21-0 hole with a minute go in the first half. Yet the Bears did not get discouraged and junior quarterback Xander Eschleman found Gray for a twenty yard touchdown to put M-A on the board and make it a 21-6 game at halftime.
In the second half, the Bears came out firing. Van Loben Sels ripped off big gains on three consecutive plays and Eschleman took advantage of a broken play to scamper 45 yards into the endzone, bringing M-A back into the game at 21-13 early in the third quarter.
Van Loben Sels said of his big plays, “We started changing up our formation after we saw that it was not going too well in the beginning, and we started getting a lot of success over the middle with the dig route.”
The Knights were able to convert on an additional deep pass to make the score 28-13 with 7:38 left in the third, finishing off the scoring for the game.
While M-A attempted to mount a comeback, a mixture of backbreaking penalties and unforced errors kept them off the scoreboard.
The Bears look to right the ship against the Palo Alto Vikings next Friday night at home.
