For the first time in school history, the Valencia football program will enter Foothill play without a win following their 48-14 loss to Rancho Cucamonga Friday night.

In the first half, Valencia’s Brady Bretthauer and Brian Bonner rushed for the Vikings’ lone touchdown and the defense was able to contain an explosive Cougars offense.  

Brian Bonner pounds it in from 1 yard out to tie the game 14 a piece. Ian Town | KHTS

Brady Bretthauer to the house for a Vikings touchdown!
Valencia 7, Rancho Cucamonga 14 with 6:18 in the second quarter. pic.twitter.com/mzH6i8jxu8

— KHTS Sports (@KHTSSports) September 14, 2024

Come the second half, things began to fall apart defensively, with the team giving up 27 points and two 60-plus-yard rushing touchdowns. The Viking’s offense wasn’t exempt from the second-half rut, as it was unable to find the back of the endzone for the rest of the game.  

Head Coach Larry Muir acknowledges the team’s recent pattern of second-half struggles but believes that if they focus on fundamentals like tackling and blocking, they’ll be in a better position.

“It’s something I think that we as a group have to see where we’re at in the second half because second halves have been a bit of a struggle for us in terms of missing assignments and making mistakes and things that we weren’t doing in the first half,” said Muir. 

Another area that Muir addressed was the lack of unity and synchronization within different position groups on the team.

“In certain areas, we take steps and then in others, we kind of fall back, so you see growth here, but then it falls back,” said Muir. “We’ve got to keep all of us together as one unit, taking steps together. I think that’s one of the problems is we’re not taking steps together and there’s always pieces that as one group pushes forward, the other group takes a step back.”

While Valencia has struggled the past four weeks, they have an opportunity to learn from their losses and prepare for the Foothill League.

“We can learn from it all we want but we’ve got to grow from it and do something with it. That’s the challenge for us,” said Muir. 

After falling to the 23rd-ranked Rancho Cucamonga, the Vikings are now turning their attention to the next challenge: Saugus.

Valencia and Saugus are set to meet on Sept. 20 at College of the Canyon’s Cougar Stadium, with the opening kick-off set for 7 p.m.

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