Wilcox zooms past Mountain View to open league play with 45-14 win

SANTA CLARA — Mountain View opened Friday’s game against Wilcox exactly how head coach Tim Lugo wanted.

The Spartans used a trick play to get the ball into the hands of receiver Lex Silver for a 74-yard touchdown.

Not only did the score put Mountain View on the board first, but Lugo also felt it gave his team a needed confidence boost to start what he expected to be a dogfight.

The Spartans’ edge didn’t last long. Wilcox answered with a score of its own less than a minute later and ended up being the aggressors the rest of the night, resulting in a 45-14 beatdown of Mountain View to open league play.

“We played good defense after… they scored,” Wilcox coach Paul Rosa said. “We settled down and got the ball back quickly after that.”

Senior quarterback Tyson Bonilla carved up Mountain View’s defense throughout the first half and start of the third quarter. His ability to change his speed and direction without warning gave the Spartans trouble.

“He’s faster than we thought he was on film, right? It’s hard to tell” on film, Lugo said. “He was a little more shifty and lucid than we gave him credit from on film.”

Wilcox’s offensive line provided an opening for Bonilla to zoom through the middle before he turned on the jets for a 60-yard touchdown run to tie the game at seven points apiece early in the first quarter.

“That’s why they call him the fastest kid in school,” one onlooker said.

Bonilla would make his way into the endzone three more times in the first half and saw the Chargers to a 35-7 lead at the midway point. He finished the night with 209 yards on 10 carries.

Bonilla, who’s playing the quarterback position for the first time of his career this season, believes his experience as a defensive back helps him better anticipate how the defense might react to certain plays. He also credited his father for helping him become the multi-sport athlete he is. Growing up, Bonilla said his dad regularly would coach him through lateral drills and plyometrics in his backyard.

“He just built me exactly for this,” said Bonilla, who runs track and plays basketball.

Jamontay Jamien Amataga also ran in a one-yard touchdown and backup quarterback Adrian Garcia scored with a 35-yard rush in the third quarter to put the Chargers up 45-7.

Meanwhile, Mountain View’s offense struggled to get anything going against a tough Wilcox defense.

“We’re disappointed, right? We thought we’d have a chance to come in and compete tonight,” Lugo said.

Wilcox (3-2) believes it’s heading in the right direction as league play continues next Friday against Menlo-Atherton.

“It feels great because every game before this, we weren’t really on our A-game. [We had] a lot of offensive mistakes in the previous games,” Bonilla said. “I feel like this game right here, especially going into the league with a big win like this, will give us momentum for Menlo-Atherton game.”

Mountain View (3-2) is scheduled to host Burlingame next Friday.