Mountain View knocks off Hamilton to advance to 6A championship game
November 2, 2023 by Ben Stapley, AZPreps365
Mountain View continued its upset tour of the 6A flag football playoffs, and now it gets a shot at a state championship on its home turf.
The Ninth seeded Toros took down No. 4 Hamilton Wednesday night, 20-16 in a thrilling seminal contest at Jerry Loper field.
Mountain View (12-3) now advances to the 6A title game Saturday evening, where it will not only be the high seed, but playing on its home field.
Mountain View was the designated championship game location when the season got underway.
The Toros will square off with Mountain Ridge, the No. 11 seed on its own Cinderella post-season tour. The Mountain Lions shut out No. 2 Red Mountain 7-0 in the other semifinal.
The Toros beat top seeded Highland last week, 24-20.
“We just keep telling ourselves ‘let’s win one more game why not?’” Toro senior Sadie Gardner said afterward.
“We know we’re playing good teams but we know we’re capable. And we’ve known for a while about the championship game being at Mountain View, but we just tried to block it out and focus on the first game, and hopefully we’d get there.”
Gardner is a big reason Mountain View got ‘there’. She caught two of Tiera Metcalf’s three touchdown passes, including the game winner with 1:45 left to play. Gardner hauled in three scoring receptions in last week's upset of Highland, and never missed a beat against Hamilton.
Metcalf overcame three interceptions to lead the Toros on the game winning drive.
“She’s done it all year,” Mountain View Coach Jesus Arzaga said of his quarterback.
“For her being a freshman and having that kind of composure, it just shows you how great of an athlete she’s going to be.”
Sadie Gardner comes through again. This time Tierah Metcalf finds here from 10 yards for this go ahead touchdown with 1:50 left in the game. Mt. View 20 Hamilton 16 pic.twitter.com/86SW9qklsm
— Ben Stapley (@AZpreps365Ben) November 2, 2023
The win negated a stellar performance from Hamilton’s Samaya Taylor-Jenkins. The sophomore caught touchdowns of 35 and 24 yards from CC Maccagnano and intercepted two passes.
On the Toros first possession of the game, Metcalf found Gardner open in the corner of the endzone from 22 yards for an early 7-0 lead.
Hamilton countered right back with Maccagnano’s first scoring pass to Taylor-Jenkins.
Mountain View broke a 7-7 late in the third quarter when Metcalf found Sara Pobieglo on a short touchdown pass.
Taylor-Jenkins' second scoring reception gave Hamilton a 16-14 edge before Metcalf led the Toros on the game winning drive.
Ginny Wilson came up with timely sacks and defensive plays for the Toros in the second half.
“Mountain View’s athleticism is awesome,” Hamilton coach Matt Stone said afterward.
“I’ve know coach Arzaga for a while and I knew what they were capable of. Mountain View is going to represent themselves very well in the championship game.”