Mountain View gets big-time payback over Nampa in Class 5A first-round playoff win

Tenth-ranked Mavericks avenge stunning loss from two weeks earlier in 44-0 rout over No. 7 Bulldogs

NAMPA, Idaho - Mountain View High School probably chanted the name of 20 of its own players.

The post-game tradition of shouting the name of every player who made an impact, took around 10 minutes to complete. It was much longer than the last time the Mavericks faced the Bulldogs.

They blanked No. 7 Nampa, 44-0, in the opening round of the Class 5A playoffs Friday night inside the Bulldog Bowl. The one-sided affair avenged a stunning loss to Nampa earlier in the season.

Tenth-ranked Mountain View (6-4) will travel to Highland (6-3) in a quarterfinal matchup next week.

"All week, our focus was we’ve got to redeem ourselves," Mountain View senior quarterback Dawson Wahl said. "We know that we didn’t play our best game the last time we went up against them. And it was really important for us to go prove that we are a playoff team, and we’re contenders."

Wahl combined for 256 yards of offense and three touchdowns, while senior wideout Collin Rogers made nine grabs for 130 yards and a score for the Mavericks, who were admittedly at one of their lowest points just two weeks earlier.

Mountain View had never lost to the Bulldogs (7-3) and had outscored them 237-25 in the previous four meetings coming into the Oct. 14 encounter on senior night. But the Mavericks committed four turnovers and allowed Nampa to gash them for 297 yards on the ground in a shocking 23-14 defeat.

"Bad," said Mountain View coach Brian Compton when asked what the feeling was walking off its own field that night. "That was as bad as it’s been around here for a long time.

"We had to really do some soul-searching."

The loss was kind of the culmination of a season that has been marred with injuries. Mountain View has lost five highly touted skilled position players on offense, including Grayson Flatten, who was an all-conference wide receiver last season. The Mavericks are also down to their third-string running back. 

But they sure didn’t look that way Friday night.

That third-string running back, Dallin Van Gieso, scored the first two touchdowns of the games on runs of 10 and 1 yards. And Rogers, a little known player coming into the year, hauled in a 20-yard touchdown catch from Wahl to make it 21-0 with still 2:40 remaining in the first quarter.

"I got a couple of close buddies who can’t finish the season," Rogers said. "So it’s really nice to be able to go out there and play for them and get stuff done for them."

Wahl, who was basically out the entire offseason with a broken rib, and a knee injury caused him to miss a game last month, had one of his best performances of the season. He scored the next two touchdowns on runs of 17 and 21 yards. Wahl finished 16-of-20 for 199 yards, and ran for 57 yards with those two scores before being pulled in the third quarter.

"I had a rough offseason. I wasn’t really able to do much," Wahl said. "And, obviously, through the regular season, I haven’t performed, really. I just kind of let it all go. It’s a different season now."

A 1-yard run by Juvenis Carrasco and a Troy Grizzle sack for safety late in the third quarter capped the scoring for the night.

The defense forced a pair of turnovers and posted its first shutout of the season. It bottled up Nampa to just 173 yards of offense, including 145 on the ground.

The classification's leading rusher, Daniel Carrillo (1,774 yards, 23 TDs) was held to more than 68 yards below his season average. He ran for 116 yards, but most of it came on a 50-yard run in the first half and then with the backups in late in the fourth quarter. It was also the first time all year he had been kept out of the endzone.

"They (the defense) were outstanding," Compton said. "We had a great plan. They’ve been stout against the run all year."

Van Gieso, Bryce Mundy and Kelton Richmond combined for 210 yards on the ground for Mountain View, which racked up 461 yards of total offense in the win.

Nampa was without starting quarterback Gabe Navarro, who broke his collarbone on the first play from scrimmage in last week’s 24-14 win over Centennial. Backup quarterback Payton Gunter didn’t get many repetitions in practice this week because he was just cleared from a separated shoulder. So the Bulldogs used three different players at quarterback throughout the game.