Unbeaten Wolf Pack ready for city battle

By Ramon Scott
Updated: October 18, 2021

2021 EAST COUNTY PREP FOOTBALL

WEST HILLS 41, MONTE VISTA 6

EastCountySports.com staff report

MONTE VISTA – The West Hills Wolf Pack continues to howl ahead of their city championship showdown with the Santana Sultans on Friday night.

And maybe they’re finally starting to be heard.

The Wolf Pack are the second-highest ranked East County team by local media pollsters, coming in at No. 16 this week following their 41-6 Grossmont Valley League win over winless Monte Vista last Friday in Spring Valley.

The Wolf Pack head into this week’s game with an undefeated record (8-0, 4-0 GVL) and a school-record 10-game winning streak dating back to the spring. A spring that included a 20-7 season-ending victory over a limping Sultan club.

Braden Oberg passed for 183 yards and two long touchdowns.

One was an 85-yard connection with Jake Partington on a 2nd-and-long with just over three minutes left in the first quarter to make it 13-0 and the other was a 55-yard hookup with Dylan Snyder with just over five minutes left in the first half to extend the lead to 20-0.

The Pack’s KO sent Monte Vista (0-4 GVL), technically the defending-back-to-back league champions, to its eighth-consecutive defeat – and, ironically – its 10th-straight loss dating back to the spring.

It was only recently that the Monarchs were handing the Wolf Pack sizable shutouts in some of the biggest league games in 2018 and ’19 on the way to consecutive Grossmont Valley League championships. Monte Vista had outscored West Hills, 117-6, over the last three seasons.

“We didn’t play our best but we did get a better result than those last few years,” West Hills head coach Casey Ash said. “I am very happy to get over that hump and be able to defeat the Monarchs.

Nathaniel Greene scored a touchdown on a 20-yard run on the Wolf Pack’s opening series. He also closed out the scoring with a 42-yard run in the fourth quarter.

Back Collin Dill rushed for two touchdowns, including a 16-yard score with just a little over six minutes left in the third quarter to make it a 27-0 advantage. The score followed a 51-yard reception by Max Conaway.

Dill’s second score came in the fourth on a 1-yard run midway through the period.

Jacob Benevente had an interception on the Monarchs’ first series of the game and Michael Forzano had an interception on the Monarchs’ last series of the game.

“Our defense had a little trouble getting off the field,” Ash said. “It’s tough to stop the Monarchs four times in a row. They aren’t scoring as many touchdowns as they have in recent years but they were able to string together more first downs than we have been giving up lately.”

West Hills, which led 27-0 at the end of three quarters, is allowing just over eight points per game this season.

Monte Vista scored early in the fourth quarter to pull to within 27-6.

“The Monarchs did make a little bit of an adjustment on the defensive front that gave us some trouble,” Ash said. “But eventually, we improved and our offense adjusted.”

While last spring’s game didn’t factor in a league championship (one wasn’t awarded by the Grossmont Conference), it did count for the Santee Mayor’s Trophy, which changed hands for the second straight season.