There’s no denying that the Mesa Mountain View football program, once the premier team in the state, has changed over the years.

The roster size is down as the talent has dispersed around the East Valley, the perennial top five state contender predictions are history, and undefeated regular seasons have gone by the wayside.

With that said there are plenty of ties to the past for Mountain View.

The Toros continue to play with discipline and a toughness that comes with sliding the familiar white, blue and red jerseys over the shoulder pads.

It’s just what the Toros do on Friday nights. Year in year out. Quarter to quarter.

And on Friday night yard to yard. As in two yards.

The Toros beat Mesa 21-19 when a 2-point conversion ended in a massive collision at the 1-yard line to give Mountain View its 29th straight win in the series, dating back to 1994.

Another thing, Mountain View does once a year is beat Mesa – even if the Jackrabbits score in the final seconds as it happened do Friday night when the two programs met in 6A non-region action.

“We just focused on the next play. That play (the touchdown) didn’t matter at that point,” junior linebacker Emmett Hawks said. “We made the play we had to. Mountain View is always underestimated. We’re the small kids, but we’re physical. It doesn’t matter; we just play hard.”

The Jackrabbits scored with 28 seconds left when Kingston Anetema hauled in 22-yard pass from his brother Kane “Boogie” Anetema in a show of resiliency. Two plays earlier, the Jackrabbits had a touchdown pass negated by a holding call.

After a Mountain View timeout, Mesa had a chance to send into overtime if it converted the 2-point conversion. Boogie did a sprint out to his right, had three options, but turned up field and met Preston Patterson at the pylon.

Patterson levied a hit that stopped Anetema cold. Dropped straight at the point of attack. No chance to stretch the ball or juke out to the side.

Just splattered.

“We practiced that and they came out just like we thought they would,” Patterson said. “We did a good job flying down and everything was covered on the backside in the secondary. We came down and blew it up.”

Mountain View (3-2) recovered the onside, ran one play before kneeling down for the victory.

“We won it when it mattered,” Mountain View coach Andy Litten said. “People picked us to win two games this year with our schedule. We have momentum now.”

The Toros were mostly in control the whole game with leads of 6-0, 14-7, 14-13, 21-13 and 21-19.

At one point, Mountain View had 30 offensive plays and Mesa (2-3) had seven, but the Jackrabbits led 7-6 because of missed extra point attempt by the Toros.

The offense had a chance to put it away in the second half but a couple of drives that started on the Mesa half of the field netted no points because of interception in the end zone and a failed fourth down attempt.

“A lot of people doubted us in this,” said junior wide receiver Te’o Weeks. “We had some frustrations (on offense), but we are super well coached. We don’t let those minor inconveniences get in our way. We bounce back.”

The Toros had toughness oozing out of players like running back Coy Bodily, quarterback Brayden Merwin, Weeks and linemen like Nicho Alozie, a 5-foot-9, 200-pound tackle and they found away on offense to score enough points.

On the defensive side, Hawks had a crucial sack, Kash Skousen had a second half pick, Pace Fishbeck had a pick in the first half, there was a fumble recovery in the second half and, of course, there was the big hit by Patterson to wrap it up.

The defense had to refocus quickly for the 2-point conversion after Mesa scored with less than 30 seconds left.

Defend those two yards or gear up for overtime.

“We’re battled tested,” said Patterson, who was ejected for foul language but didn’t direct it at anyone or said anything derogatory toward Mesa players. “We played three really good teams, so we trained to be put in positions like this. We were ready. Obviously, it is going to get in your head. You can’t lie and say it didn’t affect you at all.  But I was proud of the guys because we recuperated, ready to scrap and move forward.”

The Jackrabbits defense was on the field for more than 70 plays played well but couldn’t get off the field in the first half, and yet kept the team in it in the second half.

The offense showed off its big play ability with Izzy Valenzuela going 85-yards on 3rd-19 from the 5-yard line to set up the first score, while Kingston caught the first score of the game and Lance Briggs had a 43-yard touchdown catch out of the end zone.

There are signs Mesa can be a really good team, but not quite good enough to end the streak this year.

“We have a really football team,” first-year coach Ryan Felker said. “We just have to put it together.”

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