SAN JOSE -- Valley Christian High, from its hilltop perch on the Skyway Campus, looks down on the valley and -- until Friday night -- all its loyal subjects.
Heading into the showdown with Milpitas, the host Warriors had outscored two opponents by a combined 96-14 and were ranked No. 1 in both the Prep2Prep CCS poll and the San Jose Mercury rankings.
But every once in a while there's a coup and the underlings rise up -- which is just what happened on a picturesque night at Warrior Field as Milpitas upset mighty Valley Christian 31-17.
"Honestly, I'm going to be real with you -- I think we've been under-ranked this whole season," Milpitas linebacker and running back Christian Rodriguez said. "We just came out here and showed everybody we are the No. 1 team. That's what I think and obviously my brothers did too."
Rodriguez played his first three years at Andrew Hill High, but transferred to Milpitas because a personal situation caused his family to move. So the 5-foot-10, 235-pound standout enrolled at Milpitas and has joined quite a group of players at the public school.
"I'm blessed to play at Milpitas -- thank God my parents moved me out here," Rodriguez said. "This team is amazing -- I've never played with such a great group of guys. It was the best thing that ever happened to me."
Valley Christian had swatted away Milpitas like an annoying gnat the past two seasons and came into the game favored to win. The weather was perfect, the crowd was large and the Warrior band and cheerleaders were in mid-season form. Sadly for the Warrior faithful, V.C. was not.
A fumble on the Warriors' second play from scrimmage was recovered on the Warrior 6-yard line, leading to Royce Kim's 1-yard touchdown just 2:14 into the game. Then Christian Rita's daring pick-up of a bouncing punt at the 1-yard line led to his dash 99 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown. Milpitas led 14-0 late in the first quarter and Warrior fans were shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
Valley Christian rallied to tie 14-14 with 10:40 left in the first half, but then John Keller's fade pattern to a leaping Dion Leonard in the corner of the end zone put Milpitas ahead 20-14 at the half.
"It was no surprise tonight," Warriors' coach Mike Machado said. "You can't turn the ball over five times. The game at halftime according to our stats was 106 to 53 us, and they're up 20-14." You can't do that against a good team."
No you can't. Neither can you yield the big plays, and Rita came up with a another doozy 1:29 into the third quarter, catching a perfectly thrown pass from Keller down the right side and beating Texas-bound Warrior running back/defensive back Kirk Johnson to the end zone for 28-14 following a two-point conversion.
"I'm not really sure if that was the plan, but I just had my route to run and John just threw me an amazing ball and I just figured I had to catch it," Rita said. "I just had to beat Kirk to the end zone. He's really fast and I just told myself I had to get there for my team."
Valley Christian tried, but there was no rebounding from that haymaker. The Trojans' impressive defense -- it held Kirk Johnson to 66 yards rushing -- and efficient offense kept the Warriors at a safe distance.
The game ended to loud cheering from a sizable Milpitas rooting section and some Trojan hugs and whoops of joy.
Milpitas got huge contributions from such two-way standouts as Rodriguez, Uate Mataele (6-4, 345) and Tevita Musika (6-2, 340). Musika recovered two Warrior fumbles.
Mataele was happy afterward, but tempered his enthusiasm.
"It feels great, but we still have another season ahead of us and we'll probably see these guys again in the playoffs," he said.
Milpitas coach Kelly King, known for vanilla pre-game comments and keeping his team grounded, was not heralding this victory as the greatest thing since Super Bowl III. He knows the Trojans have much work ahead of them.
"It's a win -- that's about it," he said. "We're going to work next week. It's nice to have, but we live in the moment and so we're going to focus on our next game."
Exiting the field beaming was big Milpitas tight end Jason Scrempos, who caught the 2-point conversion after Rita's long TD catch and helped buoy the Trojan defense. It was a big week for Scrempos, who committed to play at the University of Washington on Wednesday.
The Trojan upset promises to elevate No. 6 Milpitas a few spots in the rankings, if not push them to the top.
Said Scrempos: "They were at the top, but now we're on the top and we have a lot of targets on us so we have to keep working hard."
Uneasy is the head that wears the crown -- as Valley will no doubt attest.
John Murphy is the Web Content Editor for prep2prep.com. He may be reached at jmurphy@prep2prep.com.
