South City ends PAL’s worst skid

After jumping out to a 20-6 lead, the Warriors had to withstand a late Jefferson rally to preserve the victory and improve to 1-2 on the season. South City will have a bye this week before opening Lake Division play in two weeks when it hosts Fremont-Sunnyvale.

After snapping a 26-game slide, South City is now replaced by Mills as the Peninsula Athletic League team with the longest losing streak. The Vikings, after a loss to Alameda, have lost 12 in a row. They are 0-2 this season and went 0-8 in 2021. The skid started with a Week 10 loss to Capuchino in 2019, a season that saw the Vikings win the Lake Division title and qualify for the Central Coast Section playoff.

The Vikings did not field a team for the pandemic spring season of 2021.

Despite the 34-23 loss to Alameda, the Vikings are showing signs of turning things around. The 23 points scored were the most since a 34-33 loss to Yerba Buena in Week 3 of the 2021 season. Mills scored only 8 points the rest of the way.

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There was a time, when I was much younger, I would spend Saturdays immersed in college football. But as the years have gone by, I drifted away from the game. Having spent Friday nights neck deep in high school football and knowing I would be knee deep in NFL games Sunday, Saturday became family day.

This past Saturday, however, I got sucked into college ball and next thing you know, it was dinner time. It started with Texas giving Alabama all it wanted and the Crimson Tide needed the officials’ help to prevent a loss. Somehow, the officiating crew turned a Texas sack for a safety into a punt for Alabama.

Sure, the Longhorns had plenty of other opportunities to win — they missed a chip-shot field goal at the end of the first half and after stuffing Alabama for most of the game, could not get the stop when they needed it at the end. Alabama ended up kicking the game-winning field goal in the waning seconds to pull out the 20-19 victory. But the ruling on the safety certainly factored into the final score.

From there, I went to South Bend, Indiana to watch lightly-regarded Marshall take down super power Notre Dame. After that, it was time to head back to Texas to catch the final minutes of Appalachian State, who shook up the college football world back in 2007 with an upset of Michigan.

App State took on the role of giant killer once again as the Mountaineers knocked off No. 6 Texas A&M. Then there was a brutal Nebraska loss to Georgia Southern, 45-42, that cost head coach Scott Frost his job. In the Saturday nightcap, San Jose State went on the road and put a scare into Auburn, before Sparty succumbed, 24-16.

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There were a trio of Menlo-Atherton grads who were on display on college fields around the country Saturday.

Jordan Mims, a 2017 graduate, rushed for 122 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries in Fresno State’s 35-32 loss to Oregon State.

Mekhi Blackmon, also a 2017 M-A graduate, started his career at College of San Mateo, before moving on to Colorado and then transferring to University of Southern California for his senior year. Blackmon had a nifty interception in the Trojans’ 41-28 win over Stanford. With the Cardinal looking to score, a Tanner McKee pass into the end zone was batted up in the air by Blackmon, who corralled it and looked like he was heading 102 yards the other way. An ankle tackle was all that stood between Blackmon and the house. He also finished with six tackles.

And then in Oregon’s 70-14 win over Eastern Washington, 2020 M-A grad Troy Franklin caught 10 passes for 84 yards and a score.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. To report scores or tips, email sports@smdailyjournal.com.