Elle Krikelis is a journalism student at ASU's Cronkite School of Journalism and is assigned to cover Mountain View High School for AZPreps365.com

MESA — With five touchdowns, two sacks, and a pick six, the Mountain View Toros girls’ flag football team came home with a blowout 39-0 win Wednesday night against rivals Mesa Jackrabbits. 

Mountain View has had a great season so far with an overall record of 5-2 before their game against Mesa, and though this sixth win of the season had it’s difficulties, it gave the Toros the opportunity to focus on perfecting their craft on both sides of the field. 

“I’m honestly very proud of my team and proud that we come out here and do what we do best,” junior quarterback Tiera Metcalf said after the win.

The Toros dominated the field both offensively and defensively, especially in the first half with Metcalf and running back Emma Fishbeck working together to score the first two touchdowns of the game.

Fischbeck also had some great plays on the defensive end in the first half, including an interception during the first quarter that eventually led to her second touchdown of the game. 

Junior rusher Eve Denton also had a huge second quarter defensively, causing two back-to-back sacks early in the quarter and forcing a turnover, which quickly led to the Toros’ third touchdown of the game by Metcalf. 

Denton continued to dominate defensively for the Toros with a huge pick six with about 15 seconds left in the second quarter and brought the Toros’ score up to 27-0 heading into the second half.

“She really helped us out,” senior Morgen Messer said about Denton’s performance Wednesday night.

The Toros kept up the energy and hard work throughout the entire second half, even with such a big lead. 

There were some setbacks offensively during the second half, including a few sacks by the Mesa defense, but the Toro’s kept up their determination and eventually scored two more passing touchdowns to Fischbeck to finish out a solid game with a final score of 39-0.

“I think we were able to experiment with this game,” Messer said. “Once we got up by a lot, we were able to run some different plays on defense and work on executing on offense to help us prepare for these games to come.”

After a tough loss against Hamilton last week, this game and Tuesday night’s win against Highley have put the Toros back in the win column. 

“We looked slow in that loss last week, so we’re just making sure that everything goes down and back to the fundamentals,” head coach Rene Elizondo said after the game. “Making sure that we’re a fast team, we’re a physical team and we’re just executing overall.”

And the Toros did just that. Offensively, Mountain View ran the same four plays the entire game in hopes of perfecting timing, working their quarterback, and understanding how the defense would react, Elizondo said. 

Execution, repetition, and a few extra standout plays are what kept Mountain View in the lead this game, and the positive energy from the stands and the players made this game a light-hearted win.

“I love being with my team,” Metcalf said. “Just always laughing, smiling with them and then going out here and doing what we love is also fun.”

Mountain View hopes to improve their two-game winning streak on Monday against Dobson, the first of their last four games of the regular season.