The varsity football team lost 49-12 to Encinal at a home game Friday night, and they now have three losses and one win so far this season.

The Encinal Jets scored 14 points in the second quarter before wide receiver Jared Anderson (10) left the game after dislocating his elbow and did not return to the game. Harker’s kickers Kailee Gifford (12) and Mitchell Granados (10) were not present during the game.

Harker did not score in the first half of the game and prevented Encinal from scoring in the first quarter.

“We could have done better because usually in the second quarter, we seem to be turning it on, but we haven’t been practicing the way we should be, and injuries of course have been taking a toll,” Saketh Gurram (12) said after the game.

Spectator Jonathan Schwartz (12) feels that the team has improved since their last game.

“The game’s looking more defensively solid this time around. We also have more players back from injury, but I think overall the team seems to be improving a lot so I say keep it up,” he said.

In the third quarter, wide receiver Anthony Contreras (11) scored a touchdown for Harker, and Will Park (12) scored another touchdown after that, bringing the score to 12-35.

“It was not the way we expected it to go, I’ll say that for sure,” captain Will Park said. “I think we just need to focus on coming out to practice a little harder every day. It was just unfortunate because a lot of the players went down because of cramps,and  injuries, even though we put the JV and varsity teams together. I think we fought hard but just that drive, that passion just wasn’t there yet. To be able to come out next week, this is the past now.

The team watches film of themselves playing after games to analyze how to improve for the next game.

“We have to focus on the present so next week we’ll come a lot harder, tomorrow we’ll watch film, and just improve from the mistakes we made this game and move on,” Will Park said.

After the game, Will Park commented on how he feels about the rest of the season.

“It’s just exciting because we’re playing all these really good teams right now, like Encinal, they’re a tough team,” he said. “Tough loss, but we got our last league games at the end of our season, the last three games, so nothing to really worry about. We just need to keep doing what we’re doing, come out and practice and have that focus and drive.”

Maile Chung (12), spirit club member, came out to watch the game and put up the Flight Zone banner.

“This game is kind of frustrating because there are some balls we should have caught, some people we should have tackled, but there’s not a whole lot I can do,” she said. “I think the thing they can do is kind of take it a little slower because I think our quarterback might be throwing balls a little fast instead of taking a little more time.”

The team will play an away game at Santa Cruz High School next Friday at 7:30 pm.