High School Football Scene & Heard: Mission Bay plays big despite small roster

Mission Bay High School’s football team opened the season last month on the road at Kearny. Dressed in its game pants, lugging helmets and shoulder pads, the players walked to the front of the gym, awaiting the bus.

The players looked around and started counting bodies. The final number: 19.

“Honestly,” said senior linebacker/running back Jevyn Higman, in his fourth season on the varsity, “I just thought that’s something I’d never seen before.”

The 19 Buccaneers would later be joined at Kearny by about half a dozen JV players, but the point was obvious. By sheer numbers, they would not intimidate anyone walking off that bus.

“Honestly,” said safety/running back Shane Brushie, “I was just hoping our whole team would stay safe.”

Football teams, of course, cannot escape injury. And on Friday afternoon, two hours before homecoming kickoff against Coronado, Brushie sat in the Bucs’ team room, his left arm in a sling after suffering a shoulder injury last week against University City.

But despite losing one of their best players, the Buccaneers remain one of the season’s feel-good stories. The Little Engine That Could is off to a 5-0 start after Friday’s 49-14 win over Coronado.

Arms race

Mission Bay came into Friday averaging 37 points per game. The Bucs are riding the right arm of senior Arnold, who transferred from Coronado before his junior season.

In the first quarter Friday, facing third-and-half-a-mile, Arnold hit Kai Barrios in stride down the right sideline for a 69-yard TD.

It was a reminder of what Mission Bay coach Greg Tate said about an Arnold TD last week: “He couldn’t have walked up and given him a better ball.”

Sign her up

The national anthem was sung by Mission Bay senior Isabella Alcocer. Just a beautiful rendition.

But is it a No. 2?

Sign inside the Buccaneers’ team room: “If aliens can find Earth, you can find a pencil.”

Food review

Dined on a $7 slice of pepperoni pizza from local eatery Sauced Pizzeria. Slice was about the size of a manhole cover. Too many pieces of pepperoni to count. Hot, crispy crust. Five belches on the U-T five-belch scale.

Giving back

Tate, 33, volunteers for Boys to Men Mentoring, which targets at-risk teenagers. Tate graduated from San Diego High in 2009 and was a starting linebacker as a senior. He said his mother essentially raised Tate and his three siblings by herself.

Asked why he’s moved to mentor teens, he said: “Just to be able to give back to the youth.”

Quotable

Mission Bay athletic director Jorge Palacios on Tate: “He’s a high-character man with his priorities in the right place. He’s not a yeller or screamer. He’s a calming presence with the guys. He understands that you learn on the football field just like you do in the classroom.”

By the numbers

697 — Points Mission Bay’s Dillon Baxter scored in his career at Mission Bay (2006-09), the second most in section history. The record is 724 by Imperial’s Royce Freeman (2010-13). Baxter was the section’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2009.

2,974 — Yards Baxter rushed for in 2009, second most in a single season in section history. Monte Vista’s Alex Villanueva broke Baxter’s record last season with 3,227.

6,527 — Career NFL rushing yards by Arian Foster, arguably the most accomplished Mission Bay football player of all time.