Saturday night lights at St. Vincent

St. Vincent concludes its regular season with only the second home night game ever.|

Win or lose in their final regular season game of the season, St. Vincent will come close to making St. Vincent football history Saturday when it hosts Harker from San Jose.

The game will be played Saturday night with kick off at 7 p.m. It will mark just the second time a game has been played at night on Yarbrough Field on the St. Vincent campus.

On Sept. 21, 2012 St. Vincent defeated Stellar Prep, 51-7, in a game that started at 5 p.m. According to St. Vincent statistician Gary Von Raesfeld, portable lights were turned on about halftime and took full effect in the third quarter.

In what might be a good omen for the Mustangs, St. Vincent went on to reach the North Coast Section finals that season.

“We wanted to do something special for our football team,” said St. Vincent Athletic Director Dom Romero. “We wanted to give them the experience of playing a night game at home.”

Romero noted that, although the lights have to be turned off by 10 p.m., the game should be over well before then. “The lights wonh’t bother people too late into the night,” he said.

“Our players are very excited about the opportunity to play a night game on their home field,” said St. Vincent coach Trent Herzog, “It is also a breast-cancer survivor game, so the players will be wearing pink. It is going to be an exciting night.”

The lights are being rented from Cal West Rentals, and will be set up by volunteers. Getting them in place will not be an easy job. “We have a small area and some tricky angles that will create some challenges,” said Romero. “We’ll just have to figure it out.”

Herzog said that if all goes well, Saturday’s game at Yarbrough Field won’t be the last night game.

“I’d like to see us play a night game once a year,” he said.

To make the evening a success, the Mustangs will have to win the football game, something that might not be such an easy task.

Harker’s Eagles, like the Mustangs, an independent team, bring a 6-2 record to the St. Vincent lights. They have won their last three games by scores of 50-0 over Lowell of San Francisco, 56-0 over Elsie Allen and 62-18 over Oakland Military Institute.?As their game scores indicate, the Eagles are an offensive juggernaut, rushing for 1,556 yards, an average of 195 per game. Three players have run for better than 350 yards, led by junior Devin Keller, who has gained 466, and is averaging better than six yards per carry.

But the Eagles are not a one-dimensional team. Quarterback Anthony Meissner has completed 72 of 118 passes for 1,319 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Harker’s best player may well be Ayush Vyas, a 6-foot, 2-inch 280-pound senior lineman who is being looked at by D1 colleges.

St. Vincent goes into the game a little beat up with several players suffering from a variety of injuries. However, the Mustangs will be bolstered by the return of quarterback Trent Free who missed the last Mustang game, a 20-14 win over California School for the Deaf on Oct. 4.

Last week, St. Vincent accepted a forfeit win over Madison Park Academy of Oakland after that school canceled its football program.

In Free’s absence, sophomore Shamus Edens quarterback the win over CSD, and Herzog indicated both will see playing time behind center Saturday.

“Trent will be our starting quarterback,” the coach said, “but Edens will also play.”

Regardless of the outcome Saturday, St. Vincent, now at 6-3, has qualified for the North Coast Section playoffs.

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.