By Vincent Perez
The look on Shabazz Muhmmad’s face told it all. The Highland High senior wide receiver was calm and collected post game.
Muhammad excelled on both sides of the ball for the Highland High Scots (1-0) against the Arvin High Bears (0-1) in a nonconference match up, which the Scots won 21-6, to open the season.
Muhammad scored three touchdowns on approximately 230 yards. He also intercepted the Arvin Bears’ quarterback Wesley Graves once playing cornerback. Muhammad was locked in, one game in.
“It feels amazing you know, we came together. My offensive line came up for me,” said Muhammad.
He was adamant on giving credit to his Scot teammates.
“We’re a family. I don’t want to take any credit because it takes eleven players to make those players come together,” said Muhammad.
With one win in the column for the Scots, the goal for Highland is to move past the quarterfinals.
“I hope to have a lot of success, through the playoffs,” said Muhammad.
Muhammad exemplifies in his role, by leading by example. “I like to lead and bring them all together,” he said.
Arvin struggled on offense. The Bears could not score until the fourth quarter with eight minutes remaining.
Highland quarterback/wide receiver Nick Salas played in the quarterback role for most of the game sharing duties with junior AJ Cleveland. Salas threw 4-for-6, with three touchdowns, an interception and rushed for 116 yards. The Bears could not stop Salas and Muhammad, arguably their best weapons on the field.
Salas said, “It gives us a lot of confidence going into the next game.”
He said on the numerous penalties, “Don’t let it distract us, we have to work on conditioning.”
A league championship is the goal for every team in the South East Yosemite League said Salas.
“Go out in every game and perform how we know we can [will get us there],” he said.
Highland coach Mike Gutierrez, who led the Scots to a Division III quarterfinals appearance last season, was pleased with his players.
“We played hard and we asked them to play hard,” he said.
Yet, Gutierrez wants to fix mistakes on the field. He said the seven penalties were too costly.
“We want to continue to get our tempo better and get our tempo better; Just play clean football.”
Gutierrez always respects Arvin, despite the 21-6 win.
“We knew Arvin was going to be a tough team,” he said.
“We gave them a lot of opportunities and we got very lucky that Arvin wasn’t able to punch some of those in.”
The Arvin Bears next face Foothill Aug. 30 and the Highland meets Shafter the same day.
