Football Season Ends in an Emotional Loss

Nov. 14, 2025, marks the end of the 2025-2026 football season for MBHS. After falling to the undefeated one-seed, the Liberty High School Hawks, in the second round of the Division Five playoffs, some of the seniors reflected on the season. “Knowing this was my last game made it sad. I was sad to see it go, but I’m happy to be able to move on,” said senior center Isaac Schooley. Tony Campanario, a senior wide receiver and safety, felt similar: “Yeah, very sad. Football has always been a way to keep myself busy, so I’m at a point of trying to figure out where to go from here,” said Campanario. “It was one of the worst feelings I’ve had in a while, knowing that it was my last time playing with this team and having this coaching staff made me really emotional,” said senior Radden Batalla, an offensive and defensive lineman. 

The game was close for the first two quarters until the rain started to pour down on the field. “The field before the rain even started felt like a sponge. Every time we took a step, we sank a few inches. When the rain started, there were giant mud patches everywhere because the field was bare, there was barely any grass,” said Batalla. Not only did the rain surprise the teams and make it hard to snap, catch, and throw the ball, but Pirates quarterback, Sands Dougherty, fractured his wrist on his throwing arm in the first quarter. Dougherty decided to keep playing despite the unknown seriousness of his injury, but his passes weren’t as strong as normal because after Dougherty’s injury, the Pirates didn’t score points anymore till the fourth quarter, and by then, Liberty had already run away with a 19-point lead. 

On the bright side of things, Campanario balled out for his last high school game. Six minutes into the first quarter Pirates’ offense ran a trick play, leaving the ball to junior, John Holguin, who threw a 40-yard pass to Campanario for a touchdown. Just a few minutes later, Dougherty then threw a 30-yard pass to Campanario, who ran for 20 yards and achieved another touchdown for his stats.

Campanario has been playing football for seven years, and he has grown and learned a lot from it. “Over the years, football has taught me to be confident, and it helped my mental durability with life,” said Campanario. Campanario is a standout performer, leading the Pirates with 105 receiving yards per game, the most total touchdowns of the season with 16, three fumble recoveries, and two interceptions, making him the top performer in most offensive statistics. Currently, Campanario is ranked number 18 in the state of California for receiving yards. He has made a significant leap since last year through his discipline, often watching hours of film on his own. 

Batalla is also heavily dedicated to football. After playing for 10 years, he’s sad to see football go.

While the defensive side of stats has not come in yet for the Pirates against the Hawks, Batalla led the team this year with a total of 8.5 sacks. He also had strong games this season against Cabrillo with 13 tackles and two sacks; he also had a similar game against Nipomo with 13 tackles and one sack. Batalla had a star play against Wasco at the beginning of the season, blocking a field goal.

Junior inside linebacker Merrick Smith had multiple standout games despite only being cleared to play five games of the season due to injury. “I loved playing Nipomo despite the loss. I had 20 tackles that game,” Smith said. Smith led the team in tackles per game with 9.8 this year, thanks to the performance he put up against Nipomo. 

“I liked playing Lindsey. We had a 20% win rate going into the game, but we came out and blew the doors open for a 28-point win,” shared Schooley, “Football means so much to me; it’s coming together as a family, working together, and learning how to handle your emotions. It really taught me to be disciplined.” After suffering from multiple knee injuries, Schooley had a hard journey to be where he is now. “Without the team, I wouldn’t be here, you know, shoutout to Colton and Cole for being my guards and always helping me on plays,” said Schooley. “Personally, I liked playing Delano. Playing someone on their home field for the first round of playoffs and just absolutely blowing them out is a great feeling,” said Campanario. Campanario also had a standout game against Delano, which boosts his favoritism towards the game against Delano. Campanario had 134 yards, three touchdowns while only traveling an average of 15 yards per catch. 

This season was one of learning through brotherhood, with the Pirates ending on a 4-8 win-loss record. The team relied on one another and bonded with trust as each game passed. “I leaned a lot on Eli Robles. Eli had the most energy on the sideline at all times, and he’s just one of my closest friends, so seeing him get me pumped up really makes a difference,” Smith said. “I leaned a lot on Luca,” shared both Campanario and Schooley. “Luca is a quiet guy, hard on himself, but a good leader. He kept us motivated and made sure we had our heads up,” said Schooley. “I think he was one of, if not the most vocal, captains we had this year,” Campanario said. “Sands was someone I leaned on a lot. Sands cares for everyone, and my role was to protect him from getting sacked, so we bonded over that fact,” said Batalla, “and honestly, I leaned on my mom a lot. I know she’s not a part of the team, and she’s not on the field with me, but she was always there for me after. She really helped me get through the season when I was at my lowest and wanted to quit. She helped me with the perspective that football is a family and it’s not something I have to deal with independently,” Batalla said. 

“The Maui trip at the beginning of the year really tied us all together, made us become a team. We were shown a big family culture out there in Hawaii; we barbequed together, swam together, and we had people facing fears. Maui brought us together as one,” said Batalla on how the team chemistry came to be. 

The team stepped up and showed signs of growth since week one in the unfortunate 27-41 loss to the Hawks. “Our team grew every week; we had exponential growth in chemistry after the Hawai’i trip,” said Campanario on how the team had grown as a whole this season. “In the beginning, we were really separated; we didn’t work together, and it was hard to try and fill the roles of the last seniors. But in the end, we learned how to come together as one. Of course, we had some mistakes here and there; everyone does, but in the final moments, we were able to win as a team and lose as a team,” said Batalla.  

For one last time, Schooley, Campanario, and Batalla were able to reflect on what they should’ve changed this season to help better the team. “I think truly, if we had more fun instead of being extremely serious all the time, we could’ve had better chemistry from the get-go. Of course, we all want to win, that’s the goal, but if we just relaxed a little and really sat back and enjoyed playing football for the last time with each other, we could’ve been stronger,” said Batalla. “If I were a more vocal leader, I could’ve helped more instead of getting mad at the mistakes others were making. We could’ve had more explosive and beneficial practices if I had become more vocal as a captain,” said Schooley. “It really comes down to our mistakes, if we made fewer of them, not just during the last game, but in all our games and put a full game together, I think we could’ve gone farther,” Campanario said.

The 27-41 loss marks the end of an era for the seniors of the football team, but it creates more opportunities for juniors and lowerclassmen for the years to come. While some of the seniors are going to move on from football, some are planning to try and continue playing at the collegiate level. Good luck to the seniors moving on, and great job to the team overall this season.