Vista del Lago learned a big lesson during Friday’s 27-6 season-opening loss to Oak Ridge: don’t react to adversity by pointing the finger.

Vista coach Chris Jones nipped that negative reaction in the bud immediately following the game, telling the team that’s not how good teams react.

“Pointing the finger leads to other negative things and that’s not what being a team and teamwork is about,” Jones said. “I think that type of thing happens when teams are still searching as to how they’re going to be so maybe that’s a positive side of it.”

Vista didn’t handle adversity well on Saturday and it led to a loss to the Trojans. Making matters worse, Logan Smith, the team’s go-to receiver on offense, suffered a severely sprained ankle in the second quarter and didn’t return to the game. With Smith gone, not just on offense but also as a cornerback on defense, it noticeably took some of the wind out of the team’s sail.

“Losing Logan was definitely tough,” quarterback Anthony Mull said. “He’s one of our main threats on offense and we had to change what we were trying to do and that made it difficult. But we need to be able to expect the same thing out of our number twos as we do the starters.”

Mull, along with Ross Fiegener, addressed the team after the game.

“I just told the team that we have to learn how to fight through adversity,” Mull said. “When we make a mistake, we have to shake it off and make the next play. I just wanted to give the guys something positive heading into next week.”

Jones was pleased to see two of his leaders step up and talk after the tough loss.

“I thought that was big deal for them to do that and for the team,” Jones said. “They’re both team captains and that was good to see that.”

Vista played fairly well in the first half, as it only trailed 13-6 at halftime, but Oak Ridge scored two touchdowns in the second half and held the Eagles off the scoreboard.

Trey Hairabedian scored Vista’s only points on a one-yard run early in the second quarter.

The Eagles are hard back at work this week, as they prepare for Antelope on Friday. Mull feels the team will rebound well after the loss to Oak Ridge.

“I think we’ll bounce back just fine,” Mull said. “We have a core of good leaders and we’ll be ready to go and have a great week of practice.”

Jones said the team has to put the loss to Oak Ridge behind them, something they weren’t able to do last year when they didn’t win a game the rest of the season after losing to the Trojans late in the season.

“The nice thing about the mistakes we made is that they’re fixable,” Jones said. “Last year when we lost to Oak Ridge it sort of hung over us for awhile. Hopefully with nine games left this year, that won’t happen again and we’ll get things fixed.”

JV Eagles fall, 6-2

The Eagles had the ball inside the Oak Ridge 40-yard line five times, but came away with nothing.

The team’s only points came on a safety that Oak Ridge purposely gave them late in the game.

Vista coach Zac Kinter was disappointed with the loss, but happy with his team’s performance.

“We won the time of possession; we won the yardage, we didn’t allow them to cross the 50 for the last three quarters of the game and we moved the ball effectively, but when we got in the red zone we couldn’t finish,” Kinter said. “We had some penalties and we need to learn to be more disciplined. Our effort was great, though, and we competed hard. It’s a game we wanted to win, but we’ll fix it.”

Freshman win, 14-6

The Vista freshman team picked up the program’s only win on Saturday, defeating Oak Ridge 14-6.

The defense keyed the win with a goal-line stand in the game’s final two minutes to seal the victory. The win marked the first time the Eagles had defeated the Trojans.

“I could not be more proud of the effort put forth by these kids,” Vista coach Lance Moore said. “We were solid in all three phases of the game. The defense stepped up when it needed to; the offense took advantage of their scoring opportunities and special teams did their job as well.”