Mercer Island holds off West Valley in season opener | Prep football

Published 8:31 am Saturday, September 3, 2016

Mercer Island and Yakima’s West Valley High brought the offensive fireworks to their season opener Sept. 2 at Islander Stadium. But, as so often can be the case, the difference came down to which unit could get the necessary defensive stops.

When the Islanders needed theirs, they had a host of players to step up and deliver.

Quarterback Nikhil Nayar threw for four touchdowns and rushed for one more while the Islander defense tallied five takeaways as Mercer Island held off West Valley 44-41.

The season-opening victory was Mercer Island’s first since 2012, though such trivia didn’t seem to be on the minds of the Islander players and coaches after the game.

“All I know is it was a good win for us,” Mercer Island coach Brett Ogata said. “I’m very happy with the boys, they battled. West Valley gave us a scare there, they fought back and our boys just kept battling. They made plays when they had to, so I was really happy for them.”

Mercer Island (1-0) led 21-7 at the half and 28-14 in the third quarter before West Valley (0-1) stormed back to take a 41-38 lead with 3:19 left in the contest.

Rams quarterback Brandon Battle threw for four touchdowns and rushed for another in the second half alone, connecting twice with receiver David Lindgren on touchdown throws of 11 and 8 yards, the second TD giving West Valley its three-point advantage late in the fourth quarter.

But Nayar made a few end zone connections of his own, throwing touchdown passes of 17 and 46 yards to Mitchell Mandt in the second half, the latter reclaiming the lead for Mercer Island with 2:19 left to go.

Defensively, Mercer Island won the turnover battle 5-1 and came away with critical plays to open and close the game. Cole Miller scored the first points of the contest, intercepting Battle at the goal line in the first quarter and taking it back 99 yards to put the Islanders ahead 7-0. The Islanders picked off Battle three times in the first half, twice at the goal line and the third in Mercer Island territory with 38 seconds left before halftime.

Then with just over a minute to go in the fourth quarter and the Rams again driving into Mercer Island territory, Rafael Tucker picked off another Battle pass to secure the win.

“We’ve been telling our kids, ‘You’ve gotta step up and make plays,’ and they’ve been getting close in practice,” Ogata said. “Tonight, they did what they had to do and made some plays to win the game.”

Nayar was Mercer Island’s starter on opening night for the second consecutive season, though Friday’s affair went vastly different than last season’s 40-13 loss to Bishop Blanchet.

The Mercer Island junior completed 16 of 33 pass attempts for 237 yards, and also threw touchdown passes of 13 and 26 yards to Will Krause and Miller, respectively.

On the ground, Jordano Mark rushed for 201 yards on 25 carries. Though he didn’t score, Mark kept several Mercer Island drives alive in the second half, breaking through for multiple runs of 20 yards or more.

“We just kept hitting them in their weak spots,” he said. “Whatever works, works, and whatever doesn’t, we move on. We just go for whatever is working.”

Battle finished completing 38 of 57 pass attempts, throwing for 490 yards, 5 touchdowns and rushing for one TD.

This story was updated to include updated stats sent by the Mercer Island football program.