Caleb Harris is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Glendale High School for AZPreps365.com

It was a tale of two nights in Tempe’s 41-14 win over Glendale High School Friday night in Tempe. The Buffaloes (6-3) celebrated a historic win on Senior Night, securing its first winning season of the decade.

With Friday being its last home game, many of the Buffaloes' seniors will never play on Tempe’s field again. Head coach Sean Freeman accomplished his goal: a positive sendoff.

“It’s everything that we wanted,” Freeman said.

But what Freeman felt in elation, Glendale (1-7) head coach Rob York felt in disappointment.

"It stinks,” York said. “I thought it was a game that we could have been competitive in.”

Glendale was competitive in the first half, but Tempe’s 27 unanswered points in the second half erased any memory of a close game. All four of those touchdowns, and the two in the first half, came via senior quarterback Saul Mendez. He had five passing touchdowns and one on the ground.

This offense ran through Mendez. He threw 44 passes, while the Buffaloes handed the ball off just 11 times for 29 yards. Instead of balancing the game plan with short runs on early downs like most teams do, they used screen passes and short passes with one step drop backs to draw the defense forward. Once the Glendale defenders started playing down toward the line of scrimmage, Mendez took the top off the defense.

York said Glendale prepared for this, but poor execution and three injured defensive backs provided a different result than his gameplan.

“Keep everything contained,” York said “Try to stay over the top of everything, the big plays. Our tackling wasn’t very good tonight. They got some good athletes over there, too. You can’t deny that.”

Having four difference makers is rare in high school football. Having four at one position is nearly unheard of. Tempe had four pass catchers go over 60 yards. Senior Mark Jackson and junior Jonathon Washington had two touchdowns each. Juniors Jaiden Hart-Rodriguez and Nehemia Calvin had 140 and 84 yards, respectively.

“They grew up in this program,” Freeman said. “Those are all Tempe guys, and so they’ve been through the challenging parts of Tempe football and now they’re here to reap the benefits of being here, staying loyal to the program, understanding the mission, that statement we’re trying to do, and they did it.”

Still the most productive player on the field, Glendale’s Santiago Navarrette, added 60 yards and a touchdown to his impressive senior resume. Quarterback Michael Anguiano said their “crazy” connection and good blocking by his offensive line were about all that went well on Friday.

“I had a little bit of time, but couldn’t make any reads, my checkdowns, any of that,” Anguiano said.

Although he has another year left in high school, Anguiano said he is still eager to send Navarrette off with bang, hoping to connect with him for 1,000 receiving yards this season.

With one game left in his high school career, Navarrette would need 182 yards next week against Moon Valley. If the Cardinals can build on their strengths and improve on this week’s weaknesses, 1,000 yards and a win could be within reach.

“There’s some bright spots for sure,” York said. “But we got to come together here at this last week, with all the stuff that we got going on, all the adversity, and the kids really got to pull together and we got to have a great week of practice and we got to end with one.”