Mountain View High School's football team forfeited its Conference 12 League championship game against Arroyo on Thursday night after five players were suspended over a social media post that school officials deemed inappropriate. The post, which surfaced after the Vikings' 14-0 win over Rosemead, showed several players appearing to make gestures as if they were holding guns.
The forfeit handed Arroyo the league title outright, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, which reported that the El Monte Union High School District cited both the suspensions and recent injuries in explaining the decision. “Recent student-athlete injuries, combined with individual student disciplinary actions, have left the team without enough eligible players to safely compete,” the district said, per the same account. That combination of attrition left Mountain View, as reported by the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, without the two-way starters it needed to field a safe roster.
Five Suspensions Gut a Shallow Roster
The five suspended players were described as impact starters who played both offense and defense, and their absence proved too much for a team that already had thin depth. Mountain View head coach Mark Paredes said the roster simply could not absorb the loss, noting that the team was not a deep roster even before the suspensions hit. “The Vikings decided to forfeit the game for safety reasons,” the outlet reported, underscoring that the choice was about player welfare rather than any competitive concession.
Paredes did not mince words about the gestures themselves. “You shouldn't be making gun gestures,” he said, calling the episode a hard lesson for his players.
A Bittersweet Win Over Rosemead
The circumstances sting in part because of what the win over Rosemead meant to the program. Paredes said it marked the school's first victory over Rosemead in 40 years, telling the outlet, “We should have been celebrating our first win over Rosemead in 40 years.” The San Gabriel Valley Tribune's reporting dates that 14-0 victory to October 22.
Instead of celebrating a rare milestone, the program found itself managing a disciplinary crisis days later. Mountain View forfeited its game against Arroyo on Thursday.
Records Shift, but Mountain View's Season Continues
With the forfeit, Mountain View's record moved to 3-7 overall and 2-1 in league play, while Arroyo improved to 6-4 and claimed the league title as a result. Despite the loss of the championship game, Mountain View's season is not over, and the team had already secured a guaranteed playoff spot before the forfeit occurred.
The episode adds Mountain View to a run of high school programs nationwide that have forfeited games this season over off-field conduct or safety concerns tied to thinning rosters. Comparable cases have surfaced elsewhere in California and beyond in recent weeks, including at USA Today, which reported that Piner High School forfeited a game amid a shortage of healthy linemen following a student walkout over a captain's post. Whether Mountain View's playoff run can recover from the disruption remains to be seen, but for now the Vikings are left to regroup after a week that swung from historic triumph to league-title forfeiture in a matter of days.
