Central Valley High School’s football team continued its run of futility this past week, losing for the sixth consecutive time.

The heavily-favored Merced Bears spoiled the Hawks’ homecoming with a 54-6 win Friday evening at CUSD Stadium.

Central Valley quarterback Yoshi Trujillo was voted homecoming king leading up to the Central California Conference contest.

“I felt on top of the world,” he said. “It was a short-lived peak.”

“We knew going into the game it wasn’t going to be easy,” Trujillo added. “Merced has a great team. But we could have done better. We made a lot of mistakes. It’s disappointing.”

The last-place Hawks dropped to 3-6 overall and 0-5 in the CCC standings.

 The second-place Bears improved to 6-3 and 4-1.

“The morale of the team has definitely gone down,” Trujillo said. “We need to bounce back.”

Trujillo was limited to 15 yards as he completed 3 of 6 passes with one touchdown and one interception.

Omar Mendoza carried the ball 13 times for 61 yards. He also had a 10-yard touchdown reception.

Elijah Deleon gained 70 yards on 15 carries. He caught one pass for 5 yards.

Amari O’Bryant rushed for 17 yards on one carry.

Alexis Becerra and Alejandro Hernandez both registered a team-high nine tackles.

Juan Melgoza added seven tackles.

Camden Cai and Luis Munoz collected five tackles each.

O’Bryant and Adrian Perez chipped in with four tackles apiece.

Felix Arellano had three tackles.

Salvador Ochoa had one tackle and two pass deflections.

Central Valley competed shorthanded against Merced last week as five starters were sidelined with injuries, including Joseph Alamo, Anthony Malagon, Giancarlo Pena, Ricardo Perez and Roberto Tiscareno.

“We tried to make things work with what we had,” Central Valley head coach Derrick Goblirsch said.

“A lot of the players that got hurt are players we needed,” Trujillo said. “Once we lost them, things weren’t the same.”

The Hawks drew a tough opponent for homecoming.

“That’s just the way the schedule worked out this year,” Goblirsch said. “They’re one of the better teams in our league.”

Central Valley will close out the 2021 season with a home game versus El Capitan (0-9, 0-5) this Friday at CUSD Stadium. Kickoff slated for 7 p.m.

“We want to try to get some momentum going into next year and send the seniors out on a good note,” Goblirsch said. “That’s the goal.”

Added Trujillo: “It’s a winnable game.”