The Bucs football season came to an end on Nov. 15 at home in a CIF San Diego Section second-round playoff loss, 18-14, to Westview. Mission Bay earned the fourth-seed and a first-round bye after finishing the regular season with a 3-7 record (1-3 in league play) while Westview also ended with a 3-7 record (2-4 in league play) to earn the fifth-seed.

“I feel like we gave a pretty good effort,” said MBHS head coach Greg Tate. “We just failed to execute in a couple of areas including offensive.”

Westview played the previous week with a 23-12 opening-round home victory over Vincent Memorial while Mission Bay hadn’t played since its regular season finale win, 30-28, over Mira Mesa on Nov. 1.

Among the standout players for the Bucs in 2024 were junior Shane Brushie, sophomore Nereo Kraft, junior Kai Barrios, senior Robbie Page, sophomore Sean Lander, junior Jevyn Higman, and senior four-year starter Thomas Cook.

“We were pretty young this season, which we knew going into it,” Tate added. “The schedule ended up being a little tougher than we thought.

“I felt that this season was a great learning opportunity because we’ve been pretty successful the past few seasons. It gave these guys an opportunity to gain experience because a lot of them were either on junior varsity or hadn’t played high school football previously.”

Mission Bay opened the season with a dominating 34-6 victory over Kearny High on Aug. 23 with its following win coming on Sept. 27 in a 48-12 blowout of Morse before its third and final victory, which came against Mira Mesa.

“We had some adversity and we had to grow a lot not just when it came to football,” said Tate. “I think next season we have a lot of guys coming back. I think now they know how to compete and know what the expectation is which will set them up for success going forward.”