Johansen beats Riverbank to end 28-game skid

Finally, Johansen High School can stop worrying about its losing streak. Now, the Vikings can worry about a winning streak.

Johansen defeated winless Riverbank 49-0 in a nonleague game Friday night to snap a 28-game losing streak and give third-year coach Grant Genasci his first win as a head coach.

“The guys were really excited afterward,” Genasci said. “That was a big stress relief.”

The Vikings’ defense recovered three fumbles – one for a touchdown by defensive end Edwin Manning – and picked off two passes for touchdowns – one by Epi Cortina and the other by Marco Martinez.

“The defense really stepped up,” Genasci said. “Even when Riverbank started to drive, they had a couple of drives stall in the red zone, including one where they got to the 2 and turned it over on downs.”

The Vikings (1-8, 0-5 Modesto Metro Conference) will try to play spoiler this week when they take on MMC co-leader Beyer (5-4, 4-1) in their season finale at Chuck Hughes Stadium.

“Beyer’s a different team than Riverbank. … We’re not delusional,” Genasci said. “But we’ve always been a tougher team when we can do stuff right. We can scare some people. We were able to do that a little bit against Downey.

“To beat Beyer, we have to play a perfect game and hope that tough game against Modesto took a little bit out of them.”

Johansen’s last victory came on Nov. 1, 2012, when the 0-9 Vikings defeated a 1-8 Modesto team 38-32 to avoid a winless campaign. Riverbank (0-10), loser of its last 15 games, last won on Oct. 4, 2014, when it defeated Livermore Valley Charter Prep 51-0.

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Johansen beats Riverbank to end 28-game skid."