Baraquiel Fimbres

Age 16 | School Vincent Memorial | Grade Sophomore

Things didn’t go quite according to script last week for the Vincent Memorial Scots.

They knew, of course, if they were going to upend Calexico for the second straight year and retain their unofficial city championship belt, that their defense would play a headlining role.

They knew they couldn’t count on this year’s Bulldog squad being the sieve their predecessors were.

But they certainly didn’t expect to have to pitch a shutout in order to walk away from Ward Field with their 2018 record still unscathed.

After all, in the first two games of the season, the Scots had managed to gin up 40-plus points per outing, and in 2017, they had pinned 52 on their crosstown rivals.

Surely they would have some margin for error on defense.

Surely.

But, as it turns out, they did not.

The Bulldogs dug in their heels early, and dug them in often, turning the game into a classic defensive struggle.

Or maybe it wasn’t a struggle. Not if your name happened to be Baraquiel Fimbres, anyway.

Fimbres seemed at his ease all game. The defensive tackle consistently beat his man at the point of attack and cashiered many a Calexico run, stuffing the ball carrier 14 times before all was said and done.

Fimbres is only a sophomore, but he was a key member of last year’s CIF-SDS division-winner. He knows all about blowouts, about games where the pressure to perform on every down isn’t exactly at firehose level. But thrust into a situation where lollygagging was absolutely not an option, he didn’t flinch, working with the rest of his side to render Calexico’s offense inessential to the game’s outcome, allowing the Scots to scamper away with a 6-0 triumph

Speaking to his crew’s mindset, Fimbres said, “We knew we needed to stop their offense. We knew [they] had good players. We practiced hard to stop them,” and when the rubber hit the road, “we did what we needed to do.”