Righetti, Pioneer Valley football teams meet for lunch two days before ‘Battle for the Helmet’ rivalry game

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- An annual Santa Maria Valley sporting tradition returned on Wednesday afternoon.

For about two hours, members of the Righetti and Pioneer Valley football teams, as well as leaders at both schools and the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District, attended a luncheon two days before the annual "Battle for the Helmet" rivalry game.

"I think it's really fun since I know a lot of these players," said Pioneer Valley senior Adrian Mora. "I've played youth football since I was six, and I know half of their team because I've played with them, and I'm excited to say 'what's up' to some of my friends."

"I've played youth with a lot of them and I've known them for years, so it's kind of interesting and fun to have a friendly relationship before the game," said Righetti senior Brian Monighetti. "During the game it's all serious, but after, we just shake it out and we enjoy being able to play against each other once again."

Held each year at Cool Hand Luke's restaurant, the event allows the area rivals to meet in a friendly environment, just before they battle on the gridiron.

"Any time you get local teams playing each other with the amount of cross over with kids and playing against each other since they were little, it's going to add a little more intensity to the rivalry because they want to have bragging rights," said Pioneer Valley head coach Dustin Davis. "Some of these guys are still friends and they're going to be hanging out with each other for years to come after this game, so I think it's a matter of pride for not only the school community, but the communities that exist within different communities and schools."

"It's a rivalry game. It's an in-town rivalry game," said Righetti head coach Tony Payne. "One of our goals is to win the city championship. We want to be the best team in town and we're grateful to play good teams like Pioneer Valley. This game is a lot of fun. This game is always really competitive and we look forward to it every year."

The winner of the game takes possession of the helmet trophy that was created several years ago.

One half of the helmet is painted in Pioneer Valley black and its Panther logo, with the other half painted in Righetti purple and its school "W" logo. There are stickers with the each year printed on them that are placed on the winning side.

Over the years, the teams have played 15 times. Righetti currently leads the all-time series 10-5, including the past four games.

The last Pioneer Valley victory came in 2016. The teams play annually, but paused the match-up in the pandemic shortened spring 2021 season.

"We want that helmet," said Mora. "We haven't had it for a while and I want to get the helmet for PV before I leave."

"Knowing that we have such a big honor to have on our campus, we want to keep it going," said Monighetti. "It keeps our players motivated to keep going, especially at the beginning of the year, give a reason to keep pushing knowing that we have momentum behind us."

The teams not only brought their appetite here to the restaurant for lunch, both with 0-2 after the first two weeks, they are each hungry for a win this Friday.

"Somebody is going to get a win this week," said Payne. "We're hoping our improvement starts this week and it will give us some momentum and we can kind of carry this victory and make a run in a really tough league that we're in." 

"These kids have got to have a little faith in themselves and faith in their teammates," said Davis. "They've worked incredibly hard. We had a great off-season. We had great buy-in. I'm proud of the steps we've taken culturally in this last off-season, but now they need to be rewarded on the field, but that comes with a price and that price comes with being focused for four quarters and being able to finish." 

The "Battle for the Helmet" will take place at Pioneer Valley High School on Friday, Sept. 2. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

Highlights of the game can be seen on Friday Football Focus, which airs weekly on News Channel beginning at 11:08 p.m.