Mountain View's Mason Chambers rolls out and looks to throw the ball during a 5A state semifinal game against West Albany on Friday night at McNary High School in Keizer.

Friday night football games under the lights are not always as glamorous as they seem. For a player lower on the depth chart and not getting on the field, it can be boring. And as the season drags into late fall, it is a lot of standing around in cold weather.

Senior tight end and defensive end Langston Belding, like a handful of Mountain View seniors, spent his junior season watching a Mountain View senior class work its way to within 25 yards of winning a state title. It was a good experience even though his playing time was minimal.

“It was just like, dang,” Belding said. “I can’t wait to be out there next year and put my name out there.”

Belding — who is now one of the team leaders in sacks and caught a touchdown in last Friday’s state semifinal win over West Albany — and several other Cougar senior stars on this year’s undefeated squad spent their junior seasons honing their skills in junior varsity games.

Now these seniors are leading the No. 2 Cougars (12-0) into a rematch against No. 5 Wilsonville (10-2) for the Class 5A state championship on Friday at 4:30 p.m. at Hillsboro Stadium.

Senior quarterback Mason Chambers has thrown for 38 touchdowns, senior wideout Jordan Best has caught 11 touchdown passes, and senior offensive linemen Dominick Valdez and Jaycub Engstrom have helped solidify an offensive line that was one of Mountain View’s biggest question marks coming into the season.

“We knew going into (last) season that there were a lot of seniors, and we knew that we were going to have to take a backseat and to keep our heads down,” Valdez said. “And just work to try to get better to prepare for this season to make sure that we can do something when we get our shot.”

Added Chambers: “It was our time to show if we could actually do it in a game or not. We were just executing every single week.”

These five players, and others with their one shot of leaving their mark on varsity, are ready for their return trip to the state title game against Wilsonville after falling 29-23 to the Wildcats in the championship last season.

“It is such a big game,” Best said. “Standing there last year was super exciting to watch, but losing it just pushed us to want to come back and try to win it again.”

Mountain View’s varsity was not the only team that went undefeated until the state title game last season. Its freshman and JV teams both went through the entire season without a loss. The JV games were never close.

Mountain View coach Brian Crum saw first-hand last year how his scout-team players were competing against a championship-worthy team. He knew that his team had the potential to once again compete for a state title.

“I knew that a lot of times our practices were more competitive than the games we played last year,” Crum said. “The senior class and junior class were just battling all the time against each other. When you get those stacked classes you know you got something.”

And there was a benefit to playing on Thursdays in the JV games. The players learned to dominate, and were able to build confidence so that when their time came on Friday nights they would be ready.

“They got a chance to play and they went out and dominated,” Crum said. “I think they knew they could compete.”

But the work had to be done to reach the championship game once again. And with these players getting just one season to play varsity, there was a sense of urgency going into the offseason.

“You know that you only have one year to do your thing on varsity,” Valdez said. “I think this was one of the most productive offseasons. Everybody was doing stuff. Lifting, playing extra sports, doing everything to tune up before the season.”

And it all paid off. Just like a year ago, the Cougars are undefeated and will try to win the program’s second state title and first since 2011.

But rather than standing on the sidelines, these five seniors will be the ones trying to take down the Wildcats this time around.

“Even though we didn’t play, we experienced everything,” Chambers said. “It is nice to experience what it is going to feel like on Friday.”