In the end, the Mater Dei Catholic High School football team simply had too many offensive and defensive weapons at its disposal when it took the field, dampened by an early evening rain shower, in last Saturday’s Division V-AA State Football Championship Bowl game against Reedley Immanuel.
The Crusaders, San Diego Section Division IV and Southern California Division V-AA regional champions, wasted little time in prompting their fans to air out their lungs by taking a 21-0 lead on the Northern California regional champions.
When all the on-field fireworks were finished, Mater Dei Catholic had put the finishing touches on a commanding 56-21 victory to secure the school’s first state championship in the sport.
Those weapons?
Junior quarterback Chris Jones completed 13 of 22 passing attempts for 170 yards and two touchdowns while also rushing for 126 yards on seven carries and two more touchdowns. He had a hand in four of the Crusaders’ eight touchdowns on the misty night to finish with 296 total offensive yards and a 113.8 quarterback rating.
Junior running back C.J. Verdell carried the ball 13 times for 153 yards and two touchdowns. He also had two catches for 21 yards and one touchdown. He finished the history-making game with three touchdowns for the reigning Metro-South Bay League champions to up his season total to 34 TDs.
Mario Williams rushed eight times for 57 yards and scored one touchdown while Kyle Moses had one catch for 14 yards and one score. Eli Shelton also added an 80-yard kick-off return to start the second half for a touchdown to make the score 28-0.
Place-kicker Alex Golembiewski had a busy night kicking eight point-after-touchdown conversions. He had nine kick-offs in the game, averaging 51.8 points.
Jones opened the game with a scoring pass to Moses and tacked on a 16-yard TD pass to Verdell on the team’s second series. Jones then broke loose on a 70-yard touchdown run to up the hosts’ lead to three touchdowns at halftime.
Mater Dei Catholic put the game away with a decisive 35-14 scoring edge in the third quarter.
Jones scored on a 25-yard run to account for one of the Crusaders’ five touchdowns in the quarter while Verdell ripped off scoring runs of 66 and 16 yards. Williams and Shelton also scored touchdowns for the Mater Dei Catholic juggernaut.
Crusader head coach John Joyner said the team’s game plan was to take advantage of its speed, and that’s an understatement of what transpired on the field.
Isaiah Faue had two fumble recoveries for the state champions to help key their defense.
With one forfeit loss in the second week of the season to El Capitan, the Crusaders – officially 14-1 on the season – actually were undefeated on the field in 15 games this season.
Immanuel finished 11-3.
Jones ended the season with 2,147 passing yards with 25 touchdowns and one interception for a 136.2 quarterback rating. He also rushed 74 times for 421 yards and nine touchdowns.
Verdell rushed for 2,135 yards and 28 rushing touchdowns. He also had five TD catches and returned one kick-off for a touchdown.
Shelton finished the season with 14 touchdowns to rank second on the team, including 11 touchdown receptions on 23 catches for 804 yards.
Williams had nine touchdowns — eight rushing and one on an interception return).
Defensive leaders included Jayden Emberton-Gaines with 146 total tackles and Ruben Duran with 128 total tackles.
Williams was the runaway leader on the team with 18 sacks. Elias Eribez and Jovan Bayless both had four interceptions while Duran had three fumble recoveries.
Marian Catholic 2003 team remembered as top-ranked team in state
While this is the first state football bowl championship for Mater Dei Catholic, the 2003 Marian Catholic team etched its name in history by claiming rights to the top-ranking among the state’s Division IV schools in 2003 in an annual poll conducted by CalHi-Sports.com. In fact, the Crusaders cobbled together a 26-0 run from 2002 to 2003 when it won back-to-back San Diego Section Division III championships. The 2003 team was recently inducted into the Mater Dei Catholic High School Hall of Fame.
The 2003 Marian Catholic team scored 712 points during its 13-0 season.
Prior to the creation of an official on-field state football bowl championship series 10 years ago, CalHi-Sports.com conducted yearly state rankings (and continues to do so).
The 1996 Castle Park High School team was also highly ranked in that publication, earning the “mythical” state championship that year.
Bonita Vista’s state championship bowl quest ends in muddy 33-21 loss in Hanford
otball team ended its season in last Saturday’s Division IV-AA State Football Championship Bowl in Hanford with a 33-21 loss to the host Bullpups in playing conditions that were less than desirable.
The Barons were unable to adapt to the exceedingly muddy conditions caused by downpours over the weekend in the Central Valley and, as a result, coughed up an early 14-6 lead en route to the loss.
Hanford, the Northern California regional champions, outscored Bonita Vista, the Southern California regional champions, 27-7 over the final three quarters to secure the victory.
The Bullpups finished their season 14-1 while the Barons ended their season 12-3.
Bonita Vista head coach Chris Thompson called his team’s journey to the state bowl championship game “a great run.”
“Obviously, we are disappointed that we didn’t come away with the win, but this program is about more than wins and loses,” he said.
Despite the sloppy playing conditions, the Barons — winners of their last nine contests — started off the game well.
Quarterback Anthony Posada completed a 15-yard touchdown pass to Quentin Harrison for an early 7-0 lead. Ethan Williams later returned a punt 17 yards for a touchdown to put the visitors ahead by 11 points.
But Hanford erased that deficit on the strength of 13 unanswered points in the second quarter to take a 19-14 halftime lead.
The teams each scored one touchdown in the third quarter, with the Bullpups taking a 26-21 lead into the final quarter.
Hanford, which finished 5-0 in the playoffs, scored the only touchdown in the fourth quarter to capture an otherwise close game on the scoreboard.
Senior running back Greg Bell — who scored the game-winning touchdown in his team’s dramatic last-minute victory over Anaheim Canyon in the SoCal championship game — couldn’t maintain his footing at times in the slippery muck. He carried the ball 33 times for 139 yards. He did break off one 49-yard run for a third quarter touchdown.
The Barons finished with 270 total yards in offense — not a great number, and not enough to beat Hanford on its home field.
Posada, a junior, finished the game with 11 completions in 27 pass attempts for 135 yards. He had one touchdown pass but was intercepted twice.
Williams had three catches for 34 yards besides the punt return touchdown while Harrison had four catches for 49 and one TD. Keenan Ellis had one catch for 34 yards while Jake Rozar had one catch for 13 yards.
Williams had one carry for two yards while Posada had two carries for negative six yards.
Moli Faalogo and Daniel Kemp led the BV defense with nine tackles apiece while Chris Boguille had one sack, Marcello Perez had one interception and Colin Zaballa had one fumble recovery.
Hanford junior quarterback Ryan Johnson passed for 245 yards and three touchdowns while senior running back Joseph McDaniel, more accustomed to the slip-and-slide conditions, rushed for 144 yards and two touchdowns.
Juwuane Hughes, who is being recruited by San Diego State, amassed 154 receiving yards on six catches, including a 77-yard TD.
Bell finished the season with 2,632 rushing yards and 33 rushing touchdowns. He also caught one touchdown and threw for another in 2015.
Posada accumulated 2,269 passing yards with 15 touchdowns and eight interceptions to go with a 101.1 quarterback rating.
Harrison had 34 catches for 891 yards and eight touchdowns while Williams had 31 catches for 518 yards and four touchdowns.
Atoa Fox, Tristan Janke and Faalogo all led the team with 54 total tackles. Faalogo topped the Barons with six sacks, followed by Gabe Melhorn with 5.5 sacks. Trevian Lanier posted a team-leading three interceptions while Boguille and Fox each had two fumble recoveries.
Johnson finished the season with 35 touchdowns for the Bullpups while McDaniel finished the season with 25 TD runs.
The football season isn’t quite over for Thompson, who will coach the South team in the Alex Spanos All-Star Classic scheduled Jan. 16 at Mesa College.
