SGV/Whittier Prep Sports Zone: End Zone to End Zone: CIFSS Championship Edition
We go inside La Serna and Glendora's championship games and 5 Things That I Think I Think.
All photos from La Serna vs. Palos Verdes (unless noted) are from Arnold Leos Graphics.
“There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.” – T. H. Huxley, Biologist and Anthropologist (1825-1895)
PALOS VERDES – Anyone can write a story about a team that turned in a miraculous finish to the sectional championship or how they overwhelmed their opposition so much that you can’t help but stand in admiration.
This isn’t one of those stories.
This story concerns the other side of the CIF Southern Section championship weekend in football for two area teams.
It is about the losing side.
The side where a season ends with no rings, no championship patches, no proclamations that start with “And here are your CIF Southern Section Champions…”
While many reporters flock to the winners and snap photos relentlessly on their cellphones or cameras, only a few go to the other side.
At these moments, the quote from Super Bowl-winning player Shannon Sharpe works into the soul of each player and coach. “If you lose a Super Bowl, all you did was practice another week of football.” Yeah, we know that these teams didn’t lose a Super Bowl, but I think you get the message.
Meanwhile, CIF Southern Section officials work the narrative that it’s incredible to be playing for a sectional championship on Thanksgiving weekend.
Making the football finals in the CIF Southern Section is a tremendous accomplishment. Over 400 schools within the section field football teams, but only 28 of those schools played football this past weekend. That’s .07% of the CIFSS section schools that were allowed to have practice on Thanksgiving weekend.
Less than one percent.
It’s much like owning a thoroughbred racehorse, and your horse is in the Kentucky Derby. The parties are great, and the media attention is relentless, but when your horse is in the starting gate, all the hoopla gets pushed to the side.
It's time to win. In this case, with championship weekend, that feeling of excitement wears off at kickoff
Is it a bit selfish? 100 percent. But as former football coach Herman Edwards famously coined, “You play to win the game.”
It is sacred ground for those who earn the right to have another week of practice. One more week of playing football with your teammates, close friends, and coaches who have enormously impacted your life. Like life, championship week is like driving an F1 car in Las Vegas.
It moves too damn fast.
Before you know it, it’s championship night. La Serna knew what it was like to reach Mt. Everest of high school football in the state. Game day is much different than other weeks. On game day, there is no school due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Players and coaches have the day to themselves.
How they spend it is about as wide as the Pacific Ocean. Many will sleep in and get as much rest as possible. Coaches will wake up early and maybe watch more game films on their tablets or cell phones on the HUDL app. Some teams may meet in the morning for a 30-45-minute walk-thru to review offensive and defensive plays.
On these game days, the clock appears to move as slowly as possible.
And then, at 3:00, the preparation starts. It’s time to gather your football equipment, backpack, and shoes (and cleats) and get on the bus to go for your date with destiny.
La Serna had a bit of an interesting trip. Usually, when you go to a high school, it’s in the middle of a residential area, with houses surrounding it. Palos Verdes High School is a bit different. Let’s start with the fact that the football field has no lighting, thanks to a neighborhood adamant about not having lights on the field.
This means that there is no such thing as “Friday Night Lights” at Palos Verdes. It’s more like “Friday Afternoon Football.” Games usually kick off at 3:30 (which is a dream for prep sportswriters—there are no deadlines to worry about), which takes some adjustment. At most schools, JV and frosh games get the 3:30 time slot.
Friday night marked the third time in school history that temporary lights were brought in for a football game—one bank of lights on the home side, the other on the visiting side, and lights at all four corners of the stadium. It wasn’t ideal, but everyone had to deal with the conditions.
The advantage of a night game at Palos Verdes is that if you get there early enough, you can see a sunset from the west end of the end zone. It is one of the most breathtaking views you will ever see. The view is so stunning that you understand why homes around the school start at 8 million dollars. (And that’s no joke.)
Welcome to the neighborhood of the rich and famous. Around these parts, it’s not all that unusual to see the rich and famous rolling around the neighborhoods. USC football coach Lincoln Riley calls Palos Verdes home, as do movie stars and those who have hit it big on Wall Street. It’s a neighborhood straight out of the pages of the late Robin Leach’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Oh, and if you live in Palos Verdes and want to make your house an Airbnb, sorry, that’s against city ordinances.
The one constant at Palos Verdes HS over the years is its football team. Over the past 13 years, they have reached the sectional final five times, winning a sectional title in 2012 with a 35-14 win over West Torrance in the Northern Divisional Final. Guy Gardner, the head coach, is a steady presence. He has built an environment of success and unselfishness, making them tough outs in the playoffs.
La Serna knows it all too well. In 2022, the Sea Kings traveled to Cal High and defeated La Serna 14-12 in a CIFSS Div. 3 first-round game that felt like a quarterfinal or semifinal. PV would lose the following week to eventual sectional champion Yorba Linda.
La Serna made the 35-mile, 55-minute trip along the 91 and 110 freeways to the school, a good Taylor-Made driver tee-shot away from the Pacific Ocean.
At 6:00 p.m.” La Serna coach Andy George was standing on the 40-yard line watching his team go through their preparations. The calm, always positive George had his hands inside the white-clad hoodie emblazed with the “La Serna Football” logo in red type. Here he was at the poker table again, trying to win a sectional title with a team short on experience but long on ability.
“It’s been a very good week,” George says to start the conversation. “I think our guys are ready. I want to give our team the best chance to win. We are banged up, but we are playing some of our best football at the right time.”
The 2024 version of the Lancers had come a long way from early in the season when they suffered defeats to Damien, Crean Lutheran, and Edison/Huntington Beach.
Quarterback Grady Long has significantly transformed at the quarterback position and is only a sophomore. While it’s nice to think about the future, on this night – he’ll be asked to perform at a near-perfect level – which is a challenge on the surface, but when you consider that he is a sophomore, the task becomes much more daunting.
But, with talented players such as Kaimana Tufaga, Eli Perez, and Elijah Blu Flores enhancing their play on the field, the Lancers found their groove in the Del Rio League part of the season. They took a huge mental step forward in the second half of their first-round game against Troy and haven’t looked back.
It’s tough to win a sectional title these days in the world of Competitive Equity. Trying to repeat as a champion, especially when facing a team like Palos Verdes, solid on both sides of the ball, is enormously challenging. There were no excuses on this evening. The sky was clear, and the weather was relatively balmy for a December night near the Pacific Ocean. There was no need to wear extra-layered clothing; the football gods gave us near-perfect conditions.
The San Fernando Valley unit assigned to this game didn’t waste any time getting the game started at 7:00 p.m. sharp. La Serna’s final attempt at football immortality was underway.
“Winning a lot of games isn’t what matters. What matters is the kind of men these young guys become.” – Former De La Salle head football coach Bob Ladouceur.
Opportunities win games, and early on, it appeared that La Serna was on their way to another sectional final when they took advantage of their first opportunity in the first quarter when Long hit junior receiver Zeb Bontemps for a 6-0 lead.
George calls it one of his favorite plays. It’s a one-man route off a double handoff play-action look. The play comes to life when you have an effective running game. It forces the linebackers and safeties to honor the run, allowing for a one-on-one situation for the receiver against the cornerback.
The receiver’s job is to run the post route as fast as possible and get behind the cornerback. The play hits once a game (or twice on a good night). Long throws a missile into Bontemps' waiting arms as he gets the needed separation from the corner. It’s 7-0 Lancers in the first quarter with three minutes left to play.
Unfortunately for La Serna fans, it is the only time that they’ll enjoy the sensation of celebrating a touchdown.
The La Serna defense is playing the game of their lives. They allowed Palos Verdes to enter the red zone once out of three possessions in the first half and didn’t allow a score (thanks to a missed field goal in the final stages of the second quarter).
It is clear that Brian Mustain, the Lancers’ defensive coordinator, has crafted a fantastic game plan. He and his players appear to have cracked the Sea Kings' code. They held PV to 90 total yards in the first half (2-6 on third-down conversions), which gave La Serna a 7-0 lead at halftime.
It’s almost as if the La Serna defense is pitching a no-hitter. They are playing the perfect game. They are one-half away from winning an improbable championship with a young team led by a sophomore quarterback. The only thing that is concerning is that Long has thrown two interceptions. One came in the final moments of the first half, which didn’t hurt as profusely as the first one.
The La Serna offense gives its fans more hope on its first series of the second half. Starting on their 12-yard line, the Lancers methodically move the ball. They get help on a 4th and one at the Palos Verdes 45 when a defensive lineman for PV jumps offsides, giving La Serna a first down. Two plays later, La Serna benefits from a pass interference call, which moves the ball to the Palos Verdes 22.
A score and La Serna would be in a fantastic position to emerge victorious. However, the drive loses momentum, and with the ball at the Sea Kings' 34 (4th down and 22), Long hits Tufaga (who was lined up in the slot position) on a post-pattern for 19 yards. However, the play is short of a first down, and Palos Verdes takes over.
La Serna’s defense continues to make life miserable for the PV offense. La Serna gets the ball late in the third quarter and unleashes another time-consuming drive that filters into the fourth quarter.
In most years, the Lancer offense would take care of business, scoring when needed and taking some pressure off the defense. And for the initial stages of the fourth quarter, that’s exactly what it felt like.
And then it happened.
With the ball on the Palos Verdes 19-yard line, George dials up another play-action pass but puts three receivers into the route tree. Palos Verdes linebacker Noah Brandy comes with a blitz off the edge, untouched, and forces Long to throw from his back foot with no forward momentum – the worst kind of pass, one fraught with danger.
Sure enough, Camren Hughes intercepted the pass and returned it 80 yards for a touchdown and a 7-7 tie. It appeared the pass was intended for sophomore tight end Alex Gaytan, who was running a crossing route at seven yards. Gaytan, however, got his feet tangled with a Palos Verdes defender and dropped to the ground.
The interception tied the game at seven and flipped the momentum of the game. It was also La Serna’s final serious scoring drive of the game.
On the next series, Long commits another turnover, fumbling the ball on the La Serna 10-yard line. Two plays later, Ryan Rakowski scores on an 8-yard touchdown run, and the Sea Kings have a 14-7 lead.
The impressive stat was that Palos Verdes had only nine yards of total offense in the second half (up to this point) and was on the verge of winning a sectional title. If there ever was a perfect example of Pete Carroll’s phrase, “It’s all about the ball,” this was the moment.
Rakowski would score one more touchdown to put the final touches on a second CIFSS championship for the Palos Verdes program with a 23-7 win over the visiting Lancers.
The stats from this game are about as meaningless as pineapples are as pizza toppings. The only relevant stat was this - Turnovers: La Serna 4, Palos Verdes 0.
It had been two years for the La Serna Lancers since they felt the sting of a playoff loss. The feeling was mutual amongst the Lancer players when the game concluded. They could care less if they were among the 0.7% of teams that played on Thanksgiving weekend. All they could think about was that their season was over, and their dreams of a back-to-back sectional title dissolved before their eyes.
After receiving the runners-up trophy, the players gathered around George for parting words. In these types of moments, George shines the brightest. He compliments them for the fight. “It wasn’t for a lack of effort,” he tells his players. “It wasn’t for a lack of character. The outcome of this game will never change how I feel about you. You fought your ass off all season long. You did everything we asked you to do… this team is all heart.”
Then it was time for all the players to thank the coaches and each other for years spent on a football field, in a weight room, in a classroom watching films, or moments away from school with teammates and coaches talking about life in general.
(Escarcega)
La Serna is all about family. In those moments, players lean on each other for strength and courage. Minutes later, it was time for the players to meet their families. It is at these moments that the raw emotions come alive.
The parents provide the rides to and from practice. They wash the practice clothes, buy the new football cleats, and give their son the extra $20 to go out and eat after a game. In the words of former CIFSS commissioner Rob Wigod, they are the high school football game stakeholders.
There was Blu Flores hugging and crying with his mom and dad. His future as a collegiate football player has yet to be determined, but the finality of the moment was too much for Flores. The hugs were tight, and the tears were heavy. Chase Pina gave his mom a tight hug. His high school football career ended on this night.
Losing a sectional championship game is like having your high school sweetheart leave you for someone else. The sting of it burns intently for a few days, and then, just like other events, life moves on.
It will be that way for the La Serna football team and Andy George. George is constantly reminded that life is fleeting and that there are greater tragedies than losing a football game. The pain of losing a sister never leaves you, but you can always get over a loss on the football field.
Especially when you’ve won a state title and played in a sectional final in the last two years.
There is one word to describe La Serna these days – dominance.
And it’s not about to end anytime soon.
All Glendora photos (unless noted) are from Gwen Pointer
GLENDORA’S CHAMPIONSHIP RUN COMES TO A SCREECHING HALT
GLENDORA – Matchups are everything – especially in the game of football.
When Glendora coach Brandon Rohrer started watching the film of Murrieta Mesa following their win over St. Francis in a CIFSS Div. 6 semifinal, he knew that his team would face a very tough challenge.
“The first thing that jumped out at you is that defensive front,” Rohrer said. “They are so fast and very strong. This was going to be a very tough matchup for us.”
Especially for a team like Glendora that loves to play the ground and pound game with running back Simon Zwick, who has a heart more significant than any football field, and Austin Coronado, a 6-3 running back who is a load to bring down.
Complicating matters was that Brandon Cornado, Austin’s younger brother and the main reason he transferred back to Glendora for one last season, was injured on the last drive of last week’s semifinal game against Dana Hills and could not play. Which forced Rohrer to go with freshman Sebastian Lawrence in the program’s biggest game in nearly four decades.
Against that backdrop, the Tartans took the field for their date with football gods against Murrieta Mesa. The Rams spoiled the party for all area football fans the week before when they defeated St. Francis 31-28, which prevented us from having the ultimate sectional title game that would have earned the title of the “210 Freeway Bowl.”
Murrieta Mesa challenged itself earlier in the season with losses against Tesoro, Vista Murrieta, Murrieta Valley, and Beaumont. These teams were in high playoff divisions and succeeded. Murrieta Valley played a day later in the weekend game against Newbury Park in the Div. 2 final. Vista Murrieta made a deep run in Div. 3 as an At-Large Team, and Beaumont was widely recognized as one of the emerging teams in the Inland Empire.
Following the loss to Beaumont, the Rams started an eight-game winning streak entering Saturday night’s game. Two of those wins were shutouts. In three of those games, they didn’t allow a touchdown. And the offensive was rolling, scoring 28 or more points in six of those wins.
Glendora’s defense was also as good as its opponents from the 951. It helped stop the bleeding in the first half of its quarterfinal game against Rancho Verde and held Dana Hills to 18 offensive yards in the fourth quarter of its thrilling semifinal win.
Something had to give at 7:00 when the ball was kicked off at Citrus College.
Early on, the Rams showed why they deserved to be in the final by putting together a nice drive that culminated in Alex Krishan converting a 34-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead.
Things didn’t improve for Glendora fans on Murrieta Mesa’s next series as Daniel Ritchie scored on a 14-yard TD run for a 10-0 lead. Once again, Glendora was trailing in a playoff game (like they did against Rancho Verde and Dana Hills), and fans were getting restless with each minute that passed.
Leave it to Austin Coronado to bring some life back into the stands at Citrus College as he scored on a 10-yard run early in the second quarter that cut the Rams lead to 10-7.
Much like the La Serna game the night before, it would be the only touchdown that Tartan fans would celebrate.
The fears for Rohrer and his crew were coming into play. Glendora had no answer for the Rams’ front seven. They took away many of Glendora’s favorite run plays and made the stops when needed.
Credit Coronado and Zwick. They did their best. It just wasn’t done consistently. It seemed like for every big run that Zwick produced; the Tartans would be their own worst enemy by committing penalties on their next couple of plays.
Glendora had a chance to score late in the fourth quarter, but Lawerence threw an interception on fourth down that clinched the win for the Tartans. The player who made the interception was Daniel Ritchie, who scored both of Murrieta Mesa’s touchdowns.
The magic of Glendora football's postseason run ended at 9:35, when the clock read 0:00. Murrieta Mesa had won the Division 6 title with a 17-7 win.
Much like the scene at Palos Verdes HS the day before, the emotion of losing a sectional title was raw.
Undisputed leader Marco Luera, with no energy left from engaging in four quarters of physical football, was in the back of the line doing a postgame cheer with the Glendora student section. He had left it all on the field (with several injuries that will be addressed in the offseason before he goes to college) and had no reason to hang his head in shame.
Austin Coronado was the first person he hugged as the team met up again on the field. They had played together for years with Glendora Junior All-American football. Now, the time had arrived for them to play their last game together.
Both of them hugged for a lone minute. Finality will do that in a sectional final.
(Escarcega)
The lasting image for many was the sight of Tim Johnson, who had popped his hamstring in the second half on a dropped pass that, if caught, could have changed the trajectory of the game, on crutches as each player from both teams congratulated him on his performance, would have broken your heart.
Jake Williams dropped into a catcher’s stance at the end of the game, knowing that his high school football career had ended.
Lawrence was consoled by Glendora's coaches, knowing he had three more years to play high school football. His future was not in question, but that didn’t make the moment more difficult. Isaac Gomez, a senior offensive lineman, was the first player to face the student section at the end of the game.
After speaking with the media, Rohrer's family was nearby, with his son in tears. It was a lesson learned at a young age: Sometimes, you have to experience disappointment.
La Serna felt it on Friday; Glendora had the same emotions on Saturday.
Two programs with brand names that resonate in their area felt what it was like to be on the short end of a championship football game. That doesn’t diminish what they exhibited during the playoff run. They both had to overcome adversity to become one of those .07% of CIFSS teams that played on championship weekend.
However, as Pat Riley reminds us in his book The Winner Within, “You have no choice about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again.”
For players and coaches who will be part of the 2025 La Serna and Glendora football programs, those choices begin today—it's called the offseason strength and conditioning season.
5 THINGS THAT I THINK I THINK
1) I think that what Pasadena has accomplished is remarkable. It again shows the talent in the Pasadena area and what can come from it when coached up. Remember, the Bulldogs were supposed to have a dream season with Hype Grand as their quarterback. However, when the CIFSS denied his transfer eligibility in late August, most football fans ignored the Bulldogs. It speaks to Ron Jones and his staff's job in taking a team that was 0-10 to CIFSS champions. That is called coaching. And don’t think that this was a fluke. Every Muir coach I talked to several weeks ago said, “Pasadena will win CIF. They have a size advantage with their lineman that no other school in their division has.”
2) I think it is necessary to get back to the basics of playing football to succeed. That’s what Pioneer did, and it all culminated in the Titans winning a Div. 14 championship with a 13-6 win over San Gabriel. In January, coach Ramon Juarez gave his players an option to come to the school’s football field on Saturdays not to work on plays but to learn the fundamentals of football. He had eight players on that first Saturday. However, as each week passed, more players started to attend. In the last week before spring football began, he had 30 players on the field. All that work paid off with a historic win for the program. It’s a lesson that all coaches could learn from.
3) I think that what Mark Carson and his staff at Rio Hondo Prep have done is nothing short of amazing. They played old-school football to win the biggest CIFSS championship in program history. There was no mystery to it; they ran the ball to daylight. It would be a performance that had to make the late Vince Lombardi happy in heaven. He loved nothing better than to run that famous “Green Bay Packer sweep.” The win was for those who love the “old-school” way of playing football: no empty formations or RPO concepts. The Kares just executed a downhill run-oriented football attack. And no one from their program goes on social media and complains about the playoff division they are in. They accept the assignment and perform to the best of their ability. And if you are a wrestler in the area, you can be thankful that RHP doesn’t have a wrestling program because Noah Penunuri, an accomplished boxer, is the biggest badass in the San Gabriel Valley. Don’t believe me; ask anyone who played RHP this season. Friday’s win by Rio Hondo Prep was for the good guys.
4) I think that you can make a case for Rio Hondo Prep to be tabbed as the area's number-one team. They did more than enough, and I don’t see anyone from the area wanting to schedule these guys for the next several years. My top 5: 1) Rio Hondo Prep, 2) Damien, 3) Charter Oak, 4) Bonita, 5) La Serna.
5) I think that area football teams need to start getting out of the echo system that is the San Gabriel Valley and start scheduling some tough nonleague games in 2025. The Calpreps strength of schedule algorithm doesn’t look kindly on the teams in the area. It’s time to do what teams like La Serna and Charter Oak do: schedule top opponents. There is nothing wrong with going to Orange County or the Inland Empire to test yourself. As teams found in 2024, going 10-0 with a local schedule doesn’t mean anything when the playoffs arrive.
One more football column next week.