Players at Edison of Huntington Beach earned their school’s first-ever CIF regional title on Saturday night and will now look to win a first-ever state title during essentially an All-Orange County doubleheader next Saturday with Mater Dei in the Open Division. Photo: Fernando M. Donado / For OC Sports Zone.
Edison of Huntington Beach opened its season with a loss to a Fresno team but now the Chargers can end it with a win over a Fresno team to win the CIF D1-A state title. Both the Chargers and Central of Fresno won in their regional finals on Saturday night. A new school in just its third varsity season, meanwhile, will be in the CIF D2-A state final. We also have breakdowns of Palos Verdes winning CIF SoCal D2-A title, two schools from Tuolumne County both earning state title shots (there only three public high schools in that county) and another big win by Rio Hondo Prep.
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CIF State Championship games will be played next week at sites in Southern California — Saddleback College (Mission Viejo), Veterans Stadium (Long Beach) & Fullerton District Stadium.
The Open Division championship (in which there are no regional games beforehand) will be next Saturday, Dec. 14 at 8 p.m. at Saddleback between state No. 1 Mater Dei of Santa Ana (12-0) and state No. 4 De La Salle of Concord (12-0). Saddleback also will be hosting the CIF state title games for D2-AA and D1-AA on Friday, Dec. 13 and then D2-A and D1-A on Saturday, Dec. 14.
Divisions 3-AA, 3-A, 4-AA, 4-A and 5-A will be at Veterans Stadium. Just as at Saddleback, the AA games are Friday withe the A games on Saturday.
Divisions 5-AA, 6-AA, 6-A, 7-AA and 7-A will be at Fullerton. Again, all AA games are Friday, all A games are Saturday.
DIVISION 1–A
North: Central of Fresno (Central Sec D1-AA) 33, St. Ignatius of San Francisco (CCS Open) 22
The host Grizzlies bolted out to a 20-0 lead, but it was anything but easy against an SI squad well-known around the Bay Area for second half comebacks. Central also led 26-7 in the second quarter, but on the first play of the fourth quarter a 3-yard TD pass from Soren Hummel to Zul Shelton pulled the Wildcats to within 26-23. Brandon Smith then scored his fifth touchdown of the night on a reception as Central re-assumed the two-score lead. Gerald Perry then came up with an interception to seal the win.
Smith was the story of the night. His 60-yard strip sack, fumble return for a touchdown in the second quarter pushed Central out to a 20-0 lead. The junior RB/DB, who is moving up the charts among top all-state candidates in the junior class, had three TDs rushing plus the TD catch to account for his five scores. Xavier Jones also had a long punt return that set up a score. St. Ignatius QB Soren Hummel battled all night and had a fourth down 1-yard TD run to go with the TD pass.
Head coach Kyle Biggs’ team (12-2, No. 17 in latest State TOP 50 rankings) will now face Edison of Huntington Beach next Saturday for the state title. It will be the game that precedes the Open Division clash between Mater Dei and De La Salle. St. Ignatius (10-3) is under the guidance of head coach Lenny Vandermade, a former Mater Dei all-state player.
South: Edison of Huntington Beach (CIFSS D3) 34, Granite Hills of El Cajon (SD D1) 28
This game marked Edison’s third attempt to win a regional title to reach a CIF state final and this time the Chargers advanced after losses in 2012 and 2016. They had to beat a team that has won three straight San Diego Section titles, including the Open Division just last year.
Senior RB Julius Gillick powered through the Eagles’ defense for 240 yards on 39 carries (according to the Orange County Register) and he scored three times. Gillick was back after having to sit out the CIFSS D3 final vs Simi Valley for receiving two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the previous game. The Chargers (12-3, No. 22 in the state) also continued to get strong play from sophomore QB Sam Thomson, who has stepped up after senior Save Niumata went down with an injury.
Granite Hills has its own star running back in Maxwell Turner. He scored on a short run to help get the Eagles back into range after they had fallen behind 34-14 in the third quarter. After teammate Parker Vance recovered a fumble, Turner’s third TD of the game pulled Granite Hills to with within 34-28 and the team then got a stop and had a chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter. That’s when Edison’s Matt Lopez snagged an interception with 2:22 left in the game to halt the comeback. Granite Hills wrapped up an 11-3 season and may fall just out of the top 25 in the State TOP 50 rankings that we’ve done every week for many years.
CIF NorCal D2-A title plaque gets raised by players and coaches at Twelve Bridges on Saturday. Photo: Jordan Georgeson / Gold Country Media.
DIVISION 2–A
North: Twelve Bridges of Lincoln (SJS D4) 28, Wilcox of Santa Clara (CCS D2) 27
Placing the 14-0 Raging Rhinos in D2-A ended up as the correct placement. They obviously didn’t face a badly out-classed foe like the ones they they did in the SJS D4 playoffs. And while Wilcox did get a win over league rival Los Gatos and Los Gatos had two wins in the CCS D1 playoffs, the Chargers did not show they were far superior, either. It went just right. A close matchup that went down to final seconds.
The visiting Chargers (11-3) had a shot to pull off the win in the final seconds, but a 46-yard field goal attempt fell short of the crossbar. Twelve Bridges had taken its 28-27 lead with 5:03 left on a 2-yard TD run by Braeden Ward. Wilcox had the lead at 27-22 late in the third quarter on a 2-yard TD by Brayden Rosa. The Chargers had fallen behind 22-13 just after halftime but scored the first of two straight TDs on a 80-yard bolt by Rosa.
Twelve Bridges is only in its third year of existence and obviously will be in its first CIF state final. In winning on Saturday, head coach Chris Bean’s team also joined Carmel from Friday in remaining unbeaten. The only other two unbeaten teams left in the state are the two Open Division entrants – Mater Dei in the south and De La Salle in the north.
South: Palos Verdes of PV Estates (CIFSS D5) 28, Bakersfield Christian (Central Sec D2) 10
The score of this game was not representative of how tough and hard-nosed it went for both teams for most of the night. BC actually led 10-7 at halftime and it was still 14-10 until the middle of the fourth quarter until Andrew Habif scored on a 9-yard run for a 21-10 lead for the Sea Kings. It went to 28-10 on a 50-yard interception return TD by Jake Demoss in the game’s final minutes.
The Palos Verdes defense stifled the Eagles in the second half and only allowed 50 total yards, according to the South Bay Daily Breeze. Bakersfield Christian had a 7-0 lead early on a 23-yard TD pass from Lincoln Adame to Ethan Echols. The Eagles took their 10-7 lead at halftime on a 47-yard field goal by Cohen Peters. The Sea Kings grabbed their first lead in the third quarter at 14-10 after a 31-yard TD run by Ryan Rakowski. He also had the team’s first TD on a 1-yard run and continued to show poise and leadership as the starting QB for the second year. Rakowski was the QB as a freshman last year when PV went 10-0 in the regular season, but that team had to play up in the CIFSS D2 playoffs and lost in the first round. The team that the Sea Kings lost to? It was Mission Viejo, which went on to win the CIF D1-AA state title.
DIVISION 3–A
North: Vanden of Fairfield (SJS D3) 28, Pleasant Valley of Chico (Northern Sec D2) 14
After their 49-35 win from the week before vs Oakdale to win their section title, the victorious Vikings (12-2) had their offense cooking again. QB Kalani McLeod had perhaps his best outing of the season and completed 28 of 32 passes for 462 yards and four TDs. He went to Chris Clark seven times for 150 yards and two of the scores. Head coach Mike Clark’s team, which won a CIF state title at home in 2021 vs Aquinas of San Bernardino, will now head down to SoCal for a shot to win the school’s second. Despite the yards given up, host Pleasant Valley not only stayed in the game but tied the score at 14-14 in the third quarter on a 5-yard TD run by Titus Andrus. PV’s other TD came on a reception from Arkansas-signed tight end Gavin Garretson. The team’s final record will be 8-4.
South: Rio Hondo Prep of Arcadia (CIFSS D7) 28, Poway (SD D2) 14
Every reporter in every playoff game that the Kares play looks up the enrollments of their opponents. And so do we. For this one, the school with 71 boys took on 2,200-strong Poway in a regional final and while it wasn’t as easy as some of its more recent wins it was still a solid win. Rio Hondo Prep (13-1) will now try to win its first-ever CIF state title and can end as the No. 1 small schools team in the state, according to our own small schools state rankings. Noah Penunuri rushed for 169 yards on 27 carries and scored twice to lead the offense. QB Yanick Diaz threw a few more times this week and had a TD pass to Nate Curtis. Poway (6-7) scored first on a 8-yard run by Luke Jorgensen. A 7-yard TD pass from Ty Hurst to Colin McCann with 5:52 left gave the Titans some hope, but the Kares then recovered an onside kick.
Sonora QB Eli Ingalls breaks through the Kerman defense during CIF NorCal D4-A regional championship played Saturday. Photo: Shaun Holkko / Union Democrat.
DIVISION 4–A
North: Sonora (SJS D6) 63, Kerman (Central Sec D3) 28
Dunlavy Stadium at Sonora is well-known for its historic downtown location and natural placement of the main grandstand on the side of a hill. It may be the home of a CIF state champion, but that won’t be known for another week. The Wildcats (12-2) booked their ticket to next week’s state finals in SoCal by being unstoppable in the regional final. Sonora had not won a regional final before. Known as a run-heavy offense, QB Eli Ingalls had a 56-yard TD pass to Brody Speer and a 56-yard TD pass to Cash Byington. Speer also had a fumble recovery and three rushing TDs. Jonathan Curran had a long kickoff return to set up a score plus two interceptions on defense. Kerman (12-3) tried to hang close behind QB Adrian Torres. He had a 52-yard rushing score and threw for a pair of TDs.
South: St. Pius X-St. Matthias of Downey (CIFSS D8) 28, St. Augustine of San Diego (SD D3) 7
This is that matchup that had many talking around the state since it was between a St. Pius X squad that went 1-9 in the regular season and a St. Augustine team that was 0-10. One of them was going to have a shot at a state title and that team will be the Warriors. They had too much offense behind QB Jassi Williams, who passed for 240 yards and three TDs. Trayce Mallard’s 29-yard interception return TD also helped break it open. Head coach Devan Thomas’ squad will now aim to win the school’s first-ever CIF state title. Pai Polamalu, sophomore son of NFL great Troy Polamalu, scored the only TD for Saints (4-11) on a 3-yard run with eight seconds left in the game.
DIVISION 5–A
North: American Canyon (NCS D5) 43, Lassen of Susanville (Northern Sec D2) 20
Lassen scored first on a 7-yard TD run by Dathen Moore, but it was the only lead of the game that the Grizzlies had and it only lasted a few seconds. Jaylen Hudson took the ensuing kickoff and ran it back for a 99-yard TD. Mason Harris then took over the game for American Canyon as the dual-threat QB had three TD passes, including two that pushed the lead to 21-6. Harris later scored on a 89-yard run and had two rushing TDs and five total TDs on the night. The Wolves (12-2) have never won a CIF state football title. Moore later caught an 80-yard TD pass for Lassen, which finished 10-4.
South: Palmdale (CIFSS D12) 41, Selma (Central Sec D5) 38
The victorious Falcons, like American Canyon, also have never won a CIF state title. They won in their regional final by powering out to a 14-0 lead at halftime and kept answering Selma touchdowns in the second half with ones of their own. The Bears (9-6) cut the score to 28-22, 34-30 and then 41-38, but they couldn’t get stops when they needed to and couldn’t recover an onside kick when it had to get one. Palmdale improved to 10-5 overall.
DIVISION 6–A
North: Summerville of Tuolumne (SJS D7) 45, Sacred Heart Prep of Atherton (CCS D4) 28
The host Gators on Saturday afternoon pulled off some creative play-calling to stay within range of the Bears, but in the end they just couldn’t get the stops on defense. Head coach Sean Leveroos’ team went up and down the field all day and will now play for the school’s first-ever CIF state title. Leading the Bears (13-1) was Bryce Leveroos, the head coach’s son. He rushed for five touchdowns and he tossed a 13-yard TD pass to Luke Larson. SHP’s Wyatt Palmer had 63-yard and 58-yard TD catches on two trick plays. Sasha Bamdad also rushed for two TDs and had a 60-yard run that set up the team’s first score. The Gators finished 7-7 on the season.
South: Monte Vista of Spring Valley (SD D5) 41, Pasadena (CIFSS D13) 21
This was the stat star game of the night as both teams put up big totals. For Monte Vista (9-5), it has state rushing leader Alex Villanueva and while he only had 33 carries for 145 yards and one TD, he had one of the most amazing interception returns you could ever see. It was a 97-yarder in which he reversed direction several times and fought through numerous tacklers. Stats from the San Diego Union-Tribune also had Monarchs’ QB Derrick Taylor with 235 yards passing (8 of 10 attempts) and rushing for three 1-yard TDs plus Rahshawn Florence with five receptions for 206 yards. Pasadena (8-7) countered with QB Dutch Burbridge, who ended 28 of 42 for 409 yards and three TDs. C.J. Solis-Lumar of the Bulldogs also had 12 receptions for 180 yards and one score.
DIVISION 7–A
North: Balboa of San Francisco (SF) 41, Los Molinos (Northern Sec D4) 6
This was a 6-6 deadlock at halftime, but it all Bal in the second half. A 12-yard TD by Rylan Thien-Jones broke the tie in the third quarter and then it just became a snowball. Jerrold Anderson, Balboa’s 6-foot-4, 220-pound defensive end, had a pick six that really turned the tide. Mekai Smith scored in the first half and added two more TDs in the second half. The Buccaneers (8-5) will be looking to win their second state title next week. Los Molinos fell to 8-6 to end the season.
South: Pioneer of Whittier (CIFSS D14) 24, Panorama of Panorama City (LA City D3) 0
The Titans (9-5) kept the Pythons in check all night and will now head to their first-ever CIF state title game appearance. The final nail in the coffin was a scoop and score touchdown on defense by Darean Bullard. Pioneer’s two offensive touchdowns were from Jose Rojas and Damian Salguero. Panorama wrapped up an 8-7 campaign.
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