Defensive tackles Tomuhini Topui and Semi Taulanga have both scored offensive touchdowns this season for Mater Dei (Semi’s in this week’s game). Photo: Mark Tennis.
Paced by the most disruptive front seven on defense that perhaps no high school team has ever had and an offense that has been getting more dynamic every week since the start of the season, state and national No. 1 Mater Dei of Santa Ana turned its annual regular season showdown game against No. 2 St. John Bosco on Friday night into a 59-14 blowout. It’s not likely that first-year head coach Raul Lara is going to allow any overconfidence or backsliding, either.
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You know your football team is having a bad night when the biggest cheer from your team’s side of the field comes from them reacting to a baseball game that they are watching on their phones.
Such was the night that state No. 2 St. John Bosco of Bellflower had on Friday night at Santa Ana Stadium as it fell under a dizzying series of big plays from the squad at No. 1 Mater Dei by a 59-14 score that included a running clock at the end. It was actually 45-0 at halftime when folks on both sides of the stadium reacted to the walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning of Game 1 in the World Series by Freddie Freeman of the Los Angeles Dodgers against the New York Yankees.
Almost all of the big games since Mater Dei and St. John Bosco began their current run of dominance in the state in 2016 have been as closely contested as the Dodgers and Yankees played in their game. Even last year when the Braves had their 28-0 win over the Monarchs it didn’t get to be a three- or four-score game until later in the second half. This game saw Mater Dei in front 31-0 in the second quarter.
Mater Dei’s defense played similarly last season down the stretch in a 35-7 win over St. John Bosco in the CIF Southern Section D1 championship that avenged the earlier loss and then in a 35-0 shutout of San Mateo Serra in the CIF Open Division state final. But there are a few new players in new spots, of course, and a new head coach with Raul Lara taking over from Frank McManus. This version causes even more havoc with Tomuhini Topui and Semi Taulanga at tackle and then there’s three-year standout Nasir Wyatt on one side of them on the edge with junior Shaun Scott on the other side. Graduated DB Zabien Brown is already starring at Alabama, but the DBs still on the field at Mater Dei seem to be just as talented. The LB corps is led by Abduall Sanders (committed to Alabama).
Getting pictures of Mater Dei players, such as QB Dash Beierly, is easy when they are all standing side-by-side during the school’s alma-mater song at the end of each game. Photo: Mark Tennis / Cal-Hi Sports.
In this game, the defense scored twice, first on a 45-yard interception by sophomore Aryn Washington in the second quarter and later on a 6-yard fumble return by Wyatt. It didn’t help Bosco’s cause that freshman QB Koa Malauu’ulu had a tough time throwing into tight windows. The Braves had four turnovers on the night.
Lara had extremely talented teams during his tenure as the head coach at Long Beach Poly from 2001 to 2013 and admitted that this team at Mater Dei is even at another level than any of those teams.
“No doubt,” he said. “The only comparisons might be to my first team there in 2001. It’s just pretty remarkable what these guys can do.”
In watching that front four, we’d say the duo of Topui and Taulanga would be, in fact, the most impressive duo of defensive tackles that we’ve ever seen in the 46 years of watching California prep football. It would not even be a stretch to say that the first four on that line could comprise the entire first team on the upcoming all-state football team with no one else with them.
“It may be even more than just those four because a couple of the guys backing them up and also getting in there and are way up there as well,” Lara said. “The front end of our defense is just so tenacious. They get after it on every play.”
While the Mater Dei offense with Chaparral of Temecula transfer Dash Beierly had a slow start in its first couple of games, that unit was clicking on Friday right up there along with the defense. Beierly finished 20 of 26 passing for 309 yards and four TDs and avoided getting sacked like a magician. The only time that Bosco standout Dutch Horisk came through cleanly toward him, Beierly calmly dumped the ball to senior running back Jordon Davison right to the every spot where Horisk came from. Davison had 16 carries for 107 yards and one TD on the night running ball plus two catches for 35 yards.
The tide turned for the Monarchs and for good on the third play of the game when Malauu’ulu completed a pass to Daniel Odom that went for 19 yards, but Odom had the ball stripped as he was being tackled and it was recovered by Mater Dei’s Daryus Dixon. Then on their first offensive play, Beierly handed the ball to Davison, who then flicked the ball back to him and then Beierly threw a 35-yard TD pass to Kayden Dixon-Wyatt.
“It was just very fun to be out there and be a part of it,” said Davison, our 2022 State Sophomore the Year who suffered a leg injury early in last year’s regular season game vs the Braves and wasn’t really healthy for the rest of the season. “We came out and balled as a team. Everybody played great.”
Bosco went 3-and-out on its second series and then the Monarchs drove for a 23-yard field goal by Joseph Gutierrez. That 11-0 lead (there was a two-point conversion after the first TD) then extended to 17-0 on Mater Dei’s third possession on a two-yard plunge by Davison.
Head coach Jason Negro shakes hands with coaches from Mater Dei after the end of Friday’s game. Photo: Mark Tennis.
With the score at 25-0, Washington then scored on his pick six and the game surely was over at that point at 31-0 and still with about half of the second quarter to play. Beierly then had two TD passes to close the dizzying display by the Monarchs in the first half.
After the Monarchs punted for the first time to start the third quarter, the Braves finally broke through on a 71-yard scoring run by sophomore Maliq Allen. Mater Dei made it 52-7 on a 22-yard TD pass from Beierly to sophomore TE Mark Bowman with three minutes left in the period and then it went to 59-7 on the TD by Wyatt. Bosco scored the final TD of the game with 8:07 left on a 6-yard pass from Maluu’ulu to Odom.
We looked up lopsided losses in St. John Bosco history at halftime through MaxPreps and there certainly was nothing like this since head coach Jason Negro took over the program in 2010. If 59-7 had held up and it wasn’t 59-14, it would have been the worst loss for the Braves since a 56-7 loss to Valencia in 2007. Other scores in school history before MaxPreps in 2004 were not available on Friday night.
“It was like an avalanche,” Negro told Eric Sondheimer of the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not what we expected.”
It may be expected, however, that Mater Dei is going to be doing this to the rest of the teams it plays starting next week vs Lutheran of Orange and then in the CIFSS D1 playoffs and finally in the CIF Open Division state final. The tricky part will be for the players to not think that way.
“We always concentrate on getting better every day and nothing else,” Lara said.
“We are just going to treat every week the same and we are going to respect all of our opponents,” Davison said.
The Braves will close their regular season next week at home vs JSerra of San Juan Capistrano. They will do that very likely no longer in the No. 2 spot in the state rankings, but at No. 3 with unbeaten Mission Viejo moving up to second. They’d still be in front of No. 4 Orange Lutheran for having a head-to-head win over the Lancers. The difference in the CIFSS D1 playoffs this season is that while the No. 1 seed looks untouchable, the No. 2 seed (either Bosco or Mission Viejo) could face big challenges right away.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
