Weekly Football Previews: Crescenta Valley prepares for La Cañada parking madness
An inability to compromise has led to the potential for a parking and traffic mess Friday evening in La Cañada Flintridge.
Neither the La Cañada High football team nor St. Francis moved its nonleague home game this Friday, meaning both schools, located a stone’s throw away from each other, will be hosting games on the same night in an area strapped for parking on a normal game day.
Count Crescenta Valley and its fan base among the collateral damage as the Falcons will travel to face freeway rival La Cañada in another installment of the annual Gordy Warnock Memorial Game.
While the Falcons and Spartans have seen their ups and downs over the last several years, this rivalry has been steady.
Crescenta Valley has won 10 straight contests, including last season’s 51-12 rout, and has posted an average margin of victory of 32.2 points in the last five games of this series. It was 2006 when La Cañada last bested Crescenta Valley, 14-6, at Moyse Field.
The numbers so far this season would suggest a similar outcome Friday as previous years.
Crescenta Valley enters having won 10 consecutive regular season games, a streak that began at last year’s memorial contest.
This season, Crescenta Valley (2-0) is one of three unbeaten Pacific League teams and has posted victories over Florida’s Barron Collier (34-31) and Golden Valley (26-19).
While the passing game hasn’t quite taken off for the Falcons, who are averaging 123 yards per game, the ground attack is chewing up 234.5 yards each contest.
Defensively, Crescenta Valley has registered six sacks and six takeaways.
On the flip side, La Cañada is 0-3 and off to its worst start since 2008. The Spartans dropped contests to Hawthorne (50-12) and Kaiser (55-0) with a forfeit loss to South Hills sandwiched in between.
La Serna at St. Francis, 7 p.m. Friday: As if from a bygone era, the Whittier La Serna Lancers head into Friedman Field with a wing-T offense that wreaks havoc on unsuspecting or unprepared defenses.
But the Golden Knights are plenty familiar with the Lancers. Last season, St. Francis registered a 24-21 victory in Whittier after consecutive postseason losses to La Serna in 2015 and 2014.
The La Serna offense is averaging 174 rushing yards a game with three backs each tallying 22 or more carries.
Senior Alfonso Ibanez leads the team in total yardage (29 carries for 209 yards) and yards per carry (7.2). If there has been a drawback to La Serna’s rushing attack, it’s that the team has fumbled three times already.
On defense, the Lancers (2-1) have a play-making senior safety in Calvin Salcido, who is averaging six tackles a game and has two interceptions.
St. Francis has rolled to a 2-0 record, albeit against teams that have combined for a 0-5 record.
Sophomore Darius Perrantes has shined in two games for the Golden Knights and follows in a line of recent successful transfer quarterbacks at St. Francis in Michael Bonds (2016), Miles Bryant (2015) and Jared Lebowitz (2012).
Perrantes has completed 20 of 34 passes for 539 yards and eight touchdowns versus two interceptions. Senior Greg Dulcich has proven to be a big-play wide receiver in averaging 27.1 yards per catch with three touchdowns.
While the Golden Knights have put up the points, the defense has silently been effective.
St. Francis is coming off a 42-0 shutout win over Pasadena and the team’s tackling will be tested.
Glendale at Acton Vasquez, 7 p.m. Friday: Though only the third game of the season, there’s quite a bit of history on the line for the Nitros.
Hope is high for Glendale and should the Nitros win it would mark the first time the team has won back-to-back games and picked up two nonleague victories since 2013.
A triumph would also put Glendale at 2-1 and above .500 for the first time since the squad won its nonleague season opener over Hoover in 2011. A .500 record past the first week of the season would also be the first for Glendale since 2008.
Glendale (1-1) believes it can win after the squad snapped an eight-game losing streak after routing host East Los Angeles Mendez, 46-14, on Aug. 31.
In that contest, the Nitros received a wonderful effort from senior Anthony Luna, who scored five touchdowns and turned in 188 yards of total offense.
Glendale is coming off a bye and is facing a Vasquez squad it bested, 35-14, last season at Moyse Field.
Vasquez is 1-2 this year with its season-opening 30-0 victory over Lancaser McAuliffe followed by losses to the California School of the Deaf (21-20 score) and Rosamond (44-0).
Glenn vs. Hoover at Moyse Field, 7 p.m. Friday: Maybe no area team is dying to play more than Hoover, which was last on the field Aug. 25.
The Tornadoes are 1-1 this season with a 25-12 on-the-field loss to Campbell Hall followed by a forfeit victory over Sotomayor on Sept. 1. That forfeit was followed by a bye.
Hoover will look to improve upon a turnover-plagued opener in which it committed four giveaways. The Tornadoes did enjoy some rushing success led by Andrew Rangel, who averaged 6.9 yards per carry.
Friday marks the final nonleague game for Hoover, which is pining to finish its second consecutive winning nonleague slate after going 3-0 last year.
Last season, Hoover whipped Glenn in Norwalk, 51-20.
Glenn enters 2-1 with its two wins coming versus 0-3 teams and its one loss against 2-1 Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Flintridge Prep at Cate, 2:30 p.m. Saturday: Perhaps the best game of the weekend is Saturday in eight-man football action.
The Rebels turned in a spectacular effort in rallying to score 30 straight points and stun Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, 37-34, last Friday.
They’ll hope the magic continues when the Rebels (2-1) travel to Carpinteria Cate (0-1) to face a traditionally tough Rams squad.
Last season, the Rams finished the regular season ranked No. 5, while Flintridge Prep was No. 6. Cate defeated Flintridge Prep, 55-48, in La Cañada in a thriller.
The Rams are a member of the vaunted eight-man Mt. Pinos League, which features Villanova Prep, Thacher and Orcutt Academy, which took apart Flintridge Prep, 51-23, in Santa Maria on Sept. 1.
Cate’s lone contest this season was a 43-12 defeat to defending eight-man champion Mojave on Sept. 1.
