Turnovers lead to St. Francis loss to Cathedral in battle for Angelus

LOS ANGELES — It was going to be a challenge for the St. Francis High football team to defeat talented Los Angeles Cathedral High under the best of circumstances.

Unfortunately for the Golden Knights, they were far from perfect in Friday evening’s Angelus League title tilt in downtown L.A.

St. Francis committed four turnovers that directly led to 17 points and was unable to rally late in a 24-17 victory for the Phantoms.

With the win, CIF Southern Section Division III third-ranked Cathedral (9-0, 4-0 in league) clinched a share of a second straight league crown, while No. 4 St. Francis (8-1, 3-1) slipped into second place.

Both teams finish off the regular season Friday and the Golden Knights would need to defeat St. Paul and have Harvard-Westlake upset Cathedral to take a share of the title, with the latter seemingly unlikely.

“That’s one of the things that we pride ourselves on, winning the turnover battle and winning special teams and we didn’t do either,” said St. Francis Coach Jim Bonds, whose squad is 5-2 versus Cathedral since both joined the same league in 2010. “You know we had a turnover on special teams and a turnover on first down at the end. You can’t do that in a league championship game.”

Despite all of the Golden Knights’ issues, the squad was still within striking distance, down, 24-17, with the ball at its 25-yard line with 5:07 remaining.

St. Francis drove to the Cathedral 34, aided by a timely helmet-to-helmet penalty against the Phantoms on fourth down, when the squad was faced with a third and eight.

Golden Knights quarterback Michael Bonds, who completed 21 of 37 passes for 172 yards and two touchdowns with one interception, threw deep into the end zone and had a pass hit his receiver’s hands before falling dead.

While not a technically a drop, St. Francis receivers did not help Bonds on Friday as they dropped five passes.

On fourth down, the Golden Knights turned the ball over on downs with 1:08 left on an incompletion near the St. Francis sideline.

With two timeouts, St. Francis forced one last punt from Cathedral, which shot itself in the foot with a delay of game and unsportsmanlike penalty called against it before the punt attempt.

The eventual punt bounced off the hands of St. Francis’ returner and was recovered by Cathedral to seal the game.

“This is what we’ve been doing all year, creating turnovers,” Cathedral Coach Kevin Pearson said. “Our deal was to come out here and win a championship by playing as error free as we could, while creating turnovers. That’s been our formula all season.”

The specials teams gaffe was the second in the second half for the Golden Knights, who fumbled the opening kickoff of the third quarter, which was recovered by Oregon State-bound Jeffrey Manning Jr.

Cathedral turned the turnover into points on a two-yard touchdown run from Colin Payne that put the Phantoms ahead, 10-3, with 10:44 left in the third.

After a St. Francis punt, Cathedral struck again on a one-yard touchdown run from quarterback Andrew Tovar that was set up on a 32-yard pass from Tovar to wide receiver Arex Flemings (nine catches for 113 yards). The score put the Phantom ahead, 17-3, midway through the third.

St. Francis battled back, though, first with a three-yard touchdown pass from Bonds to Gabriel Mathews on a deflected fourth-down pass.

That touchdown was followed by another scoring pass from Bonds to Mathews, this one from 32 yards with 8:51 left in the fourth quarter that knotted the score at 17.

Cathedral pushed its way to the St. Francis six-yard line before it was stopped on a third and goal. A subsequent chip shot field goal was then blocked by the Golden Knights.

The momentum change was brief, however, as Bonds was picked off on the first play of St. Francis’ ensuing drive by Manning Jr.

A personal foul against the Golden Knights moved the ball to the St. Francis 10 and Cathedral scored two plays later on a five-yard pass from Bryce Young to U.S. Army All-American Jamire Calvin with 5:14 left that put the Phantom ahead for good, 24-17.

“Turning the ball over, that’s what killed us,” Michael Bonds said. “We tied the game, blocked a kick and then I throw an interception. That’s a total momentum-changer and I take full responsibility for that. That can’t happen.”

It was a low-scoring first half in which the game was tied at 3 at the break.

The Golden Knights’ Dulles Hanula converted a 25-yard field with 26.2 seconds left in the first quarter to put St. Francis up, 3-0.

On its next possession, St. Francis reached the Cathedral eight-yard line when an end-around was fumbled at the two and recovered by Phantoms senior Yohan Ranaivo at his team’s four.

That mistake was converted into a game-tying 42-yard field goal at the four-minute mark in the second quarter.