Football: Narbonne routs Crenshaw for City Division I title

Harbor City Narbonne simply had too many weapons for Crenshaw to cope with in the City Section Division I championship game at Cerritos College.

The top-seeded Gauchos (12-2) repeated as champions and won their fifth Division I title under head coach Manuel Douglas with a 57-21 victory.

While the offense was scoring with astonishing efficiency, the defense was forcing turnovers. Crenshaw quarterback Daiyan Henley ran for three touchdowns but was intercepted four times by the Gauchos’ opportunistic secondary.

Narbonne put the game out of reach early in the third quarter when Roman Ale found Arizona-bound running back Sean Riley in stride for a 46-yard touchdown that gave the Gauchos a 43-7 lead.

Kameron Denmark started the scoring spree with a 48-yard touchdown on the fifth play from scrimmage and Devaughn Cooper ended Narbonne’s next drive with a six-yard scoring catch to make it 14-0.

“We practiced hard all week because two years ago it was supposed to be like this and we lost,” Cooper said, referring to Crenshaw’s 20-13 upset in the 2013 Division I final. “We weren’t taking them lightly.”

Henley scrambled for a three-yard touchdown on fourth-and-goal to pull sixth-seeded Crenshaw (9-5) within 14-7 early in the second quarter, but Cooper’s 52-yard kickoff return set up Riley’s 14-yard touchdown run that put the Gauchos ahead 21-7 three minutes later.

After Jamal Hicks returned an interception deep into Crenshaw territory, Ale rolled right and found Cooper wide open in the end zone from 23 yards out and Vincent Heard ran for the two-point conversion to extend Narbonne’s lead to 29-7.

“It’s always great to win -- especially in an environment like this,” Ale said. “We played our game and executed on both sides of the ball.”

Henley scored on a keeper from the 1-yard line midway through the third quarter and added a 30-yard touchdown run with 45 seconds left for the Cougars, who were making their third finals appearance in four years.

Denmark scored his second touchdown on a 20-yard run to make it 50-14 with 18 seconds left in the third quarter. A running clock was used in the fourth quarter.

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