Big win means road trip to Home Depot Center on Saturday

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What’s it like to know you’re going to leave high school with four Southern Section championship rings on your fingers?

‘It’s awesome,’ Oaks Christian QB Chris Potter said. ‘Everyone has worked so hard to get to this point and it’s just an amazing feeling.’

Oaks Christian won its record-tying fifth consecutive division title on Friday night in a 52-7 blowout over Tri-Valley League rival Nordhoff at Newbury Park High. It was one of those rare playoff games -- well, maybe the Birmingham-Carson game falls into this category, too -- that everyone knew from the get-go that one of the teams would be unstoppable. And the Lions were.

Sophomore Malcolm Jones finished with 126 yards and a couple of TDs in 10 carries and the Lions capitalized on Nordhoff turnovers to run up the score.

All that’s left now for the Lions is to hope St. Bonaventure loses to Hart in Saturday’s Northern Division final so they’ll get a berth in the state Division III bowl championship game. And the Lions are going to do everything in their power to make that happen. A large group of Oaks Christian players will be attending the Northern Division final at 4 p.m. at the Home Depot Center, and I wonder who they will be cheering for.

In fact, instead of saying ‘cheese’ when posing for a team shot with their divisional title plaque, the Oaks Christian players shouted, ‘Go Hart!’ You don’t see that too often.

-- Austin Knoblauch