PREP FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS : SOUTHEASTERN : Diamond Bar vs. Charter Oak : Brahmas, Chargers Are Both Unbeaten

Coach Lou Farrar of Covina Charter Oak High School and Coach Terry Roche of Diamond Bar have taken different roads to the Southern Section’s Southeastern Conference title game, yet both are unbeaten and both have arrived at the same place.

The teams will take a combined 25-0 record into Friday night’s championship game at 7:30 at Mt. San Antonio College.

In a season when many of the favored teams have stumbled in the playoffs, top-seeded Charter Oak (12-0) and second-seeded Diamond Bar (13-0) have delighted Southern Section officials by bearing out its official polls. Still, it wasn’t a stroll down the primrose path for either coach, despite the top rankings.

Last season, Farrar was the coach at Royal Oak High. When the Charter Oak Unified School District decided to close Royal Oak and combine the enrollments of the two schools at Charter Oak, Farrar became just another applicant for the vacant coaching position at the new school.

A 1964 graduate of Charter Oak, Ferrar had the difficult task of piecing together a football team from players used to different life styles. Farrar said that the student bodies of the separate schools were as different as the set of railroad tracks dividing them would indicate.

“We had some (fired up) practices in the beginning,” he said.

But the combined enrollment has its advantages. Charter Oak will start 21 seniors Friday night. The team has recorded three shutouts and has allowed opponents just six points a game.

The Chargers have rarely been tested this season. They have breezed through the playoffs with victories of 37-8 over Cajon, 33-14 over Montclair and 48-8 over Arroyo.

Diamond Bar, meanwhile, in just four years on the varsity level, has quickly earned a reputation as a fierce competitor. Its 27-game winning streak is the second longest in the state and the school has advanced to a Southern Section final the last three seasons. The team is defending its title this season.

The Brahmas have scored a state-record 639 points and are 40-10-1 since gaining varsity status.

But Roche said he didn’t expect to be playing for the Southeastern Conference title this season.

“Last year we had a tremendous season,” he said at a press conference earlier in the week. “We graduated everyone but four kids.

“If someone had said I’d be back at this luncheon today, I would have said, ‘You’re nuts.’ ”

Roche said his team in August was “as green as the grass” and says now that the Brahmas have not played any team this season as good as Charter Oak.

“We’re in real deep Friday night,” he said.

But the pollsters are happy.