Valley Rumbles for National Title

You could call it a title unification matchup. That’s what the battle of the state’s only unbeaten junior college football teams, Valley and Long Beach, amounts to in the Strawberry Bowl at Cerritos College tonight at 7--a royal rumble for the mythical junior college national championship.

Here’s the tale of the tape:

Valley (10-0), the Western State Conference South Division champion, is top-ranked nationally by USA Today and in the state by the J.C. Athletic Bureau. Long Beach (10-0), the Mission Conference Northern Division winner, is ranked No. 1 in the nation by the J.C. Grid-Wire. The Vikings are second in the state.

The game will produce not only an undisputed champion (barring a tie), but will pit two teams on the verge of going through a season undefeated.

Valley has never finished a season unbeaten, and the Vikings did it last in 1964, when they won the Junior Rose Bowl (no longer played) and became national champions.

Neither of the two coaches, Valley’s Jim Fenwick and Long Beach’s Larry Reisbig, have coached undefeated teams or national champions. But Fenwick came close. His Pierce team finished 10-0 in the 1984 regular season and was top-ranked nationally before losing to Taft in the Potato Bowl at Bakersfield.

For the past five seasons at Valley, Fenwick has been laying the foundation for another run at a national title and now only Long Beach, which has won three, stands in the way.

And the Vikings present a sizable roadblock.

“They are big-play players,” Fenwick said. “They have a lot of first downs and second downs, and not a lot of third-down plays.”

The teams look similar offensively. Both use variations of the run-and-shoot, although the Monarchs operate from more formations.

Valley’s no-huddle offense averages 525.6 yards and 48.9 points. Sophomore Aaron Flowers, a transfer from Utah State, has passed for 2,736 yards and 23 touchdowns.

Sophomore David Eastham (52 receptions for 586 yards) leads a group of five receivers with 20 or more receptions.

The Monarchs also feature an efficient running attack sparked by Marcus Harvey (1,017 yards and 16 touchdowns), the school’s first 1,000-yard rusher since 1992, and former Kennedy High standout Elijah Raphael (697 yards and 11 touchdowns), who transferred to Valley from Washington State last season.

“We have to play our level best to contain them,” said Reisbig, a former lineman at Van Nuys High and Pierce who is in his fourth season with the Vikings. “We’ve been off for three weeks and I’m concerned about our timing.”

The Vikings capped the regular season Nov. 11 with a 48-28 victory over Mt. San Antonio, the fifth time they scored 40 or more points. They average 460.4 yards, mostly behind Neo Aoga’s passing.

If he’s rusty the Vikings have problems, but the sophomore hasn’t missed a beat all season.

Aoga, 6 feet 5 and a hefty 265 pounds, has thrown for a school single-season record 3,192 yards with 34 touchdowns.

His primary receivers are Jamar Nailor (40 receptions for 729 yards), Joe Johnson (38 for 709 and 13 touchdowns) and Marquette Wesson (36 for 651).

If the Vikings choose to run, they rely on Shawn Bane (1,037 yards and 10 touchdowns in 130 carries).

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The similarities between the teams end when it comes to defense.

Valley’s defense, underrated and often ignored, allows 296.7 yards per game. Long Beach yields 357.7 yards and the Vikings are particularly vulnerable to the pass (222.4 yards per game).

Fenwick, however, says the numbers are not a true barometer.

“It’s hard to compare statistics because we haven’t had common opponents,” he said. “It’s really, really hard to judge what might happen that way.”