Mater Dei Is Back in Title Game

The Mater Dei Monarchs are one game away from fulfilling the goal they set for themselves this summer, winning back-to-back Division I football championships.

Having scored a hard-fought, 28-14 victory over La Puente Bishop Amat before an estimated 6,000 at Citrus College, the top-ranked and top-seeded Monarchs (13-0) will play the winner of tonight’s Long Beach Poly-Los Angeles Loyola game next Saturday at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Mater Dei notched its 27th consecutive victory by exploiting three key Lancer turnovers en route to a 28-0 halftime lead, then withstood a second-half Bishop Amat surge and some of their own self-destructive urges (seven penalties for 75 yards) to reach the final.

Bishop Amat ends its season at 11-2.

“I’m excited to be back in the championship game,” Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson said. “We started talking about the chance to repeat after last year’s championship game and made it a goal. We said we did not want to rest until the 14th of December.

“We’ll get to enjoy this one for about a half-hour. Whoever we play next week will be a giant buzz saw.”

Senior Mater Dei receiver Joey Boese, one of the few players who played in last year’s 17-10 Division I final victory over Loyola, said the return trip will be sweeter this time “because I am a senior and you remember everything you do your senior year the rest of your life.”

But the Lancers, missing starting tailback Mike Wagner (hip) and starting quarterback Sean Kolle (shoulder) because of injury, did not go down easy.

Sophomore quarterback Chris Rix--who completed five of 19 passes for 171 yards and confounded the Monarchs with some key third-down scrambling runs--rallied Bishop Amat to a pair of third-quarter scores on the 60-yard touchdown pass to Dennis Wyrick and a one-yard Wyrick run.

The Lancers ultimately could not overcome their early errors: two interceptions by Rix (one returned for a 46-yard touchdown by Monarch quarterback Alex Romero) and a lost fumble at their 13-yard line.

Mater Dei turned the three miscues into 21 points.

“The first half, Mater Dei really took it to us,” Lancer Coach Tom Salter said. “I told them in the second half we would find out what we were made of and they showed it.”

The last thing Salter wanted Bishop Amat to be involved with was a scoreboard shootout with Mater Dei.

* FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS, C11