St. Monica Bruises Calabasas With Its Inside Game, 42-22

With about nine minutes remaining in Friday’s Southern Section Division XI football semifinal between Calabasas and St. Monica at St. Bernard High, Calabasas linebacker Amir Naghdall strode up and down the Coyote sideline, exhorting his teammates.

“Come on guys, the game’s not over!” Naghdall shouted.

But it was, and with it the Coyotes’ season as St. Monica used a bruising rushing attack to seize a 42-22 victory and advance to next week’s final against the winner of tonight’s game between St. Bernard and Carpinteria.

Davion Doby’s third rushing touchdown, moments before Naghdall made his plea, gave St. Monica a 35-14 lead and capped a 12-play, 67-yard drive in which Doby rushed 11 times for 67 yards.

St. Monica added an insurance touchdown with 4:34 to play on a three-yard run by backup DeAngelo Bijole and Calabasas struck for a four-yard touchdown pass from Dallas Enoch to Matt Getz with 18 left. But the outcome was decided earlier and in the trenches.

“They were more physical than us in the pit and that’s the bottom line of any game,” Calabasas Coach Larry Edwards said. “It became a game of field position and unfortunately both teams were starting drives fairly deep in our territory.”

Doby, a 6-foot, 190-pound senior, carried 37 times for 207 yards and the three touchdowns. The Mariners (8-3-1) also got a pair of touchdown passes from Chris Griffin to James Dunn.

“We’re a physical team and we’ve worked on it even more in the playoffs,” Doby said. “Our linemen did extra practice and extra running this week.”

Trailing, 28-7, at halftime, Calabasas used its first possession of the second half to drive 76 yards in 13 plays and cut the lead to 28-14 with 3:37 remaining in the third quarter. Enoch threw a 22-yard pass to Mike Armacost for the score.

“I thought we had a shot there to scramble back into the game,” Edwards said, shaking his head.

St. Monica outgained Calabasas, 335 yards to 222. Enoch completed 11 of 22 for 146 yards and two touchdowns and had a pass intercepted. Armacost led the Coyotes with 47 yards rushing in 11 attempts.

St. Monica opened the scoring on its first possession, and Calabasas (9-3-1) answered with a 79-yard, nine-play scoring drive of its own. The march was capped with an eight-yard touchdown run by Drew Coppola. Matt Berstein added the first of his two conversion kicks for a 7-7 tie with 1:26 remaining in the first quarter.

St. Monica, which avenged a regular-season loss to the Coyotes, scored on each of its next three possessions, finishing them with a four-yard run by Doby and 10- and eight-yard passes from Griffin to Dunn, all for touchdowns.