Mater Dei Sweats Out Victory Over Eisenhower

Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson stood in the middle of the field, shaking his head in disbelief. While his players celebrated a return to the Southern Section Division I final, Rollinson was relieved that the Monarchs were not required to advance on style points.

“That,” Rollinson said, “was ugly.”

With a 28-21 victory Friday over Rialto Eisenhower, Mater Dei (10-2) earned a third consecutive championship game berth against Long Beach Poly. However, as the Monarchs were cruising toward next Saturday’s game at Edison Field, they barely avoided falling into a sinkhole at Santa Ana Stadium.

Eisenhower (10-2) scored 14 points in the final five minutes of the game, forcing Mater Dei to sweat out a needlessly tense outcome.

“When they got interested, we got interesting,” Rollinson said. “The bottom line is, we’re going to the show.

“But, when we scored early, we lost a little bit of our fire. I’m sure we thought it was going to be a runaway.”

That’s exactly what it appeared to be soon after halftime. When Mater Dei running back Junior Palacios scored his second touchdown, the Monarchs led, 28-7, with 7:30 to play in the third quarter. Palacios ran for 122 yards and Matt Grootegoed 121, with Mater Dei quarterback Matt Leinart balancing the offense by completing seven of 13 passes for 126 yards.

The next time Mater Dei had the ball, Eisenhower blocked a field goal. The time after that, Leinart lost a fumble on the Eisenhower one. But so what? By that time, the Eagles had gone more than 23 minutes without a first down.

And surely the Eagles could not come back if forced to pass. They weren’t used to coming back at all--their only previous loss was by one point--and quarterback Idris Moss was used to handing the ball off and watching his running backs run over opponents. That didn’t work against Mater Dei, and Moss completed but three of his first 16 passes, two of those for one yard each.

But, quicker than you could say Long Beach Poly, the Eagles came alive. Moss led a 99-yard drive, including a 26-yard pass to Michael Hawkins and two roughing-the-passer penalties against Mater Dei. After Donta’ Jackson scored on a two-yard run, the Eagles cut the Mater Dei lead to 28-14 with 4:17 to play.

Eisenhower promptly recovered an onside kick, Mario McDowell ran for 20 yards on a busted halfback option, and Moss hit David Kelly for a pair of completions. Moss then threw a seven-yard touchdown pass to Jackson--on fourth down--and the Mater Dei lead was 28-21.

However, the Monarchs managed to recover the ensuing onside kick and run out the clock, and Mater Dei was back in the final.

Just another year at Mater Dei, perhaps, but in atypical fashion: The Monarchs lost two of their first three games, 24-17 to Clovis West and 42-0 to Concord De La Salle, and all of a sudden folks wondered whether Mater Dei was the best team in Orange County, let alone the Southern Section.

Clovis West is a state powerhouse, and you might have heard of De La Salle and its national-record winning streak that hit 100 games Friday.

“When you play good football teams, you’re going to get better or you’re going to go in the toilet,” Rollinson said. “We got better.”