Golden West football advances to state championship
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Golden West College’s dream of a football season rolls on to the finish, one more test to conquer — the biggest yet, by far — in an unexpected bid for the state junior college championship.
The top-ranked Rustlers romped into the title game with a surprisingly simple 33-15 victory Saturday afternoon over visiting Saddleback, claiming the Southern California crown greatly through an often-dominant defensive display and the dynamic passing partnership that it fed.
Golden West (12-0), which will face defending state champion San Mateo (11-1) on Saturday at Orange Coast College’s LeBard Stadium, scored on all but one meaningful possession — four times through Mattheo Zavala field goals, the third after Kekama Cosma blocked a punt — to open a 23-7 lead by halftime after limiting the Bobcats to 7 yards on their first 15 snaps.
The Rustlers relied on quarterback Kauna’oa Kamakawiwo’ole’s connection with receiver Tanner Schmidt — eight completions for 166 yards, 120 of that and a touchdown before the break — to reach the program’s first state final.
Head coach Nick Mitchell was stunned and not fully surprised. Golden West has been among SoCal’s top teams since the pandemic, and he’d been to the regional final before, in 2021. But this time the Rustlers are perfect, the only unbeaten left in California, and have been atop the JC Athletic Bureau’s coaches rankings the past month.
They’ve never done anything like that before.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Mitchell, in his 20th year at Golden West, a middling program, sometimes worse, through most of its 57 seasons. “I mean, when I got here, to think that we’d be playing for state? I honestly thought that we could get to that point, I just didn’t know if we’d ever be able to get the good-enough players. And [get the] timing right, however it works out.
“It was a good year for us to be playing well and be well-balanced, and we took care of business each week.”
The Rustlers’ defense, led by linebacker Brandon Soleau and defensive backs Rob Andrus and Drew Faulkner, allowed Saddleback, which had run for more than 250 yards (en route to 48-plus points) in four of their past five games, a season-low 113 yards rushing, 62 of them on quarterback Tyler Dudden’s scrambles. Mitchell called it “nuts.”
“We did not think that we were going to be able to stop the run as well as we did, because they’ve been putting 230 yards on people,” he said. “But they hadn’t played us, and we’re really good at stopping the run.”
The Rustlers, who are a perfect 11-0 this season, host Saddleback on Saturday at noon. Coach Nick Mitchell gets misty-eyed just thinking about the 20-year journey that led up to this moment.
Kamakawiwo’ole spread the ball among seven receivers in a 14-for-21, 216-yard, two-score first half. He hooked up with Schmidt five times for 120 yards in that span, three of them most notable: a spectacular, 38-yard grab to set up Zavala’s second field goal; a 29-yarder on third-and-21 four plays before Will McKissick’s touchdown catch made it 13-0; and a 31-yard end-zone grab to answer Saddleback’s first touchdown.
His numbers this year: 1,183 yards and 16 touchdowns on 61 receptions.
“We probably should have just threw it to Tanner every time,” Mitchell said. “You’ve got to spread it around, but why wouldn’t you just throw it to him every time, right? He just did his Tanner stuff.”
His first big catch, with a 3-0 lead, defied logic. He was draped by two defenders, one of whom appeared to have intercepted the pass. When they hit the ground, the ball was in Schmidt’s hands.
“I didn’t even see the one where he jumped up over two [Saddleback players],” Mitchell said. “I thought they picked it off. I heard, ‘interception,’ and I turned around. Apparently, he somehow got it. That’s Tanner.”
The Rustlers were nearly unstoppable to start. They cut down Saddleback (10-2) on its first three possessions, driving into the red zone after each. Zavala finished off the first two, and McKissick the third with a walk-in 14-yard catch for a 13-0 lead about three and a half minutes into the second quarter.
Another three-and-out followed, the Bobcats pushed back from their 21-yard line to the Saddleback 6, but a dead-ball, personal-foul penalty after the third-down stop provided their initial first down. Another followed with a defensive-holding call, leading to a 45-yard Dudden-to-wide-open-Niko Lopez pass, and Kavaughn Clark scored the first of his two touchdowns two plays later.
Saddleback’s other score came from a 17-play, eight-minute march that began after the Rustlers’ lone punt at the start of the second half. They responded with Zavala’s fourth field goal two plays into the fourth quarter and Aaron Mitchell’s touchdown run the following possession. It was over after Faulkner’s interception with 3:17 to go.
San Mateo, which routed Modesto, 38-7, in Saturday’s Northern California final, is looking for its third state title in four years. This will be its sixth final in eight seasons. The Bulldogs, who are sending players to Oregon, Alabama, Boise State, San Diego State and New Mexico next year, are right behind the Rustlers but considered a strong favorite in the title game.
“Big challenge. And we’re going to show up, for sure,” Mitchell said. “We’ll watch the film, crawl over it for the next week and try to find some way that we can beat all these SEC commits. We don’t have one power-five commit, right? They’ve got half a team of them.”
Said Schmidt: “Yeah, they’re going to be a good team, but we’ve got a great squad here, as well. Why not us?”
Southern California Final
Golden West 33, Saddleback 15
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Saddleback 0 - 7 - 8 - 0 — 15
Golden West 6 - 17 - 0 - 10 — 33
FIRST QUARTER
GW — Zavala 25 FG, 9:11.
GW — Zavala 28 FG, 4:37.
SECOND QUARTER
GW — McKissick 14 pass from Kamakawiwo’ole (Zavala kick), 11:40.
S — Clark 15 run (Maganda kick), 7:08.
GW — Schmidt 31 pass from Kamakawiwo’ole (Zavala kick), 2:11.
GW — Zavala 38 FG, 0:23.
THIRD QUARTER
S — Clark 8 run (Gentilella pass from Dudden), 5:03.
FOURTH QUARTER
GW — Zavala 32 FG, 14:52.
GW — Mitchell 8 run (Zavala kick), 6:40.
INDIVIDUAL RUSHING
S — Clark, 12-48, 2 TDs; Dudden, 10-47; Campbell, 12-18.
GW — Mitchell, 10-69, 1 TD; Morris, 7-64; Thompson, 7-26; Kamakawiwo’ole, 8-(-5).
INDIVIDUAL PASSING
S — Dudden, 16-26-1, 158.
GW — Kamakawiwo’ole, 19-28-0, 273, 2 TDs.
INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING
S — Lopez, 2-51; Walter, 3-45; Gentilella, 4-24; Martinez, 2-22; Clark, 4-12; Galbreath, 1-4.
GW — Schmidt, 8-166, 1 TD; McKissick, 4-38, 1 TD; Daniels, 1-21; Goodwin, 2-18; Hagel, 1-18; Alicea, 2-9.
