Narbonne to play in Division 1-AA regional bowl game against Cathedral Catholic
After demolishing three opponents with running clocks en route to winning its fifth consecutive City Section football championship, Harbor City Narbonne is about to find out whether it’s a contender or pretender for the real prize — a CIF state championship.
Narbonne (10-3), the City Open Division champion, was chosen on Sunday to play the best team in San Diego, Cathedral Catholic (11-1), in a Division 1-AA SoCal Regional Football Championship Bowl Game on Friday in San Diego.
Narbonne was chosen ahead of Southern Section Division 2 champion Upland (12-2) and Division 3 champion Chatsworth Sierra Canyon (11-3), which will play on Saturday in the Division 1-A regional at Upland.
Narbonne is on a nine-game winning streak, but all the games came against City Section competition, raising the question of just how good the Gauchos truly are.
“It’s hard to know, but we’ve gotten better every week,” coach Manuel Douglas said. Narbonne has won two state championship bowl games in recent years.
For the Gauchos, the good news is that they have a balanced offense, with the capability of running the ball or relying on the passing of sophomore quarterback Jake Garcia. They lost to Cathedral Catholic, a wing T team, in 2016.
As expected, Santa Ana Mater Dei (12-2) was awarded the Open Division bowl berth from Southern California and will play in the Dec. 8 game at Cerritos College.
Northern California still has a week to go to complete its section playoffs because of a delay caused by the recent wildfires in the region.
The winners of this weekend’s games in Southern California will advance to the championship bowl games on Dec. 14-15.
Other bowl games on Friday: San Diego St. Augustine vs. Simi Valley Grace Brethren at Cal Lutheran in Division 2-AA; Lawndale vs. Covina South Hills at Covina District Field in 2-A; San Diego Lincoln at Culver City in 3-AA; Anaheim Western at San Gorgonio in 5-AA; Adelanto at Strathmore in 6-AA.
Saturday’s schedule: Rialto Eisenhower at Fontana Kaiser in 3-A; Delano Kennedy at L.A. Garfield in 4-A; Temecula Linfield Christian at San Diego in 5-A; L.A. Locke at Escondido Orange Glen in 6-A.
Twitter: @latsondheimer
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