Safety Madison Wheeler ran to La Habra’s rescue

La Habra High football Coach Frank Mazzotta thought long and hard about what needed to change after his team lost its fourth game of the season last month and had its Freeway League winning streak come to an end at 47 games. He brought his assistants together, and the discussion revolved around what to do about Madison Wheeler, a starting free safety and part-time running back.

“I looked at the coaches, ‘If we have any chance at all, he has to play on offense the whole time,’” Mazzotta told them.

La Habra (7-4) hasn’t lost since. On Friday night in a Southern Section Division 2 playoff opener, Wheeler had 215 yards in 35 carries to help La Habra upset Marmonte League champion Westlake Village Oaks Christian, 35-28.

Wheeler is 5 feet 9 and 195 pounds. He’s a good free safety but an even better running back.

“He’s so dynamic,” Mazzotta said. “He’s got great vision and is hard to tackle.”

Derrick Corso also made major contributions to the victory, getting two of La Habra’s three interceptions. Quarterback Zack Fogel had two fourth-quarter touchdown passes.

“The biggest thing is we’ve improved,” Mazzotta said. “We were very young and inexperienced at the beginning and took some lumps.”

And then came Wheeler to the rescue.

Mater Dei rolls: There’s no stopping the Santa Ana Mater Dei offense. With the offensive line blocking and the receivers catching, sophomore quarterback J.T. Daniels completed 14 of 17 passes for 304 yards and five touchdowns in a 69-0 win over Las Flores Tesoro.

Daniels has 58 touchdown passes in 11 games for the unbeaten Monarchs. He has 91 touchdown passes in less than two seasons.

Private vs. public: There’s some people who want to separate public and private schools in the Southern Section playoffs, but it’s always fun to see what happens when they compete against each other. In the opening round of the playoffs Thursday and Friday, there were 35 matchups and the public schools had the edge, 18-17.


In Divisions 1 through 5, the public schools led, 10-5. In Division 1, there were seven matchups and public schools prevailed, 4-3.

Division 1 upset: There was probably only one surprise in Division 1. That was Santa Margarita defeating Mission League champion Gardena Serra, 27-14.

Chad Magyar rushed for 122 yards and three touchdowns, giving first-year Coach Rich Fisher a win in his playoff debut.

The other Santa Ana team: Everybody knows about Mater Dei being unbeaten. But so is Santa Ana, which is 11-0 and won its Division 13 playoff opener over Alhambra. This program was 0-10 in 2013. Then Charlie TeGantvoort showed up as head coach and a turnaround began.