Prep Rally: St. John Bosco showed why it was the best high school football team
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. My name is Eric Sondheimer. The high school football season has come to a close after 16 weeks of action. The big game happened on Saturday, with St. John Bosco defeating San Mateo Serra 45-0 to win the CIF state championship Open Division.
All hail the Braves
St. John Bosco (13-1) won its fourth state championship and never came close to giving up a point in its shutout of Serra at Saddleback College in the Open Division final. Here’s the report.
There really was no weakness on defense for St. John Bosco this season. The line, led by Matayo Uiagalelei, was outstanding. The linebackers, led by Deven Bryant, could do everything. The secondary, led by Ty Lee, was eight deep and more.
Add the development of quarterback Pierce Clarkson and running back Cameron Jones, plus improvement along the offensive line, and you have a national championship team.
Looking back on the 2022 season, there were lots of top individual performances, but it still came down to who would win the two games between Mater Dei and St. John Bosco to finish on top. Here’s the report.
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Basketball rewind
Jaden Hubbard, a 6-3 junior, has been scoring well for Mission Viejo.
Freshman Jason Crowe Jr. of Lynwood had another big week, recording games of 46 and 43 points at the Beverly Hills tournament.
Sonora coach Mike Murphy picked up his 700th coaching victory.
St. Bernard is 8-0 and picked up good wins over Crossroads and Campbell Hall from the Gold Coast League. 2023 will see St. Bernard challenge unbeaten Bishop Montgomery in the Del Rey League.
St. John Bosco won its own tournament title, beating Walnut and La Mirada along the way. Sophomores Kade Bonam and Elzie Harrington are playing well.
Here’s this week’s top 25 boys’ rankings.
Unbeaten Etiwanda won the Troy girls’ tournament title behind Kennedy Smith, who scored 25 points in the final, a win over Ontario Christian. Etiwanda and unbeaten Sierra Canyon are on a collision course but won’t meet until the Southern Section playoffs. Here’s the link to last week’s girls’ basketball top 20 rankings.
Mater Dei’s girls team took a trip to Arizona and won twice. The Monarchs are making progress to join Etiwanda and Sierra Canyon as a trio to reckon with.
Seeking title
She heard the shrill screech of the buzzer, and Ontario Christian’s Chloe Briggs plopped on the hardwood, staring up at the ceiling as if searching for answers that weren’t there.
Three times in a row.
Her freshman year, it was in Division 4-AA, where her Knights fell to Paloma Valley (Menifee) in the Southern Section championship game. Her sophomore year, it was Division 3AA, where Ontario Christian lost by seven to Sage Hill in another title game. And her junior year, it was Division 2A, losing out on another Southern Section title with a gut-wrenching four-point loss to Corona Santiago.
And that last year stung the most, Briggs in pure shock after the clock hit zeroes, the University of Washington commit unable to fathom that she’d come oh-so-tantalizingly-close again for nothing. For another end-of-season letdown. She stayed at home for a couple weeks, nursing her wounds
Again.
“It’s just the worst feeling in the whole world,” Briggs said.
Briggs is a singular, heliocentric talent unlike few others in Southern Section girls’ basketball. As a freshman, she scored 1,216 points, breaking Cheryl Miller’s Southern Section record at Riverside Poly for most points in a single season. Briggs entered the season about 800 points away, according to coach Matt Tumambing, from becoming the all-time leading bucket-getter in section girls’ hoops history.
But the thing she wants, the thing she craves, is that moment of championship-game celebration that’s escaped her in an otherwise star-studded career at Ontario Christian.
“Just the heartache she’s experienced over the last three years,” Tumambing said, “I don’t know if any high school girl has ever experienced what she has.”
Almost every day, the moments replay themselves in her head. Tormenting her.
That sophomore-year loss to Sage Hill, she struggled in the fourth quarter, missing a couple shots.
What if those fell?
That junior-year loss to Santiago, she went 2-of-10 from three-point range, she remembered.
What if she made just two more
And so, after the sadness waned, she got herself back in the gym. And thus far as a senior, she’s pushed Ontario Christian to a 6-2 record, the figurehead of a Knights team that loves to swing the ball and bomb away from distance. She’s backed by Dejah Saldivar, a junior Tumambing called “one of the best shooters in the country,” and Esperanza transfer and ball-hawk Julia Lavigne.
“We’re a lot more well-rounded than we have been in the past,” Briggs said.
—Luca Evans
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Mystery official identified
Mystery solved.
When Granada Hills High speedster Dijon Stanley took off on a 90-yard touchdown run in the City Section Division I championship game last month, video showed a back judge matching strides with Stanley.
It turns out that back judge was pretty fast himself during his playing days.
It was 36-year-old Antoine Cason, a former star defensive back at Los Alamitos High and Arizona who became a first-round NFL draft choice in 2008 and once was part of Arizona’s 4x100 relay team in track.
Stanley is the City Section champion in the 400 meters and headed to Utah on a football scholarship.
From 2008 to 2014, Cason played for the San Diego Chargers, Arizona Cardinals, Carolina Panthers and Baltimore Ravens.
So any high school football players who think they are fast, first you have to outrun the back judge.
Here are some comments from Cason.
Go Navy
Elias Larry, a 19-year-old starting cornerback for Navy who played high school football at Chatsworth Sierra Canyon and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, got to experience his first Army-Navy game last season as a freshman.
“I had always heard how big a game it was but didn’t understand until I got there,” he said. “On the bus I looked at everyone outside the stadium and Army fans are yelling at the bus. When I went through the tunnel for warmups, it was different, all these cameras, military personnel, Secret Service. I was in awe for a little bit taking it all in. I had all kinds of emotions. It was a full stadium. It was something you dream about.”
On Saturday in Philadelphia, he was at the latest Army-Navy game, which Army won 20-17 in double overtime.
How Larry ended up at Navy is an amazing story.
Here’s his story.
Crespi picks its coach
Brad Vonnahme, a 34-year-old defensive quality control coach at Fresno State with no high school coaching experience, has been hired as the new football coach at Crespi.
Crespi president Ken Foersch used his own ties to Fresno State to place his trust in a man who is making the commitment to help the Celts rebuild a program that went 0-10 last season but is the only one from the San Fernando Valley to ever win a Southern Section Division 1 championship.
Foersch said Vannahme received a strong recommendation from former Fresno State coach Pat Hill, a Crespi graduate. And Vannahme made a positive impression in the interview process.
He has spent 14 years coaching at the collegiate level. He and his wife, a teacher, have three young children, so this commitment to move the San Fernando Valley is a big one. He’s supposed to start Jan. 1.
“I think it’s a long-term type of decision for me,” he said.
T.O. coach changes schools
Evan Yabu is leaving Thousand Oaks High to become the head football coach at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.
He did a quick rebuild job at Thousand Oaks, guiding the Lancers to a 10-0 regular season this past year. He took over a program that had a 25-game losing streak.
Notre Dame, like Crespi, chose to go outside its alumni network to bring in new leadership. Yabu replaces Joe McNab, who spent 38 years as a Notre Dame assistant before replacing Kevin Rooney as head coach.
“He was super impressive during the interview process,” athletic director Alec Moss said.
Girls’ volleyball
Cam Green could feel the frustration mounting, his Mira Costa girls volleyball team not quite finding a groove in passing drills.
So at one practice late in the season, the coach pulled his passers aside and delivered a simple message: you don’t need to be perfect.
You just need to be close.
“Because we have the setter,” Green recalled telling his team, “that can make everything else better.”
It’s a heavy burden for one player to carry. But Mira Costa junior Charlie Fuerbringer was born with an Olympian’s athleticism and grew up a student of the game, developing a volleyball IQ that must be seen to be believed. For her unparalleled importance to a Mira Costa program that advanced to a CIF Open Division regional final, she’s been selected The Times’ player of the year in girls’ volleyball.
Here’s the link to the complete All-Star team.
Notes . . .
Oaks Christian running back Johnny Thompson has committed to Kansas. . . .
Freshman baseball player Brody Schumaker of Santa Margarita has committed to Texas Christian. . . .
Coley Candaele is returning as head football coach at Vista Murrieta. He previously served as head track coach, athletic director and assistant football coach. He had great success as head coach with a record of 132-25. . . .
Quarterback Ty Dieffenbach of Agoura has committed to Pittsburgh. He was previously committed to UNLV. . . .
Former UCLA softball coach Brianna Tautalafua is the new softball coach at Mary Star. . . .
Junior softball pitcher Mina Lei Tala of Mary Star has committed to Loyola Marymount. . . .
Loyola has 17 former football players on teams playing in college bowl games. . . .
Long Beach Millikan quarterback Myles Jackson has committed to Stanford and decided to graduate in June and join the Cardinal immediately after playing as a junior this past season. . . .
Nicole Thomas is the new softball coach at Mater Dei. . . .
In an early girls’ water polo test, Orange Lutheran defeated Laguna Beach 8-5. Sara Naulty scored five goals for Orange Lutheran. . . .
Sid Cooke has been dismissed as basketball coach at Burbank. . . .
From the archives: Deommodore Lenoir
From L.A. Salesian to Oregon to the NFL, Deommodore Lenoir has shown he’s a pretty good defensive back.
He was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the fifth round of the 2021 NFL draft. He picked up his first NFL interception against the Dolphins a week ago.
Here’s a 2016 story on Lenoir during his days at Salesian.
Recommendations
From the Los Angeles Times, a story on JSerra’s Landon Sachs overcoming a family tragedy.
From the Acorn, a profile on Calabasas guard Gavin Murphy.
From the Los Angeles Times, a college football transfer portal tracker for USC and UCLA.
Tweets you might have missed
Until next time...
Have a question, comment or something you’d like to see in a future Prep Rally newsletter? Email me at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latsondheimer.
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Get our high school sports newsletter
Prep Rally is devoted to the SoCal high school sports experience, bringing you scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
