After taking down the No. 1-seeded Poway Titans in the San Diego Section Division II semifinals, it would only seem reasonable that the fourth-seeded Olympian Eagles will want to take down the second-seeded Mater Dei Catholic Crusaders in Saturday’s division championship game at Southwestern College.
Last Friday’s 27-19 win at Poway offered an opportunity for the Eagles to avenge an early season non-league loss to the Titans. Saturday’s division championship game offers the same incentive for Olympian after dropping this year’s Metro-Mesa League championship game to the Crusaders in early November.
“Our players stepped up and got us to the finals, a great team effort,” explained OHS head coach Paul Van Nostrand. “We will need that same effort against Mater Dei to win the division.”
The Eagles clung tight to Mater Dei Catholic in the teams’ Nov. 4 encounter. The Crusaders (11-1) sprung four big plays in recording a 28-7 victory in a game otherwise dominated by defense.
Olympian (8-4) sprung the big plays in last Friday’s semifinal win.
The Eagles never trailed in the rematch against the Titans, who had recorded a 17-10 win over Olympian on Sept. 9.
Van Nostrand felt his team could have won that game; his team captured the rematch.
Quarterback Nico Mendoza passed for 141 yards and two touchdowns while Trey Curry (13 carries, 165 yards), Noah Lacsina (20 carries, 103 yards) each scored rushing touchdowns.
Isaiah Williams and Rashaun Brown each caught scoring passes. Brown rushed eight times for 51 yards while making three catches for 44 yards. Williams had two catches for 36 yards.
Lacsina dragged tacklers into the end zone to cap a 10-yard touchdown run to open scoring in the game. Curry then broke loose for a 72-yard touchdown run to double the visitors’ early lead to 14-0.
Mendoza found Williams for a touchdown catch before the end of the first half and hit Brown on a 25-yard TD pass in the third quarter.
The Olympian defense could not completely contain Poway’s Jared Adelman, who scored all three Titan touchdowns. Adelman caught a 60-yard touchdown pass from Poway quarterback Tristen Hughes and then rushed 30 yards for a touchdown to trim the Olympian lead to 21-13.
Andrew Whyte led the Eagles defensively with 17 tackles, followed by Lacsina with 16 and Royce Casiano with 13 stops.
Dante Pressley and Rock Gonzalez each recorded sacks while Gonzalez recovered a fumble. Julyan Taylor caused one fumble while Brandon Ridgels recorded a pass deflection.
Ralphie Gomez was successful on three of four extra-point conversion attempts.
On the season, Mendoza has passed for 1,239 yards with 19 touchdowns and six picks.
Lacsina leads the team with 1,053 rushing yards and has scored six touchdowns. Curry has rushed for 770 yards and five touchdowns while Brown has rushed for 541 yards and scored five rushing touchdowns.
Williams has caught 29 aerials for 403 touchdowns. He leads the team with 10 TDs: six receiving, three rushing and one kick-off return.
Brown ranks second on the team with seven touchdowns, including two receiving scores.
Gonzalez leads the team with 11 sacks.
Heavyweight match-up
Interestingly, Saturday’s division championship game pairs the 2016 Metro-Mesa League Offensive Player of the Year (Mater Dei Catholic senior running back C.J. Verdell with 35 touchdowns) against the league’s defensive player of the year (Lacsina).
A gifted offensive player, Lacsina has also excelled on defense this season for the Eagles with 116 tackles, four sacks, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.
Lacsina is honored by the player of the year selection and also excited about the upcoming championship game appearance for his team.
“We feel we’ve been through it all,” Lacsina explained. “We’ve overcome injuries. We’ve had a really tough schedule. We feel all those experiences have contributed to our great playoff run.
“The first time we played them, it was a really close game. We have mistakes to fix but we’re excited to compete.”
This is the second appearance for Olympian in the CIF finals. The Eagles advanced to the Division III championship game in 2011 but dropped a 41-0 decision to top-seeded Cathedral Catholic.
Top-seeded Cathedral Catholic (12-0) will take on second-seeded Helix (10-2) in Saturday’s Open Division championship game at SWC. Kick-off is 7 p.m.
