A total of nine South County teams qualified for this year’s San Diego Section 11-person football playoffs, another for the section’s eight-person field, and 10 in the section’s four-divisional girls flag football playoffs.
That’s a total of 20 football teams no matter how one spins it.
The race is now on for those coveted CIF championship banners, some which rate to be the first in school history for their respective programs.
Five teams in the boys brackets are still in contention heading into the quarterfinal round, including the No. 2 Mater Dei Catholic Crusaders (Division II), No. 5 Eastlake Titans (Division III), No. 7 Chula Vista Spartans (Division IV), No. 8 Montgomery Aztecs (Division IV) and No. 2 Bonita Vista Barons (Division V).
Eastlake, Chula Vista and Montgomery are already battle-tested after emerging with key victories in last Friday’s opening round while Mater Dei Catholic and Bonita Vista both had a week’s rest after receiving byes to the quarterfinals.
Five teams — No. 9 Otay Ranch in Division III, No. 11 Sweetwater in Division IV, No. 11 Mar Vista in Division V, No. 5 Victory Christian Academy in Division V-AA and No. 6 Ocean View Christian Academy in Division VI (eight person) — dropped out of the playoff brackets following losses last Friday.
Mater Dei Catholic (7-3) is set to host the seventh-seeded Bishop’s Knights (7-3) in Friday’s quarterfinals while Bonita Vista (5-5) is home to the seventh-seeded Santana Sultans (7-4) in a Division V quarterfinal.
Both games kick off at 7 p.m.
Bishop’s defeated the 10th-seeded Mt. Carmel Sundevils (6-5) by a dominating 49-20 score while Santana eliminated the 10th-seeded Kearny Komets (7-4) by a score of 33-18 in first-round clashes.
Eastlake (5-6) travels to face No. 4 San Pasqual (5-5) while Chula Vista (5-6) travels to face No. 2 El Capitan (7-3). Montgomery (8-3) plays at No. 1 Ramona (2-8) in Friday’s quarterfinals.
The Mater Dei Catholic-Bishop’s winner will tackle Friday’s winner between No. 3 Helix (4-6) and No, La Jolla (7-4) in the semifinals.
The Eastlake-San Pasqual winner will meet Friday’s winner between No. 1 Central Union (7-3) and No. 8 Patrick Henry (7-4) in the semifinals.
The Chula Vista-El Capitan winner will meet Friday’s winner between No. 3 Grossmont (4-6) and No. 6 Mira Mesa (1-10) in the semifinals.
El Capitan is the defending Grossmont Valley League champions, though the Spartans pulled a mild upset via a 35-21 win over the host Vaqueros in the third week of the season. Friday’s game will be the last of the season for one of those teams.
Mira Mesa is coming off its first win of the season — 41-21 over No. 11 Sweetwater — after going 0-10 in regular season play.
The Montgomery-Ramona winner will meet Friday’s winner between No. 4 Mission Bay (3-7) and No. 5 Westview (4-7) in the semifinals.
The Bonita Vista-Santana winner will meet Friday’s winner between No. 3 Crawford (5-5) and No. 6 West Hills (6-5) in the semifinals.
Santana scored some playoff momentum with a 33-18 first-round win over the No. 11 Kearny Komets (7-4). West Hills (6-5) ended Metro-Pacific League champion Mar Vista’s season with a 33-15 win in the opening round.
Touchdown by Eastlake’s Kingston Schaaf. Photo by Jon Bigornia
Making tracks
Eastlake ran its win streak to four games after a 1-6 start to the season as junior Tyler Balko passed for 120 yards and two touchdowns to junior Hamza Hatahet (three catches, 112 yards). Senior Kingston Schaaf (five carries, 41 yards) also rushed for a touchdown.
Senior William Schmitz controlled the ground game for the Titans with 24 carries for 159 yards.
Army-Navy (8-3) scored first in the elimination game before Eastlake (367 total offensive yards) responded with 21 unanswered points.
Junior Isaiah Rodriguez had one interception on defense while senior Bernardo Cardenas recovered a fumble.
Photos by Jon Bigornia
Chula Vista began its playoff odyssey with a 55-16 over No. 10 Classical Academy (6-5) last Friday, snapping a nagging five-game losing streak in the process.
Senior LaDarrione Perkins was the Spartans’ catalyst with 19 carries for 238 yards and four touchdowns, including a long romp of 76 yards.
The hosts scored seven rushing touchdowns overall, with sophomore Sebastian Romero (one carry, 26 yards), junior Carlos Echevarria (one carry, two yards) and sophomore Elijah Johnson (one carry, 11 yards) all reaching the endzone on the ground.
Senior Izaac Baca passed for 103 yards and one touchdown to sophomore Gabriel Ruiz (three catches, 51 yards).
Echeverria had five catches for 47 yards while juniors Obi Tamashiro and Aiden Herrera each logged one interception.
The Spartans recorded five sacks on defense: two by junior Benjamin Rivera and one each by juniors Michael Marquez and Gabriel Ramirez and sophomore Elijah Richardson.
Chula Vista out-gained Classical Academy 442-164 in total yards.
Freshman Isaiah Mena-Malijan passed for 218 yards and three touchdowns — two to senior Jayden Cannon (five catches, 82 yards) and one to junior Andie Deanda (four catches, 35 yards) — while freshman Qassim Williams (five carries, 52 yards) scored one rushing touchdown and senior Zantez Thomas scored on a 53-yard punt return to lead the Aztecs’ 33-6 rout of ninth-seeded Calexico (6-5).
“The key was to not have self-inflicted penalties and turnovers,” Montgomery coach Freddy Dunkle said. “The offensive line did a good job figuring out the Calexico defense. Our defense is playing championship football.”
Local teams exiting the playoffs after their opening game included Otay Ranch (42-14 loss at No. 8 Patrick Henry), Sweetwater, Mar Vista (33-15 loss at No. 6 West Hills), Victory Christian Academy (45-6 loss at No. 4 Maranatha Christian) and Ocean View Christian Academy (56-0 loss at No. 3 Calvin Christian).
- SuHi senior Zaryan Crews rushed for two touchdowns and passed for another to end an otherwise standout individual season with 1,426 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns. Senior Jacob Gonsalves had three catches for 80 yards and one touchdown.
- Mar Vista senior Peter Thomas passed for 201 yards with one touchdown and rushed for 89 yards and one score as the Mariners saw their three-game winning streak come to an end. Senior Ben Moya had five catches for 86 yards and one TD.
The Mariners tied the game, 7-7, early on.
Mar Vista head coach David Moore said his team was “extremely excited about the playoffs.”
“First and foremost, I love the fact that we can call ourselves league champions. It hasn’t been accomplished at Mar Vista since 2016; it is only the third in the last 15 years.
“In order to get to the league championship, this is the most resilient team that I have ever coached. Every game we played, we were down by more than two touchdowns and came back and won the game, sometimes with less than a minute left in the game.
“These kids are resilient. They know how to keep their heads up through adversity, and I hope they can take that life lesson with them as they grow up to be productive young men.
“The Metro-Pacific League is now balanced with similar school sizes competing with one another to win the league championship.
“My team is going to need to remain resilient in the face of adversity. We’re going to be playing against people for the first time in our divisional playoffs whose school size triples ours.
“But I’m still confident that we will be successful. With the revised playoff structure, we are observing teams in the Division V playoff bracket that have historically competed in the Division III bracket. We are optimistic about our chances because we faced numerous traditional Division III teams during the regular season.”
Three teams entered the playoffs with 0-10 records — two of them won. Besides Mira Mesa, No. 7 St. Augustine defeated No. 10 La Jolla Country Day (5-6) by a score of 16-0 in Division III. Meanwhile, No. 5 Fallbrook lost 34-33 to No. 12 Monte Vista in Division V to post a rare 0-11 season.
Girl powered
The Metro Conference made history with the first Division I section champion (Bonita Vista) in last year’s inaugural girls flag football playoffs. The postseason tournament has expanded to four divisions this season with 10 local teams entered.
With San Ysidro receiving the No. 1 seed in Division IV, Otay Ranch the No. 3 seed in Division I, Chula Vista Learning Community Charter the No. 1 seed in Division III, Mater Dei Catholic the No. 2 seed in Division III and Olympian the No. 2 seed in Division IV, lightning could strike a second or even third time as far as a CIF championship is concerned for South County.
That’s two No. 1 seeds and two No. 2 seeds in the playoff mix. Stir the pot and see what happens!
The playoffs are four rounds in each 12-team bracket. Division II and Division IV teams play Tuesday and Thursday while Division I and Division III teams play Wednesday and Saturday.
The top four teams in each bracket receive byes. CVLCC and Mater Dei Catholic will open the playoffs in Saturday’s Division III quarterfinals.
Division 1 seeds include No. 3 Otay Ranch (Metro-Mesa League champion) and No. 10 Bonita Vista. Otay Ranch (12-0) has a bye to Saturday’s quarterfinals while Bonita Vista (12-6) was scheduled to play at No. 7 Grossmont (15-4) in Wednesday’s opening round.
Division III seeds include No. 1 CVLCC, No. 2 Mater Dei Catholic and No. 7 Hilltop (Metro-South Bay League co-champion). CVLCC (14-2) and Mater Dei Catholic (9-11) have byes to Saturday’s quarterfinals while Hilltop (13-4) was scheduled to host No. 10 Morse (8-10) on Wednesday.
Division IV seeds include No. 1 San Ysidro (Metro-Pacific League champion), No. 2 Olympian, No. 4 Castle Park (Metro-South Bay League co-champion), No. 8 Southwest and No. 12 Eastlake.
San Ysidro (11-9), Olympian (8-9) and Castle Park (13-7) all had byes to Thursday’s quarterfinals while Southwest (12-8) was scheduled to host No. 9 Canyon Crest Academy (5-10) and No. 12 Eastlake (3-9) was scheduled to travel to No. 5 El Camino (5-9) for first-round match-ups on Tuesday.
San Ysidro’s season was a roller coaster of ups and downs, according to head coach Giantoni Canale.
“We had an extremely tough non-conference schedule playing teams like Torrey Pines, Mira Mesa, Cathedral Catholic, Bonita Vista, Imperial, Mission Bay, Central and Hilltop,” he said. “Having a tough non-conference schedule benefited us I believe because it battle-tested us against some of the best teams and I believe it helped make the games easier once we got into league.
“Our highlight win of the season was beating Torrey Pines at home, which ended up as the No. 2 overall team in San Diego, in four overtimes on a walk-off interception. We captured a second league title in two years and outscored our league opponents 205-18, which I feel was in big part of our non-conference schedule being tough and preparing us for league.
“We were able to secure the No. 1 overall seed in Division IV and are excited for the opportunity to host a home playoff game for the second consecutive year.
“Our defense was a turnover machine this year. Newcomer Isabella Guzman led us with 14 interceptions (five returned for touchdowns), Kristine Fadriquela 13 interceptions (four returned for touchdowns), Jacqueline Gonzalez with nine interceptions (six returned for touchdowns), Evelyn Estrada with eight Interceptions and Mia Maldonado and Paola Gonzalez with five each.
“On offense, we went with two different quarterbacks with seniors Adriana Lopez and Kristine Fadriquela. Our running back position was led by Bryanna Ortiz, who finished No. 2 in our league rushing behind our dual threat quarterback Claudine Fadriquela. Receivers were led by Kristine Fadriquela, who surpassed 1,000 yards receiving for the second straight year, and other receivers like Isabella Cruz, Claire Maala, Giana Salce and Rhiane Fadriquela.
“The regular season was a success, finishing above .500 for the second consecutive season and winning league. San Ysidro is excited for the postseason and looking forward to hopefully bringing a championship to our hometown.”
San Diego Section Playoff Schedule
Open Division
Semifinals
Friday, Nov. 15
(4) Mission Hills (8-2) at (1) Lincoln (8-2) at Patrick Henry, 7 p.m.
(3) Cathedral Catholic (8-2) at (2) La Costa Canyon (10-0), 7 p.m.
Championship
Saturday, Nov. 23 at Snapdragon Stadium, semifinal winners
Division II
First Round
Friday, Nov. 8
(2) Mater Dei Catholic (7-3) bye
Quarterfinals
Friday, Nov. 15
(7) Bishop’s (7-3) at (2) Mater Dei Catholic (7-3), 7 p.m.
Division III
First Round
Friday, Nov. 8
(8) Patrick Henry (7-4) 42, 9) Otay Ranch (5-6) 14
(5) Eastlake (5-6) 21, (12) Army-Navy Academy (8-3) 7
Quarterfinals
Friday, Nov. 15
(5) Eastlake (5-6) at (4) El Camino (5-5), 7 p.m.
Division IV
First Round
Friday, Nov. 8
(7) Chula Vista (5-6) 55, (10) Classical Academy (6-5) 16
(6) Mira Mesa (1-10) 41, (11) Sweetwater (5-6) 21
Quarterfinals
Friday, Nov. 15
(7) Chula Vista (5-6) at (2) El Capitan (7-3), 7 p.m.
Division V
First Round
Friday, Nov. 8
(6) West Hills (6-5) 33, (11) Mar Vista (4-7) 15
Quarterfinals
Friday, Nov. 15
(7) Santana (7-4) at (2) Bonita Vista (5-5), 7 p.m.
Division V-AA
Quarterfinals
Friday, Nov. 8
(4) Maranatha Christian (8-3) 45, (5) Victory Christian Academy (3-7) 6
Eight-Person
Quarterfinals
Friday, Nov. 8
(3) Calvin Christian (6-3) 56, (6) Ocean View Christian Academy (5-3) 0
Maranatha Christian 45, Victory Christian 6
Victory Christian Academy’s return to 11-person football landed the Knights in the San Diego Section Division V-AA playoffs despite being a freelance team.
VCA received the No. 5 seed among the six division qualifiers. The Knights’ season ended abruptly, however, as Maranatha Christian junior Jake Locker completed five touchdown passes to lead the fourth-seeded Eagles (8-3) to a 45-6 win and a berth in Friday’s semifinals against top-seeded Calipatria (7-2).
