State football championship bowl games are scheduled this weekend, Friday-Saturday, Dec. 8-9, at three locations: El Camino College, Pasadena City College and Saddleback College.
Of the six San Diego Section qualifiers for last weekend’s Southern California regional championships, only one — Sweetwater High School in Di vision 6-A — pushed through to a state bowl game.
East County was represented in two regional championship games: Open Division section champion Granite Hills in Division 1-AA and Division IV section champion Mt. Miguel in Division 3-A.
Granite Hills (12-1) built an early 14-0 lead but succumbed, 49-21, on the strength of 49 unanswered points by host Mission Viejo (12-3) last Friday while Mt. Miguel (12-2) scored early but fell short, 52-21, against the host Mayfair Monsoons on Saturday.
Both the league champion Eagles and Matadors came to play but were out-played by superior opponents. They weren’t the only ones.
Division I section champion St. Augustine (10-5) ended its season with a 21-20 loss to visiting St. Bonaventure (12-3) on Saturday in the Division 1-A SoCal final while Division II section champion Del Norte (11-3) was eclipsed on the final play by a score of 30-28 to Lake Balboa Birmingham (12-2) in last Friday’s Division 3-AA SoCal final.
Division III section champion La Jolla Country Day (11-4) lost 41-21 at Banning (9-6) in Saturday’s Division 5-A SoCal final.
Sweetwater, the Division V section champion, will meet undefeated Colusa (13-0) for the Division 6-A state title after topping visiting Santa Monica St. Monica (11-4) by a score of 47-27 in Saturday’s regional. The Red Devils (8-6) are riding a current five-game winning streak and rank among the state rushing leaders with 375.2 yards per game (nearly triple the national average).
Colusa, the Sacramento Valley League champion, won the NorCal regional championship with a 42-6 win over South San Francisco (12-2) on Saturday.
Saturday’s Division 6-A state bowl game kicks off at 11 a.m. at El Camino College in Torrance.
From left, Sweetwater High School’s four horsemen, Xzavier Crews, Izell Wright, Carlos Delgado and Zaryan Crews, each of whom scored touchdowns in last Saturday’s 47-27 Southern California regional championship game. Photo by Phillip Brents
Southern exposure
The Red Devils have averaged 40.6 points and 470 rushing yards during their five-game winning streak. Overall, the National City bunch has won eight of its last 10 games.
“I think our main thing is our identity,” SuHi head coach Ervin Hernandez said. “We got off to a 0-4 start and the seniors and captains and I held a meeting together to sort things out. We all agreed that everyone has to be held accountable. We needed the group to push and that’s what got us here. It came down to believing — believing in each other and believing in themselves.”
Sweetwater wasted little time in making a statement in its biggest game of the season as senior Carlos Delgado scored on an 18-yard run with 2:14 expired in the opening quarter. The hosts surprised the building crowd by going for a two-point conversion, which was successful on a sneak by junior quarterback Zaryan Crews.
8-0 Red Devils.
An interception in the end zone by senior Xzavier Crews stopped St. Monica on its first possession. But the Mariners came back to score a touchdown as freshman Bradley Cassier passed 15 yards to senior Joshua Barnes. The successful extra-point conversion by freshman Matthew Martinez made the score 8-7 with Sweetwater still in the lead.
The Santa Monica team recovered a fumble at the Devils 40-yard line and proceeded to march to the SuHi one-yard line but fumbled on fourth down to negate another potential score.
The ball quickly went in the other direction as Delgado took off on a 61-yard breakaway run to the Mariners 24. A quarterback sneak increased the Sweetwater lead to 14-7 following a missed extra-point conversion.
The hosts led, 20-7, following a two-yard scoring run by Xzavier Crews with 23.5 seconds left to play in the first half. However, St. Monica promptly made it a one touchdown game, 20-14, on a quarterback sneak by Cassier with 7.8 seconds remaining on the clock.
A pooch kick gave the ball to the Devils to start the second half and Xzavier Crews promptly gave his team some breathing run by dashing to the end zone on a 42-yard breakaway run.
28-14 Sweetwater.
But the Mariners proved pesky as Barnes caught a 67-yard bomb with 8:21 to play in the fourth quarter to trim the SuHi advantage again to one touchdown.
But Zaryan Crews had an answer for that by taking off on his own 53-yard end zone jaunt just 11 seconds later to hike the Devils lead to 34-21.
There was still plenty of time left for three more touchdowns — two by the hosts.
It wasn’t over quite yet.
St. Monica served noticed it wasn’t going to go down quietly as freshman Christopher Barnes caught a 66-yard bomb to trim the SuHi advantage on the scoreboard to 35-27.
With the game’s outcome still somewhat in doubt with 7:16 left, Sweetwater sealed the history-making victory on back-to-back touchdowns by senior Izell Wright. A 40-yard scoring run by Wright and missed two-point conversion pushed the Red Devils to a 41-27 lead.
The Mariners challenged once more but the Sweetwater defense held on fourth-and-two to return possession to the hosts. Wright scored the Devils’ final touchdown on an 11-yard run with 1:59 to play.
47-27.
An interception by senior Ryan Guerra finally drove the final nail into St. Monica’s coffin.
Turn out the lights, the party’s over.
Zaryan Crews (12 carries, 105 yards) and Xzavier Crews (10 carries, 135 yards) each scored two touchdowns as did Wright (16 carries, 144 yards). Delgado (six carries, 91 yards) rounded out the seven touchdown SuHi assault with one touchdown.
As a team, Sweetwater rushed for 478 yards on 45 carries. The Devils tacked on 15 receiving yards (Xzavier Crews) for 494 total yards in the game.
Delgado amassed 21 tackles on the defensive side while senior Adrien Guerrero had 11 stops.
Zaryan Crews and Xzavier Crews both scored on two-point conversions to lead the team with 14 points apiece.
The Devils head into Saturday’s state championship game boasting three 1,000-yard rushers: Xzavier Crews (1,517 yards, 19 rushing touchdowns), Wright (1,422, 11 rushing touchdowns) and Xaryan Crews (1,186 yards, 14 rushing touchdowns).
“Our game plan was to contain No. 0 (Joshua Barnes). We executed that game plan with the exception of a couple points,” Hernandez said.
“What can I say?” Xzavier Crews offered. “We started strong, we got a little relaxed and they took advantage of that. Once we were back in the locker room (at halftime), we started locking in. Once we got back on the field, we knew there was no stopping us.”
“My teammates knew we could do this because we were down in many situations throughout the season,” Zaryan Crews added. “Being able to execute is what got us this trophy. A big shout out goes to our offensive line.”
Photos by Paul Martinez
