The Mater Dei Catholic High School football team has had quite a run over the past two seasons. The Crusaders won last year’s San Diego Section Division IV championship and proceeded to tack on two more wins to claim the Division V-AA California State Bowl championship.
Mater Dei Catholic will play Lancaster Paraclete Friday evening, Dec. 9, at Antelope Valley College in a Division III-AA regional playoff game after winning last Saturday’s Division II section championship.
Two wins separate the Crusaders (12-1) from another state title.
“I think it was a compliment to our program being moved up two divisions,” MDCHS head coach John Joyner said after last Saturday’s 35-20 win over Metro-Mesa League rival Olympian at Southwestern College’s DeVore Stadium. “Our boys took it as a challenge and we’re proud of that.”
Senior standout C.J. Verdell rushed for 251 yards on 30 carries and scored four touchdowns to lead the Crusaders to their second CIF-section championship in as many years.
•Verdell capped a lengthy 71-yard, seven-play drive with a three-yard touchdown run to give his team a 7-0 lead with 6:11 left in the opening quarter.
•Verdell scored on a 20-yard run to stake Mater Dei Catholic to a 14-10 lead to cap a 57-yard, six-play drive with 4:50 left in the second quarter.
•Verdell scored on a 31-yard run to cap a 61-yard, seven-play drive with 1:24 remaining before halftime to increase the Crusader lead to 21-10.
•Verdell scored on a 40-yard run early in the third quarter to boost Mater Dei Catholic to a 28-10 advantage on the scoreboard.
Verdell had a chance to score a fifth touchdown when Mater Dei Catholic advanced the ball to the Olympian two-yard line in the dying seconds of the game. However, a loss and penalty pushed the Crusaders backward. At this point quarterback Chris Jones knelt in victory formation to end the game.
Verdell enters Friday’s regional playoff game with 2,668 all-purpose yards and 39 touchdowns.
He said he set personal goals this season to score 30 touchdowns and rush for 3,000 yards.
Verdell credited the play of his offensive line and direction from the team’s coaching staff as the keys to his on-field success.
“It feels great,” explained Verdell, who will continue his football career at the University of Oregon. “Everyone said we couldn’t do it by moving up two divisions. I’m definitely excited about playing college football.”
Joyner credited Verdell’s explosion off the ball and his work ethic as keys to success.
“A lot of people don’t know how hard he works in practice,” Joyner offered. “When the best player on your team is one of the hardest working players, you usually have a very successful team.”
Verdell said his role model growing up was former Chargers’ great LaDainian Tomlinson, who finished his 11-year NFL career with 13,684 rushing yards and 145 rushing touchdowns.
Verdell is just one of the stars on the MDCHS team.
Jones completed 10 of 18 passing attempts for 223 yards with a 24-yard touchdown strike to Kyle Caldwell II with 5:43 to play in the final quarter to put the Crusaders ahead 35-13.
The play was set up by a strip-tackle by teammate Jovan Bayless.
“It feels great to win it once but two times — it’s unforgettable,” said Jones, who has thrown for 2,135 yards with 25 touchdowns and five interceptions in 13 games.
“We knew they were going to come out and try different things. We knew we had to do the things that we are used to doing.”
Jones threw one touchdown pass but was intercepted three times (twice by Olympian’s Andrew Whyte). Jones’ longest strike from the line of scrimmage was 48 yards to Eli Shelton (five catches, 111 yards) to set up the team’s first touchdown.
“It was a challenge,” Jones admitted in regard to his team winning back-to-back section championships. “People didn’t’ believe we could win (in the playoffs) after being moved up two divisions. But we did. We’re not just a small Catholic school.”
The Division II championship game was a rematch of the teams’ league title match-up played Nov. 4 at MDCHS. The Crusaders won that game 28-7 after battling the Eagles for most of the opening three quarters in a defensive standoff.
But Olympian coach Paul Van Nostrand’s team did something in the finals that few teams could manage this season: take a lead on the Crusaders.
When Noah Lacsina scored on a two-yard plunge into the end zone with 6:42 left in the second quarter, the Eagles led 10-7.
Olympian later scored on a 38-yard field goal by Ralphie Gomez to trim the Mater Dei Catholic lead to 28-13 with 4:18 remaining in the third quarter and added a touchdown on a 19-yard catch by Isaiah Williams with 4:19 to play in the game.
Gomez had trimmed the Crusaders lead to 7-3 on the strength of a 37-yard field goal with 1:48 to play in the first quarter.
Van Nostrand said the game plan for the CIF championship game rematch did not differ much from the earlier meeting between the teams.
“We just wanted to play our type of football and not let No. 5 (Verdell) get any big plays,” the Olympian coach said. “They made the big plays, but we had our opportunities. When you get big opportunities, you have to take advantage of them.”
The CIF finals appearance did much for team pride.
“We were picked to finish last in our league but we made it here,” Van MNostrand said. “This is a fantastic group of kids.”
The game was a collection of missed opportunities for the Eagles. Mikael Tyler dropped a sure touchdown pass while Andrew Whyte made an interception and returned it deep inside Mater Dei Catholic territory. However, a penalty negated the gain and the ball was placed back at the Olympian 20-yard line.
It was a 45-yard reversal in field position.
While the Eagles played them tough for a second time this season, the Crusaders proved too much to contain. Olympian collected 359 yards in total offense but Mater Dei Catholic racked up 489 yards in total offense.
The Eagles also hurt their chances of winning the game by accumulating 65 yards on nine penalties. Olympian also converted just four of 12 third-down opportunities.
By the numbers
Mater Dei Catholic had 22 first downs to 16 for the Eagles in the game.
Crusader place-kicker Andres Septien was successful on all five extra-point conversion attempts for the Crusaders, though he did miss a 33-yard field goal attempt.
Also for Mater Dei Catholic, Kyle Moses rushed two times for 31 yards and caught one pass for 21 yards while Elias Eribez had one catch for 36 yards.
Olympian quarterback Nico Mendoza completed 10 of 24 passing attempts for 175 yards. Trey Curry rushed eight times for 45 yards for the Eagles while A Sermons caught two passes for 58 yards. Tyler had two pass grabs for 56 yards while Williams caught three passes for 43 yards.
Defensively, Eribez led the Crusaders with 11 tackles while Max Schwenke and Andre Kell each had seven stops.
Dominic Guidino led the Eagles with nine 12 tackles, including nine solo stops.
What’s next?
Paraclete is 10-4 on the season after defeating Los Altos, 21-14, in the Southern Section Division 6 championship game. Kick-off for the state bowl championship game at Antelope Valley College is 7:30 p.m.
The North Regional, also scheduled Friday, Dec. 9, pits Manteca (12-1) at Menlo-Atherton (11-2).
The winners of the two regional match-ups collide in the state bowl championship game the following week.
Three San Diego teams earned home games in the regionals playoffs. Cathedral Catholic (Division 1-AA), Madison (Division II-AA) and La Jolla Country Day (Division V-A) are the others.
