Oh, my!

This had to be the worst weekend of football in San Diego County prep history.

Two state championship games, one a devastating blowout, the other an almost certain victory flushed in the final two minutes.

If John Carroll was thinking of retiring, and we have no idea what he’s thinking, would the great Oceanside coach  want to go out with such a stain on his legacy?

That stain was an astonishing, 68-7 loss to Folsom in the D-I championship, a loss made more incongruous in that the Pirates actually were the first team to score.

Oceanside went in front, 7-0,  on the game’s opening drive, the first time all season that its 16-0 opponent had been behind.

VAQUEROS ‘WAY AHEAD

El Capitan seemed comfortable in the favorite’s role as it stunned Moraga Campolindo for three, third-quarter touchdowns and  a 28-7 lead.

Campolindo battled back to tie the game but El Cap appeared ready to go in for the  winning touchdown or field goal when a fumble on  the 10-yard line  was recovered by the Cougars.

The result of the fumble recovery was a surreal, 90-yard run to the house that ended El Capitan’s hopes for a 15-0 season.

Final score, Campolindo 35, El Cap 28.

“You never know which way the ball’s going to bounce,” said Vaqueros quarterback Brad Cagle, who finished the game with a broken bone in his foot.  “That’s why they make it the shape that it is.”

Cagle was visiting with Kirk Kenney of UT-San Diego.

Kinney’s colleagues, the newspaper’s two North County reporters, left the Carson StubHub Center post-haste the night before after the Oceanside destruction.

John Maffei covered the North County basketball tournament yesterday and Terry Monahan was at Serra High, watching the Girls’ Kiwanis Tournament.

The football season had ended with a resounding thud.

Oceanside and El Capitan forged a Division I & III parlay into the state championships with convincing victories in the Southern California regional playoffs but now will take on two, explosive 15-0 teams  this week in Carson.

Oceanside (14-0) ran Central Section champion Fresno Edison off the field, 30-6  at halftime, and cruised, 37-22, last week, while El Capitan (14-0) overcame a slow start with 28 second-quarter points in a 41-0 victory over Paso Robles of the Southern Section.

Both San Diego teams can put up  points, El Cap averaging 38 and Oceanside 33, but they’ll be facing almost unprecedented firepower.

Moraga Campolindo of the North Coast Section, which averaged 46.7 points and scored 701 total, will meet El Capitan in D-III Saturday at Noon at the StubHub Center.

Oceanside faces the most daunting task as it seeks a third state championship against Folsom Friday night at 8.

The Bulldogs  scored 847 points, averaged 56.5 (San Diego observers saw a preview in a 55-10, opening-game Honor Bowl victory over Cathedral), and rolls with quarterback Jake Browning, who has thrown for 85 touchdowns.

That’s 85 for the year, not his career.

Browning’s three-season total is 223 and he’ll be aiming for at least a tie for the national record of 91 in one season, set by Corey Robinson of Lone Oak High in Paducah, Kentucky,  in 2010.

With apologies to  Johnny Cash and his 1956 hit, “Folsom Prison Blues,” Oceanside is going to “hear the train a comin'”, but coach John Carroll’s seasoned and tough Pirates make this game the attractive as any of the weekend.

COMPUTERS

Folsom ranks third and Oceanside fifth in Cal-Hi Sports‘ latest ratings.  The computer service calpreps.com gives Folsom a 71 rating and Oceanside 65.9.

El Capitan would seem to be the favorite against Campolindo, with a 59.5 rating to the Cougars’ 49.7.

Cal-Hi‘s No. 1 (13-0 Concord De La Salle) and 2 (12-2 Corona Centennial) teams will meet in the Open Division championship.

North Coast champion  De La Salle has a 71.3 calprep.com rating.  Centennial is at 76.8 but has a 43-42 loss to national No. 1 Las Vegas Gorman and 28-18 defeat by Santa Ana Mater Dei, which the Huskies topped in a Southern Section playoff rematch, 27-24.

Division II pairs the Southern Section’s Redlands East Valley, 14-1 with a 51.2 calpreps.com grade,  against the North Coast’s Concord Clayton Valley, 15-0 and 54.9, respectively.

San Juan Capistrano St. Margaret, which eliminated Christian, 48-21, in the regional last week, takes a 15-0 record and 31.8 computer rating against Modesto Central Catholic, 11-3 and 41.4 in D-IV.

Central Catholic won a division mismatch in 2012, routing Santa Fe Christian, 66-7.

Oceanside was the unanimous choice of 19 voters as the No. 1 San Diego Section team in the final UT-San Diego poll.

The Pirates are fifth in Cal-Hi Sports‘ state rankings with a state playoff game against Fresno Edison this week and potentially a State Division I championship game in two weeks.

The Pirates were helped in the Cal-Hi poll when some teams ahead of Oceanside throughout the season were toppled in their respective section playoffs.

Conversely, Oceanside played a tough intersectional schedule, waded through 13 opponents without a loss,  and could move higher in the season’s final two weeks.

Other San Diego Section teams in the top 25 were El Capitan, now 17th after moving up from 20th, and Helix, now 24th, down from 21st.  Mission Hills, Cathedral, and St. Augustine enjoyed, if that’s the right word, “On the Bubble” status.

El Capitan, second to Oceanside locally, plays Paso Robles, and Christian, eighth locally, plays Capistrano St. Margaret in other state playoffs.

*Awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. NR–Not ranked.

Others receiving votes:    The Bishop’s 17; San Marcos, 6; Hoover, Torrey Pines, Ramona, 2 each; El Camino, 1.

Unprecedented.

That’s the way pairings shook out for San Diego Section teams today when CIF state commissioner Roger Blake announced that three area squads will host games in the first round of the state playoffs.

Officially titled the 2014 CIF Regional Championship Bowl games, the schedule calls for two games here Friday night, Dec. 12, and one on Saturday, Dec. 13.

The Southern Section’s San Juan Capistrano St. Margaret (14-0) will be at Granite Hills High for a Division IV game to take on Christian (13-0) Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Oceanside (13-0) will play host to Fresno Edison (12-1) of the Central Section in a D-I contest at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

El Capitan (13-0) is home on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against Paso Robles (13-1) of the Southern Section.

San Diego teams have never numbered three in the state playoff series. The area was represented by two teams each in 2009, 2010, and 2012.

Games were played at the Home Depot/Stub Hub Center in Carson.

D-I
Edison, second oldest school in Fresno, having opened in 1906, has sent a number of players to the NFL, but never has visited this area.

(Fresno High pulled out of a scheduled game with San Diego in 1946 and Fresno Sunnyside defeated Torrey Pines, 22-21, in 2009).

The Edison Tigers won the County Metro League championship this season, with only a 15-14 loss to Sanger.

Edison defeated Bakersfield Liberty, 21-14, to get here and also holds a 15-14 win over Bakersfield, last year’s state D-I champion.

Oceanside won state championships in 2007  and in 2009  before advent of the Southern California regional bracket.

D-III

El Capitan had not been to a San Diego Section championship game in 51 years, much less win and host a state playoff.

The Paso Robles Bearcats, who’ve been around since 1901, will make a 331-mile journey South and hope for some clear skies.

The far North Southern Section team advanced by defeating Newbury Park, 13-10, on a muddy field at the Paso’s Flamson Middle School park, the gridiron of which is natural grass.

Cathedral topped 11-3 Newbury Park, 42-28, on the road in Week 5.

The Bearcats’ only loss was on the road in Week 10, 28-18, to 10-3 Atascadero.

D-IV

St. Margaret, which opened in 1979, has faced many small school teams in the San Diego Section, but this is its first meeting with Christian.

The Tartans will face a Patriots team that has won 20 games in a row and still smarting, somewhat, from the administrative politics which prevented them from competing in the state event in 2013.

Coach Matt Oliver’s team was an enrollment fit for Division IV but was considered only for a D-III bid which it did not receive.

John Carroll hasn’t won 247 games for nothing.

Thrown off by Helix’ speed and quick start, Carroll, coaching from the Southwestern College press box, went to a no-huddle offense late in the third quarter and Oceanside scored the game’s last 17 points to put away Helix, 20-13, in the San Diego Section Open Division final.

“We had the up-tempo in the game plan the whole time,” Pirates quarterback Matt Romero told John Maffei of the Union-Tribune.  “I’m not sure why we didn’t use  it in the first half, but we came out second half and did it and it was successful.”

Warhorse Josh Bernard gouged out 84 yards in 18 carries and made 13 tackles on  defense for the Pirates.

Nate Stinson had Helix looking good after a 76-yard touchdown run in the first quarter gave the Highlanders a 10-0 lead.

Carroll now is 6-2 against Helix in the finals.

This was Oceanside’s 15th section championship, dating to the first won by Herb Meyer’s 1963 squad.

EXTRA DOES IT

Of the 44 overtime games played in the San Diego Section since the first in 1976, half have been in the playoffs, including The Bishop’s gritty, 19-16 victory over battling Mater Dei in the Division IV championship Friday night.

The team that had scored 560 points in 12 games trailed, 10-0, at halftime against a club the Knights had beaten, 38-21, in the regular season.

Leading, 13-10, The Bishop’s surrendered a 22-yard field goal to Alex Golembiewski that sent the game into the extra session, then watched as Golembiewski put the Crusaders in front, 16-13.

Bulla Graft, who rushed for a hard-earned 111  yards in 21 carries,  concluded a marvelous four seasons at the La Jolla campus with a one-yard run for the victory.

Graft fired the Knights with some Churchillian oratory.

Writer Kirk Kenney quoted Graft as telling his teammates, “Whatever pain you feel, release it. When you get that ring, you’ll feel no pain.”

SAINTS STILL STANDING 

“My idea was to throw it up and let Jacob (Baker) do his work out there,” said St. Augustine quarterback Thomas (B.F.) Goodridge.

To borrow  from the Book of Genesis, Baker climbed Jacob’s ladder to bring down Goodridge’s pass with 8 seconds remaining in the game, pushing St. Augustine over the top in a 49-42 win against Madison in D-II.

The Saints  scored the game’s last three touchdowns.  They trailed, 42-28, in the third quarter but were in the game because of Elijah Preston, who rushed for 255 yards in 33 carries and scored twice.

The game was razor close statistically.  St. Augustine’gained 489 yards,  Madison 488.

Kareem Coles of the Warhawks ran for 107 yards in 17 carries, passed for 159 yards and ran for two touchdowns and passed for two.

II & IV

El Capitan struggled with Rancho Bernardo  before winning the II title, 14-7, and Christian, leading, 8-3, and trailing, 9-8, rode Adrian Petty’s 77-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and 93 yards and one touchdown rushing to take out Hoover, 31-9.

The St.Charles Borromeo Church was filled to its football-field-sized capacity Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, as family members and friends said goodbye to Elena Casanova Cota, who accomplished much in her 94 years.

Mrs. Cota raised five sons and a daughter and three of those sons created an athletic legacy at St. Augustine High.

Eldest son Paul was a standout half-mile runner at St. Augustine and San Diego State. Paul and younger brothers Ron and Richard helped their designer father, a civil engineer, assemble the track and field facilities at the school.

Richard was the Eastern League mile champion at 4:26.8 in 1964 and was a member of outstanding teams at Mesa College and San Diego State, where he lowered his best time to 4:12.

Ron was a first-team all-San Diego Section linebacker on the 1961 Saints team that posted a 6-1-1 record.  Ron also played at Cal Poly (Pomona).  His son, Stephen, was a second-team all-section choice as a linebacker and played on the 13-0 Point Loma team of 1987.

Stephen ‘s nephew and Ron’s grandson lettered in football on Point Loma’s 2013 squad.

“Above all, our mother was always there, for all of us,” said Ron.