Beginning with hot summer practices in late July through close to 1,000 games and 14 weeks of action, six teams still are standing.

Champions Lincoln (Open), Granite Hills (Division I), Poway (D-II), St. Augustine (D-III), El Capitan (D-IV), and Monte Vista (D-V) embark on another season in the CIF State Southern Regional this week.

San Diego Section teams are 28-22 in the regional series, which began in 2014 and includes teams from the Los Angeles City, Central, and Southern sections.

San Diego squads are 16-16 in the state bowl championship series that began in 2007 but do not participate in Open Division championships on the regional or state level.  They compete from 1-AA down to VI-A.

We’re taking a look at the regional matchups this week:

D-1AA

Lincoln (10-2), 12th in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, versus Southern Section Newbury Park (14-0), ranked  ninth in California, @Southwestern College, Friday, Dec. 6.

Lincoln was forced to move its home games this season to the community college in Chula Vista after damage and wear to the field in Vic Player Stadium.

Head coach David Dunn is compiling a record (104-60-1, .633) comparable to Player’s (130-58-3, .688), is 34-4 since 2022, and won a state 1-AA title in ’22.

Lincoln’s 6-foot, 6-inch Akili Smith, Jr., is a legacy quarterback, following his father, Akili Smith, who starred at the school in the early-1990s and played at Oregon, where the son is committed.

Smith’s playmakers include running backs Junior Curtis and Aden Jackson and wide receivers Isaiah Grant, and Ty Olsen.

Lincoln’s 31-13 San Diego Section Open championship over Cathedral was a bow to the art of the running game, all of 394 yards.

Curtis gained 173 yards in 17 carries and scored a touchdown.  Jackson had 154 yards in 24 carries and two touchdowns, and Smith added 67 yards in 10 carries.

RUGGED OPPONENT

Newbury Park also has a tall quarterback, 6-foot-5 Brady Smigiel, who threw for 322 yards and three touchdowns in a 31-28 victory over Vista Murrieta in the Southern Section 1-AA title game.

Newbury Park is more or less a suburb of Thousand Oaks and was champion of the Conejo Coast League, which includes Santa Barbara, Oxnard Rio Mesa, Thousand Oaks, Calabasas, and Westlake Village Westlake.

The Panthers, coached by Joe Smigiel, the quarterback’s father, will bring a 66.8 Calpreps.com rating, compared to Lincoln’s 63.3.

Newbury Park is ranked 10^th and Lincoln 12^th in California by Max Preps.

The trip South for the visitors will be about 180 miles.  The school is located west of U.S. 101 and about 35 miles Northwest of the Southbound I-405 Sepulveda Pass.

Tomorrow:  Division I-A Granite Hills at Huntington Beach Edison.

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Mission Hills played keep away, controlling the ball for 34 plays to 8 in the second half,  and the strategy almost worked, until Lincoln scored an overtime touchdown to win the Open Division semifinal playoff, 13-7.

It won’t be the Hornets’ touchdown that will be remembered.

Mission Hills’ Giovanni Harte, who battled the Lincoln defense, grinding out 129 yards in 30 carries, broke away at left tackle from Lincoln’s 25-yard line on the Grizzlies’ first play in extra minutes.

“Harte was carrying the ball in his left hand and it appeared that the ball broke the plane of the goal line,” wrote The San Diego Union’s Don Norcross, whose view was from the Southwestern College press box.

Trailing Lincoln linebacker Noko Ta’a punched the ball out of Harte’s hand at the goal line.  A nearby official quickly ruled fumble.

Since the ball rolled out of the end zone the play became a touchback and Lincoln took possession.

Grizzlies’ coach Chris Hauser was outraged, but not as vocal as a middle-aged-elderly Mission Hills supporter who came out of the stands and charged the officiating crew after the game, which ended with the Hornets’ Aden Jackson scoring on a 16-yard touchdown run late in the first overtime.

The Grizzlies’ fan/parent/relative chased game officials as they made their way to the locker room.

Unsuccessful, the Mission Hills rooter engaged a Lincoln adult and then was approached by a Lincoln school principal.  The diminutive lady repeatedly pushed the aggressor away before he finally left, spewing profanities.

IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY

Three generations of Cotas were on hand when St. Augustine, 1-10, defeated 10-0 Holtville, 10-6, in the Division III quarterfinals.

Ron Cota, all-San Diego Section linebacker/center for St. Augustine in 1960, traveled with his son, Stephen, all-San Diego Section linebacker for Point Loma’s 13-0 championship squad in 1987.

After a comfort break in Jacumba, father and son finished the 125-mile jaunt to the Imperial Valley and cold and windy Holtville to watch Stephen, Jr., and his teammates continue their surprising postseason run.

“It was a great high school experience for my son and for me and his grandfather,” said Stephen.  “Seemed like the whole town turned out.”

Full disclosure:  Holtville had been moved from Division V to D-III.  The Saints had played a major, D-I schedule as a member of the powerful Western League.

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Many of the San Diego Section cognoscenti declared an upset when winless St. Augustine defeated La Jolla Country Day,  16-0, in the first round of the Division III playoffs last week.

That the Saints (0-10) were seeded seventh in the division and the 5-5 Torreys were 10^th, according to CIF power ratings, didn’t seem to register.

The Saints were reeling, having canned coach Ron Gladnick after a 10-5, Southern California regional playoff season in 2023, and the subsequent exodus of players to other schools.

Ron Caragher was named coach and kept things together in a brutal season that included losses of 42-0 and 63-0 to Western League rivals Cathedral and Lincoln.

The 0-10 was the Saints’ first  without a victory since an 0-9 in 1975 and only the seventh washout in their 101 seasons, dating to 1924.

Now the Saints face a 125-mile bus jaunt over cold and windy Laguna Mountains passes to the Imperial Valley and No. 2-ranked Holtville, 10-0, and outscoring opponents 491-60, including romps against San Diego County teams Mission Bay, 46-7; Mountain Empire, 54-0; El Cajon Valley, 57-0, and Coronado, 54-14.

FIRST SINCE 1938

St. Augustine and Holtville will need a re-introduction.

The Vikings hold a 2-1 lead in previous games, but the schools haven’t opposed each other for 86 years, dating to 1938, the Great Depression, gas at 19 cents a gallon, and when you could get three pounds of ground beef for 59 cents and a loaf of  bread for a dime.

Holtville won that 1938 game, 12-0, and 15-12 in 1936.  Sandwiched between was a 13-0 Saints victory in ’37.

RATINGS 92.3 PER CENT CORRECT

Seedings favorites won 24 first-round games against two losses:  No. 12 Monte Vista, 34-33 over No. 5 Fallbrook, and No. 9 Del Norte, 42-35 over No. 8 Oceanside.

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