Football: La Serna not missing a beat
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
The La Serna High School football team graduated the majority of players who keyed last year's 11-2 record and a trip to the CIF-Southern Section Southeast Division semifinals and was expected to fall back in line.
Instead, the Lancers have continued to look like one of the better teams in the area. They opened the season with a 32-14 victory over Bonita Vista of San Diego and followed with a 42-7 win over Downey.
La Serna, which travels to Bonita on Friday, is ranked No. 3 in the area and No. 5 in the Southeast Division.
"It's like I said before, we're fortunate to have all our levels win league titles (last season)," La Serna coach Margarito Beltran said. "The players have done a good job so far. They haven't been pretty games. It's been rough with penalties and stuff like that.
"We only have three starters back, but the kids have responded well. We've asked them to step up and they have stepped up. We're young and sometimes we play like it, but sometimes we play really well. But it's only two games and it's a long season."
The central figures in the fast start have been returning Del Rio League Defensive Player of the Year Craig Jones and senior running back O.J. Medina, who has rushed for 116 yards and two touchdowns.
There's also been the play of sophomore quarterback Frankie Palmer, who has thrown for six touchdowns and accounted for eight.
"He's done a great job running the offense," Beltran said of Palmer. "He's taken advantage of his opportunities when they arise. He's completed 70 percent of his passes, which is darn good for a sophomore. We're pleased with his progress and we expect him to get better. He's still young, but he's had two big games."
It gets bigger at 7 p.m. on Friday when the Lancers make the trip to Bonita, which enjoyed the school's best season in nearly 50 years in 2010, highlighted by a 21-16 victory over La Serna in the Southeast semifinals.
Bonita, which also was hit hard by graduation, is 1-1 after opening with a 40-20 victory over rival San Dimas before losing to Claremont 18-15 last week.
"I'd be lying if I said it's not something we have talked about," Beltran said. "But our thing is making every year new. It has its own moments. Our focus is on this year. Last year was a remarkable year, but we're just worried about this year."
1 Comments
Leave a comment
About this blog
Steve Ramirez is the prep sports editor for the Whittier Daily News.
Pretty impressive wins for La Serna, hard to tell how good the teams they beat are at this point of the season, Bonita is a shell of last years team and struggled with a Claremont team that West Co had ran over the week before in a game like scrimmage,I think La Serna wins this easy, West Co just took a beating from a very good Loyola team, they were missing Solomon and other key starters but even with the missing players Loyola was too talented. They are a Pac 5 team that will make some waves this year. La Serna, Santa Fe, and Muir look like they have a strong year coming their way and when West Co heals up I think they will be very good too. Arcadia just went toe to toe with St. Francis and lost by a last second field goal, they were up in that game by 2 or 3 scores at one point, I got a feeling they could make a deep run too.