Friday Night Final: St. Francis wins big; Monrovia rally falls short, loses to Ayala, 16-15

ON THE LOOSE: Arcadia’s Matthew Morales (40) tries to stop St. Francis’ Daniel Kawamura (11) during the first half of Friday night’s game at St. Francis High School. The Golden Knights won, 49-10.
SGVN Photo By Sarah Reingewirtz

FRIDAY’S RESULTS
No. 2 St. Francis 49, No. 8 Arcadia 10 — The Golden Knights answer all questions about their youth, rolling up 489 yards after leading 20-0 at halftime and 43-0 after three quarters. Running backs Daniel Kawamura and Joe Mudie combine for 209 yards and three TDs in the rout.
Ayala 16, No. 1 Monrovia 15 — The Wildcats chance to step up comes up short. There will be a new No. 1 in the area this week.
Mission Prep 47, No. 3 Rio Hondo Prep 14 — The Kares drop down a beg after being blown-out at home.
South Pasadena 49, No. 4 San Gabriel 40 — A big win for the Tigers, who got 221 yards and two scores from Rudy Murrillo. Joseph Mayorga had 175 yards and two TDS for the Matadors.
Don Lugo 36, No. 5 Maranatha 14 — Suddenly the Minutemen are 0-2. But they could get healthy next week, traveling to Glendora to face Azusa, which was whacked, 50-7, by San Dimas.
Alemany 49, No. 7 Muir 12 — The host Warriors have outscored the Pasadena Unified School District, 94-20, the past two weeks. They beat PHS, 45-8 last week. Muir now drops to 0-2 and travels to power Rancho Cucamonga next week.
Cerritos Valley Christian 42, Duarte 36 — A tough road loss for the Falcons, who led 36-34 before giving up the winning TD with 1:06 to play.
Arroyo 21, Temple City 0 — The Rams are still scoreless after two weeks.
Marshall 31, Blair 14 — A big win for former Northview head coaches Jim Arrellanes, who is the Eagles head coach, and Todd Quinsey, who is Marshall’s OC.
Gabrielino 27, Bosco Tech 21 — Look who is 2-0! Elijah Peters passed for 171 yards to lead Gabrielino, who gets Keppel next week.
La Salle 45, Glendale 16 — The Lancers are also 2-0 after getting another solid efforts from quarterback Austin Wallis and Israel Lacy.
Workman 28, Keppel 8 — The Lobos hand the Aztecs another tough loss.
Poly 28, Saddleback Valley Chr. 12 — A good win on the road for the Panthers, who gets Blair next week. Jake Zelek had two touchdowns for Poly.
TODAY
Flintridge Prep at Army-Navy, Carlsbad, 1:15 p.m.

KNIGHTS LOOK GOLDEN

By Steve Ramriez, SGVN
twitter.com/srammy8
LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE —
St. Francis High School, which graduated the bulk of its stars from last season’s CIF-Southern Section quarterfinalist, entered the football season with a lot of questions.
The Golden Knights found some answers Friday.
Daniel Kawamura and Joe Mudie combined for 209 yards rushing and three touchdowns and St. Francis rolled up nearly 500 yards en route to a 49-10 victory over Arcadia in a nonleague game at Friedman Field.
Quarterback Jared Lebowitz threw for 129 yards and accounted for two touchdowns for the Golden Knights, who are 1-0.
Arcadia, which opened the season with a 29-7 loss to Rio Hondo Prep, slipped to 0-2. The Apaches only scores were a 90-yard pass from Zach Yeet to Darius Elliot and a 29-yard field goal by Nick Pulciano during the fourth quarter.
“It’s one game. But we know we have some guys who can play,” St. Francis coach Jim Bonds said. “We just have to come together and figure out how to win together as a group, because there’s so many new pieces to the puzzle. Tonight’s one step in the right direction.
“Arcadia is in the same boat. Their roster is a little smaller. We’re just going to take it one week at a time. This is a good start for a young group. But our schedule doesn’t get any easier.”

St. Francis all but sealed the outcome in the first half. The Golden Knights scored on its first drive before take a three-touchdown lead following back-to-back scoring marches in the second quarter for a 20-0 advantage.
Lebowitz, who had 65 yards passing in the first half, keyed the first score. He followed a 28-yard completion to Mudie with a 14-yard run to set up Austin Finton’s 2-yard run for an 8-0 lead with 5:17 left in the first quarter. Lebowitz ran in the conversion.
Kawamura made it 14-0 with a 60-yard run at the beginning of the second quarter before Lebowitz threw three yards to Tommy Scheper to push the advantage to 20-0 at halftime.
Arcadia, which was held to 46 yards in the first half and 132 for the game, looked like it might get back into it early in the second quarter after a short punt gave the Apaches a first down at St. Francis’ 42 with the score 8-0 and nine minutes left in the half.
But two runs produced just two yards before Jake Medel had consecutive incomplete passes to turn over the ball on downs.
Kawamura then followed with a 60-yard run to push the advantage to two scores.
“I thought we played well in the first half,” Arcadia coach Chris Long said. “It was three plays that hurt us. On the first drive, we had them third-and-30 and they get the first down. They run the counter for 60 yards and then get a big first down on the last drive. Those really killed us.”
St. Francis, which received 108 yards rushing from Kawamura and 101 from Mudie, then put it away during the third quarter. Mudie had a 68-yard run for a 27-0 lead before a 1-yard run by Lebowitz, a safety and a 10-yard run by Kawamura pushed it to 36-0 with five minutes left in the quarter.
Elliot broke the shutout with his 90-yard pass reception with 9:20 left to play.

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