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

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Thursday Night Recap: La Canada, San Marino get wins; Rosemead gets shutout at Irvine


OPENING NIGHT WINNERS: La Canada’s Anders Iverson (13) takes down Alhambra’s Brandon Barbera (6) with the help of Jadon Henry (2) and Brad Woolf during Thursday’s game. The host Spartans scored a 17-7 victory.
(Sarah Reingewirtz / Staff Photographer)

THURSDAY NIGHT’S RESULTS
La Canada 17, Alhambra 7 — Andy Paynter rushed for 157 yards and the Spartans defense held the Moors to one score for a victory in their season opener. Ezra Broadus had a key 57-yard run to set up quarterback Armando Amaya’s TD run.
San Marino 30, Eagle Rock 14 — Ryan Wood rushed for 202 yards and three touchdowns as the Titans opened 2012 with a victory.
Irvine 20, Rosemead 0 — The Panthers committed six turnovers and had 12 plays go for negative yardage in a lost on the road.

LA CANADA-ALHAMBRA PHOTO GALLERY

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College Football: UCLA football team already well on road to recovery


READY FOR 2012: Senior running back Jonathan Franklin
will be a key for UCLA this season.
(Staff file photo by Keith Birmingham)

UCLA-Rice preview

Here’s my college football column on the opening of the season for UCLA. I’ll try to post as many stories about UCLA, since they are the home team of Pasadena.

By Steve Ramirez, SGVN
twitter.com/srammy8

For the third time in a decade, UCLA begins the college football season with a new coach.
Will Jim L. Mora, who begins his Bruins legacy today at 4:30 p.m. when UCLA opens the season at Rice, succeed where Karl Dorrell and Rick Neuheisel failed?
I, for one, believe he will. Maybe not to the extent some UCLA fans envision, as in recapturing Los Angeles from USC’s stranglehold, but he certainly has the qualities to get the Bruins out of their stagnation over the last decade and at least compete for the Pac-12 title annually.
For me Dorrell, who replaced Bob Toledo in 2002, was too passive and looked to run from a fight rather than engage. Instead of go head-on in recruiting with the monster Pete Carroll created at USC, he took the second-tier route and failed miserably.
Enter Neuheisel who, after leading Washington to a win in the 2001 Rose Bowl and a few years as a NFL assistant with the Baltimore Ravens, appeared to have the personality to get UCLA moving again.
Slick Rick or Skippy, as some of his detractors labeled the 1984 Rose Bowl MVP, had the sales pitch of a used car dealer and brought in three top recruiting classes.
The problem was it never materialized on the field. Neuheisel’s weakness seems to be Mora’s strength, at least from what we saw during spring practice and in summer camp.
Neuheisel brought in top recruits but deferred to experience rather than talent and it proved to be his downfall.
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Blair, Marshall have rivalry in mind

Here’s a notebook from Keith Lair about the coaches at Blair and Marshall talking about creating their own Turkey Tussle. Both make some valid points. I like the doubleheader idea. It would be fun.

By Keith Lair, SGVN
twitter.com/KeithLLair

PASADENA – Muir and Pasadena high schools have the Turkey Tussle.
So it should only be fitting the other two Pasadena Unified School District football teams, Blair and Marshall, create their own regular rivalry. The schools, with populations of 1,400 fewer students than their brethren, have not met since the 2007 season.
First-year Marshall coach Jim Arellanes and assistant coach Todd Quinsey have even come up with a name for the matchup, which was an annual game until the ’08 season.
“We thought the Chicken Breast Bowl,” said Quinsey, who was head coach at Glendora last season.
It makes perfect sense, especially for a game matching seemingly equal teams. Both teams lost their season openers by the same 46-0 score last week. Both games finished with running clocks. Both teams have struggled recently and underwent several coaching changes.
Arellanes and Quinsey even suggested the game be moved to the Rose Bowl. The Marshall coach’s thoughts were that it could precede the Turkey Tussle, forming an all-PUSD twinbill.
“We could be like the JV game before the big game,” first-year Blair coach Johnny Lopez said. “People have been throwing this idea around for a long time.”
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