Can the rivalry in Rancho get any more heated?
Rancho Cucamonga quarterback Greg Watson didn't mince words when addressing his team's Saturday semifinal playoff game with crosstown rival Los Osos. In fact, he only needed a few of them.
"Four words," Watson said. "We're going to win."
Saturday's CIF-SS Central Division semifinal is just the latest chapter in a rivalry that has grown into one of the area's best in essentially the last two years. Los Osos is only eight years old and Rancho's program took a downward turn circa 2006 just as Los Osos was coming into its own. For the past two years, however, both have been at the top of their game: Rancho won a CIF championship last season and Los Osos took the Baseline League title from the defending champs this year. What seems to have taken this rivalry to another level is Los Osos' 31-28 win this season during which it warmed up in its away jerseys before changing into home jerseys prior to a Rancho home game - Los Osos provides the home field for the two schools separated by one mile - that seems to have taken the rivalry to another level.
"They disrespected us," Watson said.
Los Osos, however, believes it's the one receiving the least respect.
"I think people still think it's all a fluke," Los Osos senior quarterback Blake Loncar said of the Grizzlies' Baseline League championship season. "I think they think we won two games we weren't supposed to."
That is just fine with Los Osos' 6-foot-5 first-year starter, who was referencing the 31-28 win over Rancho Cucamonga and 58-35 win over co-Baseline League champion Etiwanda.
"What I like is that we're under the radar," Loncar said. "That puts more pressure on them. I like not getting all the credit and all the big talk."
While Rancho Cucamonga has lost two games by three points each this year on the heels of its undefeated 2008 season, Los Osos has come a long way from a 2-4 start that included a 26-point loss to an eventual 3-7 Riverside North team and shutout loss to Upland in its Baseline League opener.
"We went into that Upland game thinking we were somebody we weren't," Los Osos offensive coordinator Matt Bechtel said. "We were making things too complicated, so even though it made us real vanilla we made some changes. For us, simpler has been better. It allowed the kids to play and not think."
Los Osos has won six straight games since.
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About Clay
Clay Fowler has been covering high school sports for six years in California and Texas. He was born in Dallas, attended the University of Texas and worked in Central Texas before joining the Daily Bulletin staff in 2006.
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going to be a good game
Wow!! Today's players need to get over themselves..."disrespected" by a color of a jersey...please!!
wow now we label 16 yr old kids, maybe they all felt that way coaching staff included, why would one think there full of themselves & not just competative hmm, it should be a good game.