Bonita senior wide receiver Codey Sykes caught seven passes for 170 yards, including the 18-yard game winner with 27 seconds left in the Bearcats' 26-20 victory over Los Altos on Friday.
Colony running back Jamil Austin gashed the Garey defense for 268 yards and six touchdowns on just 12 carries in Colony's 55-7 win on Friday.
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With Miramonte League play beginning Friday, here's how I think it will turn out:
Charter Oak: 3-1
Diamond Ranch: 3-1
Bonita: 3-1
H.H. Los Altos: 1-3
H.H.Wilson: 0-4
Defending CIF and Miramonte League champion Charter Oak not only has all the hardware but its current 5-1 record is a stark contrast to Diamond Ranch and Bonita's 1-5 and 1-4 respective marks. This league's title appears a forgone conclusion, right?
Wrong... Charter Oak is not the juggernaut it was a season ago. Both Diamond Ranch and Bonita played better nonleague schedules. While DR and Bonita were dropping winnable games to Glendora, Chino Hills, Claremont, and San Diego Westview, Charter Oak was eeking out a 3-point victory over an unproven Damien team and putting together a miraculous comeback win over Etiwanda. But the biggest difference was the two gimmies on the defending champ's slate - Bonita and DR didn't have those luxuries.
Continue reading "Miramonte League prediction: Uncharted territory" »
Outside of the playoffs, neither Bonita nor San Dimas hide the fact that their game with each other is the most important of the season. After Bonita won the Smudge Pot five out of six years, the cross-town rivalry game has gone to San Dimas the last two. Fresh off its first loss of the season, San Dimas, the No. 4 team in the CIF-SS Mid-Valley division, enters with a 3-1 record while Bonita, having won its first game last time out, is 1-3.
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The singular devotion to this game is apparent on both sides. Each takes its bye week before hand, so as to allow more time for the hype to build. League play and the playoffs are obviously important but neither side of the rivalry veils the significance of this series that San Dimas leads 20-16-1.
"League still matters," Bonita running back Deron Holmes said, "but this game is on top."
"When you're drawing up plays in the summer," San Dimas head coach Bill Zernickow said, "you think of the Bearcats first."
Continue reading "Prep football game of the week: Bonita at San Dimas" »
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Bonita High School head football coach Eric Podley after his team's 31-28 loss to Claremont on Friday, which included a 24-point halftime deficit:
"We were misinformed about the game today. We thought it was a flag football game in the first half and didn't show up to play tackle football until the second."
The loss dropped Bonita, a playoff team the last three years, to 0-2 while Claremont moved to 1-0 after compiling a 2-18 record over the past two seasons.
Brandon Sermons woke up Wednesday morning knowing he would sign a national letter of intent, he just didn't know with whom.
The Diamond Ranch High School senior, ranked the 33rd best cornerback in the country by rivals.com, verbally committed to UCLA way back on Oct 21. But in the three weeks before signing day was wavering enough to visit hard-charging Oregon State and Washington.
These weren't just courtesy trips.
"Three days ago he was leaning Washington," Diamond Ranch football coach Roddy Layton said Wednesday afternoon. "Two days ago he was leaning UCLA. Yesterday he didn't know."
Sermons and Layton had a four-hour dinner Tuesday night, during which Sermons was leaning in so many different directions it's a good thing he was sitting down.
With the myriad rules concerning CIF playoff pairings - keeping first-place teams from playing anybody that finished higher than third place, preventing potential second-round matchups between teams in the same league, etc. - the top four teams in each bracket are the only ones CIF can truly seed.
Despite facing No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, respectively, Norco and Diamond Ranch advanced to the second round of the playoffs Friday night.
Norco, the Inland Division's at-large team, handed undefeated Rancho Verde a 19-9 loss Friday night while Diamond Ranch, whose record is still under .500 even with the playoff win, showed third-seeded Pacific League champ Pasadena Muir the door with a 21-7 victory in the Southeast Division's first round.
Diamond Ranch (5-6) is the equivalent of the 13th seed while Norco (7-4) is the 15th.
In my estimation, these were the two biggest upsets of the first round of the playoffs.
At stake tonight when Bonita hosts four-time defending Miramonte League champion Charter Oak is Bonita's first league championship since 2004, when it was a co-champion.
With both teams undefeated in league, there will be no shared title this season when CIF-SS Eastern Division No. 2 Charter Oak (8-0-1, 3-0) squares off with No. 8 Bonita (7-2, 3-0). The winner will take all. Here is a breakdown of the matchup
Continue reading "Bonita charting course to Miramonte League title" »
Diamond Ranch offensive lineman Graham Vickers verbally committed to Navy on Monday, according to Diamond Ranch coach Roddy Layton.
The 6-foot-2, 262-pound senior also had scholarship offers from from Air Force, Army, Portland State and New Hampshire.
Vickers projects at any of the interior line positions in college. He also plays defensive line for Diamond Ranch and has collected 15 tackles and four sacks thus far.
After weighing circa 20 scholarship offers, Diamond Ranch cornerback Brandon Sermons verbally committed to UCLA Tuesday, Diamond Ranch coach Roddy Layton said.
Sermons, a 6-foot-1, 188-pound senior ranked the 27th best cornerback in the country by rivals.com, had recently narrowed his list to schools including UCLA, Oregon, Colorado, Oregon State and Arizona. USC, where Sermons' his older brother and Layton both played, expressed interest but hasn't offered.
"USC is USC and they think they can swoop in late and get some kids," Layton said. "It might be a possibility they could get him to switch but I think (Sermons) is pretty comfortable with UCLA. We've had some pretty serious conversations, so by now he's probably 99 percent sure. I don't think he's waiting on USC."
Four Diamond Ranch High School football players have received scholarship offers.
Cornerback Brandon Sermons from most of the Pac-10 including UCLA, Oregon, Arizona State, Arizona and Oregon State. USC has expressed interest but is yet to offer. Sermons, a 6-foot-1, 188-pound senior, is beginning to narrow his list to schools that include UCLA, Colorado, Arizona and Utah.
"Pete Carroll asked for film on him (Monday)," Diamond Ranch coach Roddy Layton said. "Rick Neuheisel calls every week and (Sermons) likes what they're doing with the
defense at Arizona, but now that USC has entered the mix that could change things."