Monrovia goes from good to powerhouse …

Before we get to my column from Monrovia’s championship win, let me say that M-Town puts on a great show. The new stadium is great. Principal Jackson, the faculty members I rapped with and the fans were all great. I guess I don’t mind donating $5 for parking after all. Awesome to see bloggers New York, Kennedy Bryant and Big Bob, among others, out there. The Wildcats have one of the best and most passionate fan bases in the SGV.

Here’s my column from Saturday, in case you missed it.

There are two undeniable signs that pop up when a high school football program makes the jump from being simply good to a powerhouse.

The first is CIF championships and the second is the presence of blue-chip talent on the roster.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the back-to-back Mid-Valley Division champion Monrovia Wildcats.

For the second consecutive year, the Wildcats preside over a division that surely won’t make headlines outside of the 626 area code, but that really isn’t the point. The way the Wildcats have taken ownership of the division and the caliber of players they’ve done it with is.

Saturday’s 53-14 win over San Gabriel was something most fans expected. But why was Monrovia’s stadium packed if the result simply was a formality?

The answer goes back to the original point: championships and blue-chip recruits. Fans want to see the combination of both, and right now nobody around is doing it better than Monrovia. And Saturday’s game certainly was a spectacle, if not a coronation.

For years, the Wildcats and Rio Hondo League were buried in a CIF wasteland. They were in over their heads all throughout the 1990s and for part of the 2000s. Top-notch teams of the past with some super recruits of their own came up short because even they were in over their heads.

Maybe there’s been some sort of over-adjustment because it’s become quite obvious the Wildcats lay over the Mid-Valley Division. That’s not a bad thing. It’s simply proof that this program is ready for bigger and better. And it’s very apparent Monrovia now can handle bigger and better.

At most schools, losing a quarterback such as last year’s star Nick Bueno would be too much to overcome. At Monrovia, the beat goes on. Bueno wasn’t the only standout the Wildcats lost from last year, but even those were replaced.

Super recruit Ellis McCarthy will be gone next year, as will receiver Luke Williams, running back Marquise Bias and all-purpose threat De’Shawn Ramirez. It won’t matter because, as Saturday showed, there’s a star-in-the-making in linebacker George Frazier and a strong-armed quarterback in Blake Heyworth, who can more than carry the show.

It took the Wildcats some time to put things together this season.

Heyworth didn’t hit his stride until October. McCarthy nursed nagging injuries. Both lines didn’t start to dominate until after they had a few nonleague rehearsals.

By November, the Wildcats simply were intoxicating to watch. The big plays and big hits made several good programs that stood in Monrovia’s way during the playoffs look silly.

Monrovia clearly is to a point where it simply reloads. How many teams around these parts can say that? Longtime Wildcats fans always knew they had a potential dynasty if the circumstances were right. With head coach Ryan Maddox at the helm and CIF paying better attention to how to properly place the Wildcats, that moment clearly has arrived.

Follow me on Twitter @ChemicalAT

Damien wanted Monrovia in Week 1 next year, but will instead play Orange Lutheran …

Damien has settled on playing Orange Lutheran in Week 1 next season after being unable to line up a game with Monrovia that same week.

The Spartans made a run at trying to play Monrovia, which already had the date filled. So now Orange Lutheran will be Damien’s season opener (at home).

Aram’s take: Wow, O-Lu coming to the foothills/SGV/Inland Valley. That’s a nice test right off the bat. It’s too bad no game against Monrovia could be made. Damien has a LOAD of returning starters next season and who knows what other improvements they’ll make this offseason.

Duarte fires Tip Sanders, defensive coordinator Jason Martin to take over …

Duarte has fired football coach Tip Sanders after three seasons at the school.

The Falcons went winless in Sanders’ first two seasons, but came alive in 2011 with a 6-3 record and almost made the Mid-Valley Division playoffs.

Jason Martin, who was the defensive coordinator this past season, will take over as head coach.

Sanders was 6-22 at the school. He stepped into a bad situation in 2009 after previous head coach Wardell Crutchfield Jr. was let go despite a very successful run, causing a mass exodus of the program’s top talent.

Sanders struggled through low player turnout in first two seasons, but the Falcons turned things around this past season.

One of Sanders’ assistant coaches is expected to take over.

West Covina 84!!!!!!, La Serna 21 …

WHITTIER — Dominant isn’t a strong enough word to describe it.

In fact, rather than use words, how about I suggest you think of the image of a lion hunting down a three-legged gazelle to eat for dinner?

That’s probably the best way to describe what the West Covina High School football team did to La Serna in the CIF-Southern Section Southeast Division championship.

Like a lion deciding it’s hungry when a gazelle happens to stroll by, West Covina versus La Serna was over before it started. The Bulldogs got off the bus at a stadium not big enough to house their fans, to play on a field that was supposed to give their opponent a better chance and ran roughshod over La Serna to the tune of a 84-21 final score. The 84 points were a record for a CIF championship game.

“Is this real?” West Covina defensive end Justen Meaders asked out loud on the sidelines during the early stages of the rout.

You can’t blame Meaders for wondering that. The entire first half was a “pinch me” moment for West Covina’s fans, players and coaches. On its way to a 49-7 lead early in the second quarter, the Bulldogs were scoring, on average, every two minutes.

In that time span, they passed the ball only twice. Both went for touchdowns with one of them coming from running back Chris Solomon on a 68-yard halfback pass to Lonzel Barnett … two plays after Jimmy Frazier’s 62-yard touchdown run was negated by a holding penalty.

Don’t feel bad for Frazier, though. He got his. When La Serna scored its first touchdown to briefly make it 28-7, Frazier took the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown. As for a playing on natural grass instead of the Bulldogs’ home surface of FieldTurf?

“Not a problem,” Frazier said.

Championship games aren’t supposed to be so easy. Nor are the playoffs. West Covina scored more points in each successive round than the previous. The Bulldogs’ margin of victory in the postseason was 30, 43, 29 and 63 points. You can’t even accuse West Covina of running up the score because it only passed the ball THREE TIMES in the game and the fourth quarter was played with a running clock!

The best part about West Covina’s back-to-back Southeast Division championships is the way the Bulldogs have done it. Head coach Mike Maggiore and his staff have taken a boring style of football and made it exciting. How else can you explain 84 points in a championship game while only throwing the ball three times?

There was nothing complex about West Covina did to its opponents this season (and last). It was simple smashmouth running football that put up points so quickly that a spread offense would blush. On defense, it was pressure football at the line of scrimmage in front of a secondary that either laid lumber if a ball carrier got to them or simply intercepted whatever came their way.

Maggiore and his staff have no doubt put in place a system that plays to the talent on hand. It fits perfectly with the type of hard-nosed kids who wear the Bulldogs uniform. And who needs the pass anyway when you’ve got three running backs with over 1,000 yards rushing?

Friday’s score and how it happened was so outrageous that it will no doubt get CIF’s attention. Time for a division change perhaps? Well, it’s only natural for media types to start speculating about how a team would fare against better competition in a higher division. But on Friday night, this sportswriter found himself wondering how West Covina would fare against the Packers, let alone the Inland Division.

For years, West Covina was considered by many to be the Valley’s sleeping giant. After three CIF titles in eight years, the giant is clearly awake. And now it might be on to bigger and better things.

Last year, Maggiore and his staff said goodbye to players like quarterback George Johnson, all-purpose star Beejay Lee and All-Area linebacker Maurice Dupleasis. This year, they’ll lose reigning Tribune Player of the Year Solomon, defensive stalwart Meaders and speedster Frazier.

It matters not. There’s plenty of talent waiting in the wings to step in. That’s just how it goes when you become an elite program. And in case anybody was wondering before Friday’s game, West Covina is an elite program and there’s 84 reasons why you’d better believe it.

Follow me on Twitter @ChemicalAT