I’m happy it rained on the CIF championship bowl games …


Mother Nature was trying to tell CIF something yesterday.

I kept hearing people refer to the winners of yesterday’s games as “state champions.” But I remember CIF’s Thom Simmons telling me they weren’t going to be crowning any state champions after the bowl games. The games were simply “championship bowl games.” Very confusing. Maybe something changed. Are Oaks Christian, O-Lu and Canyon officially state champs? Or, did the tricky title of the games fool them like it did all of the FSN crew? Somebody please tell me.

I won’t lie to you – I spent most of Saturday shopping. I got text messages from two people asking me if Oaks Christian was winning. I got no reply from these two people when I texted back that I was at Nordstrom. That’s right, not Home Depot Center, not on my couch, NORDSTROM! However, it’s usually a safe bet that on any given weekend I’ll be on my couch watching sports. But it’s Christmas.

I did, however, get home in time to catch some of the Canyon game. Just watching the third quarter and listening to Petros Papadakis call the game was enough for me to keep turning the channel or put it on mute when it was on 653. Don’t get me wrong, Petros is very good on the radio. But TV makes his act get old real quick.

The only redeeming part of the Fox Sports broadcast was watching Lindsay Soto brave the rain while trying to act excited about the day’s events. Even her undying enthusiasm for prep sports had to be tested severely yesterday. I doubt she got home yesterday night, ran into her husband’s arms and said “Let me tell you about what a great day I had.”

It was a bad day overall for the media, which spent most of the week claiming none of the three games would be close and the event would be better with different matchups. In case you haven’t been able to tell by simply reading my stuff, prep sports writers can’t handicap football games. We really shouldn’t even try, because when you’re right, you still sleep alone and when you’re wrong you get countless emails from people who waited until after the game to call you an idiot.

Here’s a brief thought on all three games:

Oaks Christian27, Cardinal Newman 20 – Didn’t see the game, but Cardinal Newman covered and that’s all that mattered. I’ve never seen a more hated team than Oaks Christian. Nobody likes them, except for their own fans.

Orange Lutheran 42, Palo Alto 28 – This only fueled the “Corp is better than Clausen” argument that will wage for the next four years.

Canyon 27, De La Salle 13 – Watching De La Salle’s offense in the second half of yesterday’s game was like watching a certain former Tribune sports writer hit on a waitress at the now defunt National Sports Bar in West Covina – painful.

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