Who wins the Mid-Valley Division? Will it be that easy for Monrovia? I don’t think so

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Westside folks lead you to believe that Monrovia could win the Pac-5, so the Mid-Valley should be a mere bump in the road, right? I still think Covina, Arroyo, San Dimas, Maranatha, Whittier Christian and yes, Azusa have a shot, but I’ll let you decide.

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  • New York

    Don’t be ridiculous, Fred. I think you have exaggerated our view a bit…Pac-5? No.

    What I would really be interested in, is Aram doing a side-by-side evaluation of Monrovia’s team vs. one of the Los Altos teams that he used to praise so much. Frankly, Ellis is much larger than either of their stud D-tackles were. The skill guys are there. Our QB is young but physically superior. So? Let’s see it Aram.

  • Amat Bully

    LOL…Monrovia wouldn’t win the pac5 but they probably do better than Amat. But Monrovia owns the mid-valley they’re the king of that division.

  • Cody

    You really don’t want to make that comparsion do you?

    Monrovia’s Ellis and Cody form Los Altos really that is a joke at this time.

    Let’s just star with this award,

    All-USA Defensive MVP (ALL-USA)

    At the end of the season let’s see what Ellis has got, then you can start to compare.

  • FredJ

    New York, that would be Observant doing the exaggerating … he’s the one make the comparison’s..

  • Frank

    I have to go with Monrovia, they’re program has really improved. Also I didn’t realize how weak the midvalley division is, till I saw these teams listed. What happened to the days when you used to travel an hour or two to play a team in playoffs. CIF has really created a weak division with this one. I have to pick Monrovia hands down, especially since they’ve beneffited from the numerous Duarte kids in their program.

  • Steve Ramirez

    New York, I can answer that since I covered what I believe was the team of the decade – the 2000 Los Altos team that went 14-0 and won Division 7. I’ve seen McCarthy play and he clearly the best player in the Mid-Valley, if not all three of our areas combined. He’s a different player than Sean Cody, who was the quickest defensive player off the ball that I’ve covered in high school. Bishop Amat’s Kory Minor was a better comparison in that matter. Remember, Cody was defensive end in high school, and only moved inside at USC, where he bulked up and now plays inside in the NFL. But his strength was his speed off the edge. Also, what made that Los Altos team unbeatable that season, was they also had Travis Parker – who played FBS at Georgia Tech – on the side side, and some solid linebackers and safeties. Offensive, they were a juggernaut with Felipe Aguilar at QB and Ramon Martinez at receiver. Aguilar tied the area record for most TD passes with 42. He still shares that record with Amat’s Pat Haden. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Martinez broke J.K. McKay’s area record with 29 TD receptions. The running backs were Keith Brown, who was one of the top backs in the area that season, and Cody at fullback. As good as Monrovia is this year, there’s no comparison to that 2000 Los Altos team, which destroyed teams. They beat a decent Arcadia team, 59-3 and a good Western team, which won their league, 41-10. It’s really no comparison.

  • http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvfootball Aram Tolegian

    NY,

    Cody was slightly before my time. I did cover Brighman Harwell and he’s the best defensive player I’ve ever covered.

    I saw McCarthy for the first time in last year’s CIF championship game against Whittier Christian. He certainly is a specimen. He simply overpowers people at that level.

    Here’s my bottom line: McCarthy is bigger than Harwell, but he’s not as quick. Harwell played Orange Lutheran in the CIF championship. McCarthy played Whittier Christian. Harwell absolutely oblitered O-Lu’s QB on a sack in the second half of the championship and the kid had to leave the game and didn’t return.

    McCarthy is right around or slightly higher than where Harwell was in the national rankings. I know for certain that Cody was higher than both.

    With a dominant season and another CIF title, I think McCarthy will carve a pretty nice place in Valley history.

    I will be more interested in seeing how he does against Glendora than San Marino.

  • New York

    Cody,
    Your defensive tone is not needed here. I agree Cody was/is awesome.

    I agree Ellis is a different player, physically much bigger.

    Steve,
    Aram typically bragged up the 2003 team. That’s what I was most curious about. He mentioned once that the 2003 team would have beaten Amat.

  • New York

    Aram,
    It is too bad that Monrovia’s schedule is not tougher. I think Ellis rose to the occasion last year. Didnt he have FOUR sacks against Glendora? I’m sure he would have been an area leader in TD catches if we had needed him to be a red zone tight end throughout the season as well.

  • Steve Ramirez

    NY,
    That 2003 team was good, but only saw them once, when they destroyed Tustin in the playoffs. I saw the 2002 team, with Harwell, and that was basically the 2003 team, which had better play at QB. What separated the 2000 team was the play at QB. Think of the USC 2004, dominant defense with an offensive juggernaut. I too have said that team would beat Amat. I even wrote a column that season stating so, and that got me in trouble with the Amat Nation.

  • AZTEC PRIDE

    Fred, my man slow the presses down. I was still busy over there on ARAM’S blog trying to make my point and didn’t realize you threw in a bone in here about AZUSA! LOL…

    Fred thess are some great articles to agree or disagree! Great job Fred and i’m running out of time here at work to voice my opinion about AZUSA. I’ll end with this and say, all i’m hoping for is AZUSA can defeat San Dimas and Village Christian! I’m not aking for to much, and you can probably figure out why!

    AZTEC PRIDE!

  • SaintsR4real

    New York sais..”It is too bad that Monrovia’s schedule is not tougher”

    I believe in order for Monrovia to hit their goal into stepping into a more challenging league, they will have to dominate their league now, in order to not give CIF a choice.
    New York, what are your thoughts??

  • AMAT 73

    Steve,
    What probably got in trouble was not the fact you said LA would have beaten AMAT but more the fact you use that nation term.

  • Dan

    Los Altos 2000 or Los Altos 2003,
    Tough comparison, both were 14 and 0 and CIF champs. I saw Los Altos in the 2000 Championship game against Charter Oak, it took all that Los Altos had in addition to feeding the ball to Shaun Cody several times in a row at fullback on the last drive to snatch victory away from Charter Oak.
    I also saw the 2003 Los Altos team 3 times, Including a 53 to 0 explosion of Charter Oak, a solid win over a very good Mayfair team, and a thrilling championship victory over an Orange Lutheran team that had made easy work of Mater Dei earlier that year. This same Mater Dei team made it to the “D1″ semifinals, where they lost to Long Beach Poly 18 to 7.
    There is no way to determine who was better, but the 2003 team had the more impressive wins that year. They had the wins that I mentioned plus they beat a 13 and 1 CIF Champ in South Hills by a score of 42 to 13. Sorry Steve but I have to go with 2003 Los Altos as their best team in the last 10 or 15 years.

  • Mid Valley Fan

    PAC-5 ref was just to catch your eye…come on peeps! lol

    The real story is Covina getting that many poll votes. Saw them up close last year. VV is good and the fullback is back but didn’t see much fire/swag in them. QB is decent but WC ran him ragged all night. It’s Monrovia’s division to lose in my view. Maranatha has the skill kids and the QB to compete….and now the D. We shall see…

  • http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvfootball Aram Tolegian

    The ’03 Los Altos team is the best high school team I’ve ever seen. Not a very big stretch to say that they would have beaten Amat. It probably wouldn’t have been much of a game either. That LA team finished the year ranked No. 2 in the L.A. Times Top 25. Think about the talent …

    Harwell (UCLA)
    Chappelle Brown as a soph (Colorado)
    Travis Brown (New Mexico)
    Randall Brown (Former Trib Player of the Year)
    Daniel Drayton (Oregon St.)
    Sandello/Estrada at QB (both fantastic)
    Tao Alo, who was one of the best talents in SoCal but had problems.

    They were LOADED. Best team I’ve ever covered.

  • diaz

    Really, you wanna compare LA 2003 to Monrovia? M-Town is good, even great. (for a valley Vista league). But they couldn’t beat a Orange Lutheran, or a Foothill team on their best day and or on O Lu or Foothills worst day. I was at LA-O Lu, and M-Town-Whit. Chr. Brigham would have taken out m-towns QB, like he did to O Lu.

  • cat

    I would say P-Town had a run at the title until Rice changed his QB decision this week. Now talks are 7 Will return home for 1st preseason game. Per close Schrieman insider.

  • diaz

    Correction, mid valley, not valley vista

  • X’s and O’s

    The LA 2000 team was a missed extra point away from losing the semifinals game to Cal-Hi and a missed halftime speech away when Cody told Gano to “give me the ball” from losing the championship game.

  • Progress…

    People please remember in the late 90′s and early 2000′s Olu, St Bonnie, were in a lower division than Monrovia, and other Midvalley teams. This years Mtown squad is great however, Besides McCarthy, the Majority of Monrovia players still have more to prove after 2014 we can look back and decide how good Monrovia was during this run. it’s really hard to compare the SGV talent of today, to the SGV talent of the mid 90′s to early 2000′s. back in the 90′s, outside of division 1-4 some division that were lower, were more stacked than some mid to higher divisions. For example in 2000 div 7 was better than 5-6 in my opinion. One must Factor in the expansion of the IE to fully understand SGV football today. There are tons of families from our area, who kids are now at Colony, Etiwanda, upland, and further out. Look at muir and Alemany’s success. We are slowly getting our talent pool back, and people are starting to send there kids our way.

    The Midvalley is Monrovias to lose. If they win again in the Fashion they did last year, than they should get a shot at the southeast.

  • New York

    Progress,
    Good points.

    All,
    I did not make any claims here. I was just curious about the details of those Los Altos teams’ compositions. Quite impressive. Also, this Monrovia team will be judged at the end of the season as well as after next season to see who goes where. I will say this, Monrovia has not been nearly this disciplined or well conditioned in the past 25 years, probably longer.

    Anyway, the reason I wanted to get a comparison to some of those greats was to encourage our local writers to use their imagination a bit, rather than continually view Monrovia as the “Midvalley” team that would get worked in supposedly far superior Southeast.

  • New York

    SaintsR4real,

    I’m not sure that Monrovia’s goal is to get into a tougher league, but I know that Coach Maddox’s goal is to reach a state bowl. Frankly, why not? We have only 1700-1800 students.

    Playing in the RHL does not prepare us for competitive football. It cerainly does not require our guys to play and PREPARE at 100%. Running up the score is not the answer; doing the wrong thing never is the answer. Other teams around the Valley are not always pushed either. Maybe the CIF should cherry pick a handful of existing MidValley teams and combine with a couple from the Pacific to form a new league in the Southeast. (Monrovia, Covina, San Dimas, Schurr, Muir, Arcadia, etc).

  • mike lawry

    Just watched an interesting group of young men pounding the field. Be careful mid valley. QB, wow is all I can say. “43″

  • mike lawry

    Just watched an interesting group of young men pounding the field. Be careful mid valley. QB, wow is all I can say. “43″

  • Let Me Guess

    “43″
    ??????????????????????????

    1. The number of interceptions thrown?
    2. How many points each team scores on you before halftime?
    3. How many times you blame the coach each game?
    4. How many days till Mark transfers his son to another school?
    5. How many points you score all season?
    6. How many alias used on the blogs?
    7. How many times you have been called an idiot in the first 14 days of this month on these blogs?
    8. How many people danced at Wilson when you left? ( In just the first hour )?
    9. Yards lost in sacks each game?
    10. How many seconds of game 1 before you start badmouthing the coach?

  • mike lawry

    Let me guess. You are a true fan of the sport. If you had a clue of H.S. football and goals, you might understand, but you rather attack his dad, and believe me this is not Mark. Too bad your lost, I really do hope the best for 7 and any and all athletes, too bad people like you can’t live without showing ignorance.