Cypress senior running Isaac Hurtado, Orange County’s leading rusher in 2019, will sign with Army on Wednesday.
Hurtado (6-3, 210) was the 2019 CIF-Southern Section Division 7 offensive player of the year and was an All-Orange County first team selection. He rushed for 2,631 yards and 37 touchdowns. He also had 25 receptions, six of them for touchdowns. The Centurions finished 13-1.
West Point athletics recruits do not sign letters of intent. As Army coach Jeff Monken explained, “While our recruits are not signing letters of intent, they are signing a certificate of commitment to attend the U.S. Military Academy.”
Wednesday is the first day of the regular signing period for football.
While the signing period for most sports started Nov. 13 and is ongoing through Aug. 1, signing ceremonies and events at high schools Wednesday will include non-football athletes from a variety of sports.
Segerstrom quarterback Angel Vega, selected the Big 4 League co-offensive player of the league in the fall, has transferred to city rival Santa Ana, Saints coach Charlie TeGantvoort said Tuesday.
Vega passed for 1,545 yards and 24 touchdowns while only being intercepted three times last season to help the Jaguars (10-2) finished second to Marina in league and reach the CIF-SS Division 10 quarterfinals.
Segerstrom lost to Katella and soon-to-be retired Coach Fred DiPalma 22-17.
The 6-foot, 185-pound Vega passed for 1,623 yards and 24 TDs in a breakout sophomore season.
This coming fall, Vega will give the Saints their second high-profile transfer of a Santa Ana-area player in three seasons. For the 2018 season, Godinez running back/defensive Patrick McMorris left Godinez and starred at Santa Ana for his senior season after observing the sitout period.
Santa Ana won the Orange Coast League title in 2018 and reached the Division 8 semifinals. Last season, the Saints (6-5) finished second to Orange in the league and lost to Aliso Niguel 21-6 in the first round of the Division 8 playoffs.
Vega’s arrival in the Orange Coast League sets up a showdown with Orange junior quarterback Daylen Pedroza. Both project to be two of the best passers in the county next season.
Santa Ana and Segerstrom were league rivals as recent as 2017 in the old Golden West League.
The Orange County North-South All-Star Classic on Friday will spotlight some of the best seniors from the class of 2020. Here’s 50 players — the OCVarsity’s Future 50 — from the class of 2021 who have already surfaced as excellent candidates for the game next year.
If game organizers follow the recommendation of South coach Chad Johnson of Mission Viejo, the 2021 game sponsored by Costa Mesa United and the L.A. Chargers would be moved up earlier in January.
The Southern California News Group honors the region’s top high school athletes for the fall.
SoCal Varsity Awards section is in the Sunday, Dec. 22editions of SCNG newspapers.
SOCAL VARSITY PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Name: Bryce Young
School: Mater Dei
Year: Senior
Bruce Rollinson has coached several outstanding quarterbacks at Mater Dei, from Billy Blanton to Matt Leinart to Matt Barkley to JT Daniels.
And the past two seasons the Monarchs have had Young at quarterback.
“I’ve had some great ones, but you might be looking at the greatest,” Rollinson said of Young. “What he brings to the table is crazy. Crazy. He’s taken the whole package. He’s extremely smart. He just sees it, he feels it, he smells it. It’s uncanny to me the decisions he makes.”
Young was spectacular all season, leading Mater Dei to victories over nationally-ranked competition while the Monarchs were ranked No. 1 in the nation, won the Trinity League championship and reached the CIF-Southern Section Division 1 championship game.
Young (6-0, 190) threw for 4,528 yards for an average of 348 yards a game. He completed 72 percent of his passes, had 58 touchdown passes and rushed for a team-high 11 touchdowns.
He threw seven touchdown passes in a win over Bishop Amat in the Division 1 quarterfinals, seven more in the semifinals against Mission Viejo and five more in the Monarchs’ 39-34 loss to St. John Bosco in the Division 1 final.
Young, who transferred after his sophomore year from Cathedral of Los Angeles after his sophomore year, committed to Alabama.
2019 All-SoCal Varsity Team
(Athletes listed by position)
OFFENSE
Quarterbacks
Jaden Casey, Calabasas.
Ethan Garbers, Corona del Mar
Jake Garcia, Narbonne
Kingston Hala, Paramount
Jared Heywood, Inglewood
Shane Illingworth, Norco
Miller Moss, Alemany
C.J. Stroud, Rancho Cucamonga
DJ Uiagalelei, St. John Bosco
Bryce Young, Mater Dei
Ryan Zanelli, La Habra
Running backs
Stephen Bradford, North Torrance
Willy Camacho, Chaminade
Nicholas Floyd, Centennial
Isaac Hurtado, Cypress
Jordan Jefferson, Rancho Verde
Wide receivers
Marquis Ashley, Norco
Taliq Brown, Murrieta Valley
Gary Bryant Jr., Centennial
Kody Epps, Mater Dei
John Humphreys, Corona del Mar
Johnny Wilson, Calabasas
Offensive linemen
Michael Alarcon, Bishop Amat
Nathan Cardona, Yorba Linda
Alec Estrada, Cajon
Christian Herrera, Centennial
James Maae, Long Beach Poly
Nicholas Martinez, Servite
Drake Metcalf, St John Bosco
Elia Migao, Chaparral
Myles Murao, Mater Dei
Jeffrey Persi, JSerra
Julian Ripley, Rancho Cucamonga
Ramon Ramirez, El Monte
DEFENSE
Defensive linemen
Jerry Ahching, Paramount
Jordan Banks, Narbonne
LeShaun Bell, Calabasas
Lando Brown, Serra
Lance Keneley, Mission Viejo
Sione Lolohea, Aquinas
Kobe Pepe, St. John Bosco
Linebackers
Justin Flowe, Upland
Desi Gonzalez, San Gorgonio
Josh Henderson, Grace Brethren
JD Hernandez, Sierra Canyon
Ray Leutele, Mater Dei
Easton Mascarenas, Mission Viejo
Bryun Parham, Long Beach Poly
Anson Pulsipher, Temecula Valley
Josh Ward, San Pedro
Kourt Williams, St. John Bosco
Defensive backs
Makell Esteen, Lawndale
DJ Harvey, Sierra Canyon
Clark Phillips III, La Habra
Kameron Rocha, San Jacinto
Rodney Robinson, Cajon
All-Purpose
Joey Hobert, San Juan Hills
Montana Lemonious-Craig, Inglewood
Kickers & Punters
Josh Bryan, Sierra Canyon, K
Colby Grames, Citrus Valley, P
Jack Stonehouse, Chaminade, P
RJ Lopez, Mission Viejo
The Southern California News Group features the region’s top high school athletes in the fall sports in a special section, SoCal Varsity Sports Awards. The section can be found in your local SCNG paper’s Sunday, Dec. 22 edition and online. (Image: cover of the SoCal Varsity Sports Awards section)
SoCal Varsity Awards section is in Sunday, Dec. 22 editions of SCNG newspapers.
About the section: The award winners and teams were selected by the high school sports reporters for the Southern California News Group, which includes the Orange County Register, L.A. Daily News, Riverside Press-Enterprise, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News, Daily Breeze, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Daily Bulletin, San Bernardino Sun, Whittier Daily News and Redlands Daily Facts.
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See the highlights and postgame interviews from Corona del Mar’s victory over Oceanside in the CIF SoCal Division 1-A Regional championship game Saturday that came down to two goal-line stands in the final two minutes. — Video by Jonathan Khamis, for the Orange County Register
FULLERTON A small group of Sunny Hills players stayed after practice this week to toss the football around and joke with each other until darkness nearly covered their field.
The players seemed to soak up each precious minute, recognizing the time and place were indeed special.
Sunny Hills’ once-struggling football program actually held practices this week as a reigning CIF-SS champion.
“Nothing better than this,” senior quarterback and captain Luke Duxbury said.
Sunny Hills (12-2) will load into a bus Saturday morning and head north for a showdown in the CIF State SoCal Division 3-A regionals at Bakersfield Christian (10-3) at 6 p.m.
It will be a remarkable road trip, full of hip hop music on the bus and another football clash, for a school that started the 2019 playoffs seeking its first postseason victory of any kind since 1996.
It will be a remarkable trip for a program once dubbed as a “hard” school to win at.
So how have the Lancers become winners? One ingredient fifth-year coach Pete Karavedas pointed to this week was Sunny Hills’ success attracting its neighborhood kids from Parks Junior High.
And sure enough, those were the kids on the field enjoying themselves in the near darkness this week.
Duxbury (6-1,m 175) and fellow star senior Wilson Cal (6-1, 190) were classmates at Parks Junior High.
Rising junior linebacker Carson Irons (6-0, 190) also attended Parks along with junior tight end/outside linebacker Noah Brown (6-0, 210) and Arnold Beltran.
And the list goes on.
“Pretty much everybody, or (they attended) Fisler,” Duxbury explained.
In years past as the Lancers struggled, the top athletes from Parks landed at other schools such as Troy or Fullerton.
Sunny Hills has worked hard to win them back with activities such as youth camps but they still needed standouts such as Duxbury and Cal to take a leap of faith.
They were Pop Warner teammates with the Fullerton Titans and both decided to attend Sunny Hills in 2016 despite the school not having a winning season since 2008.
“I was going to follow him where ever he went and he was following me where ever I went,” Duxbury said of Cal, who plays wide receiver and defensive back. “We knew if we both went to the same school, we could do some damage.”
Duxbury was a ball boy at Fullerton High as an eighth grader but saw the Lancers making progress on and off the field.
In the fall of 2015, in Karavedas’ first season, the Lancers beat Fullerton in Week 10 34-27 and made the playoffs as an at-large entry.
“They had coaches who put their players in position to make plays,” Duxbury recalled at the time. “We figured this would be our best opportunity to win a title.”
The Lancers did just last weekend in Santa Barbara, defeating the Dons 24-21 in the CIF-SS Division 8 final after a late interception by Cal.
Sunny Hills knows its not on the level of Freeway League rival La Habra but they’re defending their local turf. The Lancers have swept Fullerton and Troy the past two seasons.
They’re also changing the reputation of Sunny Hills football.
“This means so much to us because it breaks the stereotype, ‘Oh, Sunny Hills has been so garbage at football for the past 20 years,’ ” Duxbury said.
And the Lancers aren’t done. Their roster is a diverse mix of ethnic groups and they’ve already developed a position group to watch next year: “LBU”. Sunny Hills starts four junior linebackers in Irons, Kevin Hu, Brown and Vince Silva.
And there’s the opportunity on Saturday in Bakersfield to keep the magical run alive. Imagine, Sunny Hills as a California state champion?
“It’s a good feeling when there’s years of hard work behind (this),” Duxbury said. “We’ve been working all offseason, pretty much our whole lives to get to this moment.”
NORWALK — They blitzed him from all sides, encroaching him en masse, collapsing his pocket. All the while, D.J. Uiagalelei couldn’t stop laughing.
They were St. John Bosco classmates, friends, parents of friends, parents of classmates, little brothers and sisters and maybe some strangers, too. They took turns posing for selfies with Uiagalelei, as if he were a famous statue. Some hugged him. Some just looked in his eyes and yelled, overcome with delight.
They will see Uiagalelei play one more high school football game, one more than any of them could have imagined in the second quarter of this CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship game at Cerritos College Saturday night. At one point the Braves trailed Mater Dei, 28-5. They won, 39-34, and someone asked safety JonJon Vaughns where they could have found such hope. “When you have heart, you have hope,” he said.
Bravehearts, indeed. Talent helps, too.
St. John Bosco Braves head coach Jason Negro, left, holds the championship placard over quarterback DJ Uiagalelei (5) at the end of the 2019 CIF Southern Section Division 1 High School Football Championship game at Cerritos College in Norwalk, Calif. on Saturday November 30, 2019. St. John Bosco Braves defeated the Mater Dei Monarchs 39-34. (Photo by Raul Romero Jr, Contributing Photographer)
Uiagalelei will lead the Braves against De La Salle two weekends from now, in a state championship game. After that, his next appearance will be on behalf of Clemson. He looked the part here, with five touchdown passes, no interceptions and 441 yards. At one point the Braves scored 34 consecutive points.
But the defense was the driving force, at least after it gave up two touchdowns in Mater Dei’s first six plays. After that, the Monarchs scored only 20 more points, six in the second half, and even though Bryce Young threw five TD passes of his own, Mater Dei suffered four turnovers, and Bosco’s pass rushers painted Young into a deeper corner with each snap. The Braves held the Monarchs to 139 yards in the second half.
“We couldn’t let Bryce run around like he usually does,” said Nathan Burrell, who had two sacks, blitzed Young into an intentional grounding call in the end zone, which is a safety, and tipped a pass and intercepted it in the fourth quarter.
“He’s more dangerous on the outside than the inside,” Burrell said. “And we started running some games as the game went on, gave their linemen some different looks. They don’t like to move like that.”
“We sat back and tried to control Bryce and make him throw the ball down the field,” said Jason Negro, the Bosco coach. “That’s when we were able to make plays. I think we might have confused him and made him change some things on the line of scrimmage. And we moved Nathan around quite a bit.”
Mater Dei had a final shot when Negro decided to go for fourth-and-1 in his own territory. Uiagalelei tried to sneak it but was stacked up by Tyler Narayan among others. But Ma’a Gaoteote broke free and sacked Young, who fumbled it to Bosco’s Andrew Simpson.
Mater Dei had won its previous three games by a total of 102 points and had failed to win by fewer than 20 points only twice. They also had beaten Bosco 38-24 on Oct. 25. Sometimes you can be too good for your own good, although the Braves weren’t accustomed to contentious fourth quarters either, with only one close win of their own (27-26 at Servite).
“On that last sack we were in the wrong protection,” said Bruce Rollinson, the Monarchs’ coach. “They brought a seventh guy and we didn’t see him. Bryce was great, he made all the calls the whole game. We had opportunities, and when we’ve had opportunities this year we’ve always capitalized. Tonight we didn’t, and that’s high school football.
“We were ahead, and we told them at halftime just to erase everything that had happened. But that’s a good team over there.”
Bosco didn’t let Young or anyone else run, although Mater Dei only rushed 16 times, for 32 yards. “We knew they really wanted to throw the ball, which helped us,” Burrell said.
The other key was removing Kody Epps, who had caught 11 passes for 175 yards in the regular-season victory. Epps caught just one pass Saturday, none in the first half.
“We had to double-team him,” Vaughns said. “Definitely we double-teamed him in the slot, and when he was wide we moved a safety over to that side. Everybody else was on an island. We couldn’t let him hurt us like we did before.
“I told my D-linemen that we were going to give them six seconds. We were going to cover them for six seconds, so y’all go get him (Young). They did a great job, but I thought after halftime our whole offense and defense were rolling.”
Nobody on the field was ready to go home yet. It was a boisterous, somewhat bitter game, but now Braves and Monarchs were chatting in peace. As Vaughns said, many of the players had known each other since youth football. They’ve been in all-star games together, been on the same recruiting trips.
But the magnet was Uiagalelei, greeting all comers like a politician on a rope line.
“We’ve seen him do this so many times before,” Burrell said. “D.J.’s a god.”
NORWALK — They blitzed him from all sides, encroaching him en masse, collapsing his pocket. All the while, D.J. Uiagalelei couldn’t stop laughing.
They were St. John Bosco classmates, friends, parents of friends, parents of classmates, little brothers and sisters and maybe some strangers, too. They took turns posing for selfies with Uiagalelei, as if he were a famous statue. Some hugged him. Some just looked in his eyes and yelled, overcome with delight.
They will see Uiagalelei play one more high school football game, one more than any of them could have imagined in the second quarter of this CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship game at Cerritos College Saturday night. At one point the Braves trailed Mater Dei, 28-5. They won, 39-34, and someone asked safety JonJon Vaughns where they could have found such hope. “When you have heart, you have hope,” he said.
Bravehearts, indeed. Talent helps, too.
St. John Bosco Braves head coach Jason Negro, left, holds the championship placard over quarterback DJ Uiagalelei (5) at the end of the 2019 CIF Southern Section Division 1 High School Football Championship game at Cerritos College in Norwalk, Calif. on Saturday November 30, 2019. St. John Bosco Braves defeated the Mater Dei Monarchs 39-34. (Photo by Raul Romero Jr, Contributing Photographer)
Uiagalelei will lead the Braves against De La Salle two weekends from now, in a state championship game. After that, his next appearance will be on behalf of Clemson. He looked the part here, with five touchdown passes, no interceptions and 441 yards. At one point the Braves scored 34 consecutive points.
But the defense was the driving force, at least after it gave up two touchdowns in Mater Dei’s first six plays. After that, the Monarchs scored only 20 more points, six in the second half, and even though Bryce Young threw five TD passes of his own, Mater Dei suffered four turnovers, and Bosco’s pass rushers painted Young into a deeper corner with each snap. The Braves held the Monarchs to 139 yards in the second half.
“We couldn’t let Bryce run around like he usually does,” said Nathan Burrell, who had two sacks, blitzed Young into an intentional grounding call in the end zone, which is a safety, and tipped a pass and intercepted it in the fourth quarter.
“He’s more dangerous on the outside than the inside,” Burrell said. “And we started running some games as the game went on, gave their linemen some different looks. They don’t like to move like that.”
“We sat back and tried to control Bryce and make him throw the ball down the field,” said Jason Negro, the Bosco coach. “That’s when we were able to make plays. I think we might have confused him and made him change some things on the line of scrimmage. And we moved Nathan around quite a bit.”
Mater Dei had a final shot when Negro decided to go for fourth-and-1 in his own territory. Uiagalelei tried to sneak it but was stacked up by Tyler Narayan among others. But Ma’a Gaoteote broke free and sacked Young, who fumbled it to Bosco’s Andrew Simpson.
Mater Dei had won its previous three games by a total of 102 points and had failed to win by fewer than 20 points only twice. They also had beaten Bosco 38-24 on Oct. 25. Sometimes you can be too good for your own good, although the Braves weren’t accustomed to contentious fourth quarters either, with only one close win of their own (27-26 at Servite).
“On that last sack we were in the wrong protection,” said Bruce Rollinson, the Monarchs’ coach. “They brought a seventh guy and we didn’t see him. Bryce was great, he made all the calls the whole game. We had opportunities, and when we’ve had opportunities this year we’ve always capitalized. Tonight we didn’t, and that’s high school football.
“We were ahead, and we told them at halftime just to erase everything that had happened. But that’s a good team over there.”
Bosco didn’t let Young or anyone else run, although Mater Dei only rushed 16 times, for 32 yards. “We knew they really wanted to throw the ball, which helped us,” Burrell said.
The other key was removing Kody Epps, who had caught 11 passes for 175 yards in the regular-season victory. Epps caught just one pass Saturday, none in the first half.
“We had to double-team him,” Vaughns said. “Definitely we double-teamed him in the slot, and when he was wide we moved a safety over to that side. Everybody else was on an island. We couldn’t let him hurt us like we did before.
“I told my D-linemen that we were going to give them six seconds. We were going to cover them for six seconds, so y’all go get him (Young). They did a great job, but I thought after halftime our whole offense and defense were rolling.”
Nobody on the field was ready to go home yet. It was a boisterous, somewhat bitter game, but now Braves and Monarchs were chatting in peace. As Vaughns said, many of the players had known each other since youth football. They’ve been in all-star games together, been on the same recruiting trips.
But the magnet was Uiagalelei, greeting all comers like a politician on a rope line.
“We’ve seen him do this so many times before,” Burrell said. “D.J.’s a god.”