ANAHEIM – Mater Dei’s quest to end its CIF title drought encountered an angry, physical and new-look rival Saturday night at Angel Stadium.
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St. John Bosco reversed its fortunes against the Monarchs in the CIF-SS Division 1 final with an impressive ground attack and an array of adjustments.
The third-seeded Braves rushed for 179 yards and three touchdowns in the first half and added a 66-yard touchdown run from Demetrious Flowers early in the second half en route to a 42-28 upset victory in front of 13,466 at Angel Stadium.
“My hat is off to St. John Bosco. They had a great game plan,” Mater Dei coach Bruce Rollinson said. “Your heart goes out to the seniors but we’ll be back. We’ll be back.”
Cornerback Tyrel Thomas followed Flowers’ burst up the middle by returning an interception 40 yards for a touchdown and a 35-14 lead with 1:49 left in the third quarter.
St. John Bosco (12-2) avenged a 26-21 loss to top-seeded Mater Dei (13-1) in the teams’ Trinity League showdown Oct. 21 and snapped their two-year losing streak in the Division 1 final.
The Braves also extended Mater Dei’s losing streak in the final to four overall, leaving the Monarchs still seeking their first CIF title since 1999.
Mater Dei entered ranked third in the nation by MaxPreps and contenders for a national title, the Braves eighth.
“This win kind of validates we’re here,” said St. John Bosco coach Jason Negro, the former Trabuco Hills coach who won his second Division 1 crown with the Braves. “I’ve been pretty fortunate against Mater Dei.”
St. John Bosco, which beat Mater Dei in the 2013 final, showed its passion in the middle of the second quarter during a bizarre, 10-minute delay because of a disturbance in its coaching box with a fan.
Negro was visibly upset on the field and a fan was asked to leave, the Southern Section said.
“It’s more about the kids and what they were able to accomplish,” Negro said. “The problem was we couldn’t hear. It was our coaching box. All we heard was them (the fans) screaming into the microphones … They were just belligerent, screaming the entire time and it messed up all our communication. … It happens.”
St. John Bosco’s signature was its ground attack with running backs Flowers and Terrance Beasley and speedy quarterback Re-al Mitchell. The Braves had 303 yards rushing on 46 carries after just three quarters and finished with 376 yards. They piled up 62 attempts — 48 more carries than Mater Dei.
Mater Dei sophomore quarterback JT Daniels answered early the fourth quarter with his second touchdown pass, raising his county-record total to 67, on a 17-yard connection to C.J. Parks to make it 35-21.
St. John Bosco kept making plays. With about eight minutes left, Mater Dei cornerback Jalen Cole forced a fumble — on his second big hit of the game — that the Monarchs needed to recover but Kristian Gilbert dove on the ball for the Braves.
Mitchell added another TD run in the fourth quarter. The junior quarterback finished with 111 yards rushing while Beasley added 145 and Flowers 120.
St. John Bosco’s list of adjustments started to pay dividends in the first half.
Wide receiver Terrell Bynum added cornerback to his duties, narrowly deflecting an excellent deep pass into the end zone intended for Osiris St. Brown on the final play of the second period.
The Braves also rotated Wyatt Davis, an Ohio State commit, from left and right guard and used some misdirection runs to rack up the 179 yards rushing and three TDs in the opening half.
Davis played left tackle in the teams’ first game but his position switch sparked a unit that already held the size advantage.
“I knew it was going to be a challenge (playing both guard positions) but I just did it for my team,” Davis said. “When they moved me to guard, the ideal whole situations was we wanted to double team (Austin Faoliu), their nose guard. He’s a great player.
“If we could get push on him and get up to the (linebacker), we knew the cut-back lane was going to be open every time.”
Negro said the Braves’ developed their ground-attack strategy in January, not long after dropping their second straight final to Centennial of Corona.
“Absolutely,” Negro said. “We had two make some adjustments. We thought we had to run the ball and control the clock a little bit better. I think we did a pretty good job executing that.”
The Braves also avoided special teams miscues and turnovers, two factors that Mater Dei capitalized in the teams’ first game.
Mater Dei opened the game with an eight-play, 80-yard scoring drive capped by a 1-yard TD run by Shakobe Harper. Daniels completed his first four passes for 68 yards on the opening possession, including two to Amon-Ra St. Brown.
But the Braves responded with their own 80-yard scoring drive and Mater Dei never led again. Flowers scored on a 1-yard TD run to punctuate a 15-play march and tie the score, 7-7, with 3:16 left in the opening period.
The Braves’ drive chewed up just more than five minutes, a trend that continued. They ran the ball the last seven plays of the drive, using a combination of Flowers and Beasley. After St. John Bosco forced a punt, the Braves returned to their ball-control offense. They used 13 plays to drive 72 yards for another rushing TD.
Beasley scored on a 24-yard run on an option pitch from Mitchell as the Braves opened a 14-7 lead with 7:39 left in the second.
The possession gobbled up just over six minutes.
St. John Bosco’s ground attack wasn’t done. The Braves drove 90 yards for a 13-yard TD run on fourth-and-1 by Mitchell to take a 21-7 lead with 2:18 left in the first half. Mitchell faked the handoff and sprinted untouched to his right, giving the Braves three rushing TDs by three different players to open the scoring.
Mater Dei responded with a 49-yard TD pass from Daniels to Amon-Ra St. Brown but the half ended with the Braves holding about a seven-minute advantage in time of advantage (15:37 to 8:23). The Braves kept Daniels off the field and the Mater Dei offense out-of-sync.
“Ten out of (our) 11 offensive players will be playing next year,” Rollinson said. “We got to rebuild the defense … but this hurts.”
Contact the writer: dalbano@scng.com
