GARDEN GROVE – Three years ago, the guys on the Garden Grove freshman football team had it figured out.
They would be the next group to win a CIF-SS football championship for their school. Some of those brash, young Argonauts even announced it on a local cable TV program that did a feature on their undefeated team.
“We really did feel like we would be the next great team here,” said senior quarterback and safety Alejandro Ceja. “It was a dream that we believed would come true.”
It could come true Saturday night. Garden Grove plays in the CIF-Southern Section’s Southern Division championship at Orange Coast College. The Argonauts (12-1) play Garden Grove League-rival Rancho Alamitos (11-2).
Some of those players on Garden Grove’s 2011 undefeated freshman team moved on to other schools. Some stopped playing football. But plenty of them will be in the Argos’ red-and-white uniforms tonight.
Ceja is one of them. His vision for 2014 did not include this: Ceja is the starting quarterback.
As a sophomore on the 2012 varsity team, Ceja started at free safety. He played receiver, too, and was the punter. Ceja was the Argonauts’ leading receiver as a junior in 2013.
When Willy Puga resigned as Garden Grove’s coach after the 2013 season and Ricardo Cepeda was promoted to head coach, Cepeda had a plan.
“I decided I wanted to get the ball as often as possible in the hands of our best player,” Cepeda said. “And Ceja is our best player.”
Ceja had thrown the ball a few times as a freshman running back. Garden Grove freshman coach Steve Haller, who as the freshman coach since 1991 has laid the foundation for the Argonauts’ long-running success, likes the halfback option pass and would use Ceja on the play.
“I’d throw it to Austen (Christian) because Austen would always be open,” Ceja said. Christian continues to be open on the varsity team, and is the team’s leading receiver.
Some kids aspire to be quarterback. Not Ceja.
“I didn’t want to play quarterback,” he said. “I didn’t want to make the mistake that would lose us the game. But then I thought I have to do this, and I want to do this because I want to do what I can for my team.”
He got off to a rough start.
“During ‘hell week’ Coach Cepeda would tell me to run a play and I’d go the opposite way that I was supposed to,” Ceja said.
The Garden Grove coaching staff brought Ceja, whom coaches and teammates usually call “Alex,” along gradually. Ceja shared time at quarterback with Josh Green and has continued to do so.
“At the beginning of the year,” Cepeda said, “we’d just run him (Ceja) out of the wildcat formation and he’d just chuck the ball up in the air a couple of times.”
Then Ceja had some success. Success created confidence.
“Now, Alex can do it all,” Cepeda said. “He’s worked hard in the film room and on the practice field, and it shows.”
Ceja goes into the Southern Division final with 746 passing yards and 10 touchdowns. He has completed 43 of 75 passes. Ceja still runs plenty, having rushed for 849 yards and 18 touchdowns.
And he is the punter and starting free safety. Ceja has three interceptions.
“I love playing both ways,” Ceja said. “I play as hard as I can, both ways. When it’s time to play defense, I just try to help us get the ball back for our offense.”
Ceja and his defensive mates have a tough assignment tonight. They have to control Rancho’s rocket-fuel offense led by record-setting quarterback Nick Brown.
“Nick Brown is great,” Ceja said. “But I believe we can stop him.”
Ceja has believed in himself and his fellow Argonauts for four years.
“We’re going to keep fighting until we can’t fight anymore, until we’ve given it all we’ve got,” Ceja said. “We stick together.”
This year’s senior class at Garden Grove started sticking together four years ago. What they believed would happen just might happen tonight.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
