Football coaches say that on a passing play, three things can happen.
And two of them are bad.
One of those bad things is an interception. A lot of bad things are happening in a good way for the Saddleback Valley Christian football team.
The Warriors had 21 interceptions going into their game Thursday against Santa Clarita Christian of Canyon Country. State and national team stats leaders are incomplete in high school sports, but one website has the 21 interceptions being the second most in California and 12th most in the United States.
And it’s not one or two players snagging all of those interceptions. Going into this week, nine Saddleback Valley Christian players had interceptions. Marc Audet, a sophomore, and senior Gavin Shafer were team leaders in picks with five apiece.
Saddleback Valley Christian first-year coach Brian Pearsall understands something the San Diego Chargers for years have failed to grasp, which is a strong pass rush will help a defensive secondary. The Warriors get a good attack off of the edge from junior defensive end Jonathan Bunnel. Bunnel, 6-foot-2 and 207 pounds, had 6 1/2 sacks entering Thursday night’s game.
“Jonathan’s our strongest guy on the team, and our fastest guy,” said Pearsall, who was an All-County linebacker at Villa Park before moving on to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. “He has our highest GPA, too.”
Bunnel, sporting a 4.5 grade-point average, also has filled in at offensive line for Saddleback Valley Christian, which finished the regular season undefeated – 10-0 overall, 5-0 in league – with its victory over Santa Clarita Christian, 54-40, on Thursday.
Pearsall was on Harry Welch’s coaching staff at Santa Margarita. Pearsall brought with him to Saddleback Valley Christian an offensive system – some option, four receivers split wide – and other elements he learned from Welch.
The offense uses an H-back, sort of a hybrid tight-end/fullback position, and Pearsall places whom he calls the Warriors’ best player, Charlie Morris, there.
Every coach sees room for improvement. Even a coach of an undefeated team like Saddleback Valley Christian, which is No. 5 in this week’s CIF-Southern Section East Valley Division top 10. St. Margaret’s is No. 1.
“We need to be more consistent on offense,” Pearsall said. “We’ll sometimes get penalties or turnovers that slow us down.
“We’ve been consistent on defense. We don’t give up many big plays.”
Saddleback Valley Christian makes big plays on defense, with all of those interceptions. And there’s nothing bad about that.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• As expected, Conner Miller did it – perhaps one game earlier than expected. The Brethren Christian quarterback threw four touchdown passes in a win last week over Crean Lutheran. That gives him 42 touchdown passes this year to break the county single-season record of 41 that El Toro’s Conner Manning set three years ago and equaled two years ago.
• Brethren receiver Guy Demazeliere joined his teammate as a county record-holder. Demazeliere caught one of Miller’s four touchdown passes against Crean to give Demazeliere 39 career touchdown receptions. That ties Jeremy Childs of Los Alamitos, who had 39 career touchdown receptions from 2002-04.
• Brethren’s regular season is over. The Warriors, 7-2-1 overall and 3-1 in the Academy League, finished second in league to clinch a berth in the East Valley Division playoffs. Playoff statistics count in the compilation of county and CIF records.
• Wednesday is the first day of the national letter of intent early signing period. The period covers many sports, including basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, tennis and more. Only seniors can sign these letters of intent.
• The letter of intent is a binding contract between a student-athlete and a college or university that is part of the letter of intent program. (Not all institutions are part of the letter of intent program.) A signed letter of intent commits the student-athlete to attending the signed-with school for one academic year and requires the institution to provide financial aid to the student-athlete for one academic year.
• More than 20 county baseball players could sign letters of intent Wednesday. The county, as usual, has deep talent in baseball.
• The county’s larger private schools will have elaborate signing-day ceremonies to promote how their student-athletes are getting college scholarships. Public schools are not as aggressive as they could be in this sort of promotion.
• Follow me at twitter.com/stevefryer for updates on the final football games of the regular season, information on playoff brackets and at-large selections this weekend and throughout the playoff season.
• With only four teams in each of the Century Conference’s two leagues, the Crestview and North Hills leagues, there could be plenty of ties for first and second place. Especially in football, with only three league games per team. So if head-to-head results can’t break ties in the standings, the Century leagues go to the unique formula of cross-conference results – how Crestview teams did against North Hills teams, and vice versa – instead of going immediately to coin flips as happens in most other leagues.
• The CIF-SS, when selecting which football teams get “at-large” berths, it will not give an at-large berth to a league’s No. 5 team over that same league’s No. 4 team. It will, if the at-large selection’s points system calls for it, give an at-large berth to one league’s No. 5 team over a diferent league’s No. 4 team.
• Football playoff ticket prices: $10 for adult general admission and $5 for children of ages 5-13 and for students with valid student identification. Some schools will offer pre-sales of tickets for games that are expected to draw large crowds. Those prices are set by the CIF-SS, which manages the playoffs.
• The first day of competition for the winter sports of basketball, soccer, girls water polo and wrestling is Nov. 24. To many parents whose kids play these sports year-around, Nov. 24 isn’t “opening day.” It’s just another day.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
