Do you believe in magic?
“What Rollo kept telling us was that there was magic in these stripes,” said Mater Dei running back Ahmed Mokhtar, referring to the three white stripes on the Monarchs’ red helmets after they beat Servite, 28-22, at Angel Stadium on Friday. “Rollo” is Coach Bruce Rollinson, who engineered a big victory in a big game for the zillionth time. Rollinson could get his players to believe him if he said that you could take a Mater Dei helmet into the map room at the lost city of Tanis and when the sun bounces off the middle stripe it will create a beam of light that will reveal the location of the Well of Souls where the Ark of the Covenant is waiting to be discovered. But that can’t be true. Can it?
Victory With Honor?
VWH was not present after the game when one Mater Dei player gave the Servite sideline a two-handed obscene gesture, another Monarch pounded his helmet upon the Servite crest at midfield (Hey, that “M” in the middle of the Servite crest stands for the same thing the “M” stands for on your jersey.) Servite deserved more respect than that. Mater Dei deserved better representation than those actions from a small number of kids whose sportsmanship was nonexistent.
Eight-man playoff time
Eight-man playoffs begin this week, and the only two county teams in the playoffs play each other Saturday when Brighten School plays St. Michael’s Prep at Cerro Villa Middle School, Brighten’s home field. The prediction here is that Brighten will win this game (which is good news for St. Michael’s Prep, given your Frankly Fryer pal’s dismal 45-35 record at predicting winners). Next would be a winnable game at South Bay Lutheran of Inglewood, followed by a likely semifinals matchup at Big Pine, which has posted three shutouts – unusual for the high-scoring eight-man game – and has allowed only 14 points over the past four weeks.
