Down 21-0, resilient South Gate rallies to beat Garfield

Jose Casagran was once the head coach at L.A. Roosevelt. That means playing and beating Garfield in the East L.A. Classic was a priority.

“I remember when I got to Roosevelt they had a picture in the trophy case of a team that had gone 1-9,” Casagran said. “And they beat Garfield. I was, ‘What the heck is this?’ It’s so crazy the whole season can be won or lost by winning the classic.”

Casagran, now the head coach at South Gate, certainly enjoys beating Garfield and it happened again on Friday night when the Rams rallied for a 49-48 victory to improve to 5-2 overall and 2-0 in the Eastern League.

South Gate rallied after falling behind 21-0. The Rams won it with 1:49 left after Ernie Arcia connected with Diontai Jenkins for a 12-yard touchdown pass to cut the score to 48-47. Casagran then went for the victory, and Jenkins again caught the two-point conversion pass.

“We’ve been resilient all year,” Casagran said. “We’ve won the second half of every game. I knew we’d come back. I didn’t know we’d win.”

Arcia finished with five touchdown passes. Carlos Sanchez had a kickoff return for a touchdown for South Gate.

Biggest upset: Chatsworth Sierra Canyon put itself into the mix as one of the top teams in Southern Section Division 3 after knocking off unbeaten Calabasas 26-14 on Friday. And here’s the strange part. The Trailblazers’ (5-1) only loss is to Westlake 25-7. Calabasas beat Westlake 52-14 last week.

Cornerback Corey Jones did a tremendous job covering sophomore receiver Johnny Wilson, and J.J. Hernandez came up with a big interception. Freshman quarterback Chayden Peery passed for 231 yards.

First victory: In the battle of winless teams, Los Angeles (1-6) defeated Hawkins (0-7) 28-16 on Friday in a Coliseum League game. Da’vion Bennett scored four touchdowns.

Receivers showing off: Santa Ana Mater Dei (7-0), ranked No. 1 in Southern California, has an offense that can’t be stopped, particularly with its receiving group of Amon-ra St. Brown, CJ Parks, Nikko Remigio and Bru McCoy.

St. Brown had two touchdown catches and a punt return for a touchdown in Friday’s 31-21 win over No. 2 Bellflower St. John Bosco.

“I have so many dudes I can throw quick checkdowns to and they’ll take it for 50 yards,” quarterback J.T. Daniels said. “Bru saved me on a big post where he made a sliding catch for it. We had a solid run game all day and whenever their defense started dropping, I took off. I just think we played a complete game.”

Wild game: Etiwanda and Chino Hills scored so many points Friday that some thought it was a basketball game and the Ball brothers were back at Chino Hills. Etiwanda prevailed 66-63.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

Twitter: @latsondheimer