Success Came in Title Waves for San Pedro, Hawthorne : City 3-A: Unlikely heroes helped the Pirates to a 24-7 victory over Taft for school’s first football title.

The celebration started with nearly a minute remaining in San Pedro High’s game against Taft for the City Section 3-A Division championship Friday night at Gardena High.

First, several Pirate players gathered behind Coach Mike Walsh on the San Pedro sideline and doused him with water from a large cooler.

A few minutes later, after the final seconds had ticked off in San Pedro’s 24-7 victory, Walsh was addressing his jubilant players in a circle near midfield when he was treated to another victory shower.

Then, after he tried on a T-shirt that proclaimed the Pirates as 3-A champions, Walsh was hoisted onto the shoulders of 236-pound offensive lineman Greg Cukrov and taken on an impromptu victory lap around the field.

Walsh didn’t seem to mind when Cukrov dropped him while attempting to let the coach down.

After all, this was the first football title ever won by San Pedro, which has fielded a team since 1908.

“I don’t know what this means to the community,” Walsh said. “But I’ve lived in (San Pedro) all of my life and it’s a great relief for me and my players that we have finally earned respect for our football program.”

The seeds of success started in Walsh’s first year as coach last season, when the Pirates reached the 3-A semifinals and finished 8-5.

San Pedro continued its rise this season by defeating perennial 4-A power Banning, 22-21, and battling Dorsey to a 20-20 tie.

After winning the Southern League of the Southern Pacific Conference, San Pedro entered the 3-A playoffs as the second-seeded team and took an 11-1-1 record and eight-game winning streak into Friday night’s title game. The Pirates reached the final behind a powerful rushing attack and a stingy defense that had five shutouts.

In the title game, though, the Pirates benefited from unlikely sources.

Quarterback Chris Pappas, who became the starter in the fifth game, had completed only 43.6% of his passes for 649 yards before Friday.

But Pappas, who had passed for only six yards in the team’s 9-6 semifinal victory over Palisades last week, completed six of 10 passes for 185 yards and three touchdowns against Taft.

Wide receiver Bryan Castaneda, a 5-foot-6, 135-pound junior who had excelled mostly as a defensive back, also had a big game. Castaneda had three receptions for 85 yards and two touchdowns, and he intercepted two passes.

“We’ve been keeping it on the ground, but he (Walsh) finally let me open up and throw a little and Castaneda was open all night,” Pappas said.

Castaneda said all of his receptions were on slant patterns that the San Pedro coaches called after spotting a weakness in Taft’s defense.

“They (Taft) were more concerned about (wide receiver) Bryant Thomas,” Castaneda said. “I played mostly on defense this season, but tonight I think I proved myself as a receiver.”

He certainly made a believer out of Walsh.

“We had a couple of guys hurt, but Castaneda was always there when we needed him,” Walsh said. “When you have a guy who’s 5-6 and 135 (pounds), you don’t want to overuse him. But we had a few injuries and had to use him and he really came shining through.”

The offense featured Thomas, who had three receptions for 100 yards, including a 70-yard touchdown play, and running back Ambrose Russo, who rushed for 86 yards in 20 carries.

“Our game plan was to come in with the pass and try to open up the field,” Walsh said. “If that didn’t work, we were going to stick them with the run.”

Walsh’s offensive strategy worked and the Pirates also received a boost from their defense. Led by Thomas and Castaneda in the secondary and the pass rush of end Mike Spelich, San Pedro held Taft to 101 total yards.

San Pedro, which had to replace 13 starters from last season’s team, ended the year with nine consecutive victories.

“We certainly felt all along that we were good enough to get here,” Walsh said. “But I don’t know if we ever imagined that we’d be 12-1-1.”

With a championship in hand and the long hours of preparation behind him, Walsh said he was finally ready to celebrate.

“We’ve worked so hard to get to this point that I never really thought about winning it,” he said. “Now that it’s over, I guess I’ll have a lot of time to look back at this and savor it.”