High School Football: Sea Kings find rarefied air

HUNTINGTON BEACH — On a baseball field, out in left-center, Corona del Mar High saw the hits coming. The hits were not coming off a bat either.

The hits came in the way of shoulders and arms, and they struck the Sea Kings hard enough to take them down on the field in the Battle at the Beach seven-on-seven passing tournament at Edison High on Saturday.

The football players delivering the hits upon CdM were from Mater Dei. The referees kept reminding the Monarchs that all they needed to do to stop a player with the ball was to touch him, not tackle him.

The flags didn’t deter the Monarchs from continuing their physical play. They treated the final pool-play game between two undefeated teams as if it was a CIF Southern Section final, yet this one was on a 40-yard field.

Most of the Monarchs went after CdM incoming junior Taeveon Le, the receiver Cal-bound quarterback Chase Garbers kept targeting. Each time, the 6-foot-4, 225-pound Le rose back up and kept making plays.

The Monarchs couldn’t stop Le. They pulled down his shorts after a catch. He pulled them back up. They even tried to body slam him after he jumped to make a catch over the middle. He came down on his back and down with the ball. Almost every pass Garbers fired Le’s way Le hauled in, including two touchdowns.

The Sea Kings needed one more touchdown. They were two yards and one play away from upsetting the Monarchs.

On the last play of the game, Mater Dei double-teamed Le in the end zone, forcing Garbers to go elsewhere. The future senior tried to slip the ball in to tight end Cameron Prudhomme, but incoming senior cornerback Jalen Cole broke up the pass and Mater Dei held on for a 20-18 victory, winning the pool and advancing to the gold division quarterfinals.

The setback marked the first for CdM in three seven-on-seven passing tournaments. While the Sea Kings lost, they showed the Monarchs, ranked No. 6 in the country in the MaxPreps.com preseason poll, that the public school from Newport Beach could more than hang with a private powerhouse program like Mater Dei.

“You guys have a hell of a team and that quarterback is lights out,” lgendary Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson said to CdM Coach Dan O’Shea afterward.

O’Shea, who led the Sea Kings to the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Southwest Division playoffs last year in his first season in charge, said he felt CdM earned the respect of Mater Dei, a nine-time section champion. The Sea Kings gave the Monarchs, who defeated Valencia, 26-14, in the Battle at the Beach finale, their toughest game during the one-day tournament. The Monarchs finished 7-0.

“That’s two equal teams and [we were] virtually even [with Mater Dei]. The only difference was the two PATs,” said O’Shea, whose team was unable to convert the one-point play from 10 yards out after each of its three touchdowns, while the Monarchs were successful in two of their three tries. “That is the single best passing league game we’ve ever played in six years. We’ve never played at that level.”

Mater Dei future sophomore quarterback J.T. Daniels brought the Monarchs back from early and late deficits. He went to wideout Bru McCoy, who will be a sophomore next fall.

The Sea Kings joined Mater Dei in the quarterfinals. Twenty teams competed in the prestigious tournament, and the other seven teams still alive in the top division were all schools that will play in higher postseason divisions than CdM, a Division 4 school, in the fall.

The quarterfinals featured Harbor City Narbonne, the CIF State Division I-A champion a year ago, Corona Centennial, the CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division champion, Bellflower St. John Bosco, the Pac-5 Division runner-up, Mater Dei, a Pac-5 Division semifinalist, Gardena Serra, a Pac-5 Division quarterfinalist, Valencia, a West Valley Division quarterfinalist, and Edison, which reached the West Valley Division playoffs.

The Sea Kings went 3-1 in pool-play action, beating Central Division runner-up Covina Charter Oak, 32-25, Southwest Division champion La Habra, 27-13, and Pac-5 Division quarterfinalist Los Angeles Loyola, 19-7, before losing to Mater Dei. Le, in whom the University of Washington, UCLA and San Jose State are interested, hoped to get another shot at Mater Dei, which was atop the gold division bracket in which CdM was at the bottom.

“People don’t really see us as the smash-mouth football team that we are,” said Le, who had to get his right index finger and his left thumb taped up after he jammed both against the Monarchs. “Coming out here today we proved that we can compete with anyone.”

In the quarterfinals, the Sea Kings ran into Narbonne, the defending Battle at the Beach champion. Two months ago, these two teams met at the start of the Dana Hills seven-on-seven tournament, and CdM prevailed and went on to win the tournament, beating Edison in the final.

The Sea Kings’ next game with Narbonne took place at Edison, and this one went Narbonne’s way from the start.

Future junior quarterback Jalen Chatman opened things up with a 40-yard touchdown pass on the first play. Garbers answered with a touchdown pass to Le.

Afterward, there was a lot of jawing back and forth between Narbonne incoming senior receiver Tre Walker and CdM incoming senior cornerback Fabian Montez. The two had to be separated, but O’Shea said he liked that Montez didn’t back down.

Narbonne had the last word, though. Chatman threw six touchdown passes and the Gauchos beat CdM, 39-24, to move on to the semifinals. The Sea Kings’ afternoon ended with them going 3-2, but O’Shea was proud of his team’s play and effort.

“We were geeked up, and the biggest thing was we weren’t intimidated,” said O’Shea, who praised the performances turned in by Garbers, Le, receiver Cameron Kormos, Montez, linebackers Jaydin Moses, Mickey Quinn and Jack Farion, as well as cornerback Reese Perez. “Obviously, [we respect] the proud tradition of [Mater Dei’s] football program, but for us to have the ball on the two to win the game, you can’t ask for anymore.

“[The Monarchs are] at the pedestal that everybody is trying to reach, and for us to be able to come out and compete with them [says a lot about us]. When they were down, you could see they were getting like, ‘What the [hell] are we losing to CdM for?’”