Prep Rally: Garfield and Roosevelt continue their East L.A. Classic rivalry this weekend
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. My name is Eric Sondheimer. It’s week 10 in high school football, with lots of rivalry games, led by Garfield taking on Roosevelt in the East L.A. Classic at East Los Angeles College.
Rivalry week
A year ago, more than 40,000 spectators came to the Coliseum to watch a star-studded halftime concert and see Garfield defeat Roosevelt in the East L.A. Classic. The two rivals are set to meet again on Friday night, this time back at their usual venue, East Los Angeles College.
Garfield (8-1) is considered the heavy favorite because Roosevelt is 4-5 and very young. All that means is anything can happen in a game where emotions are always high on the field and in the stands, leading sometimes to strange finishes.
“It doesn’t matter,” Garfield coach Lorenzo Hernandez said of the teams’ records. “It’s similar situation to last year. We were the underdogs and it flipped.”
It’s not the only rivalry game.
Dorsey and King/Drew, part of a three-way tie for first place in the Coliseum League with Crenshaw, will play Friday night at the Coliseum that will have a special halftime concert by Warren G and Xzibit. Tickets are $15.
Banning is playing at Carson. Those two schools have combined to win 23 City Section championships.
In the Southern Section, Loyola is at Cathedral to decide which school has the best view of downtown Los Angeles. Oxnard Pacifica is at Oxnard; St. Bonaventure is at Oaks Christian; Long Beach Poly is at Long Beach Jordan; Irvine University is at Irvine,; Pasadena Poly is at South Pasadena; Edison is playing Los Alamitos at Veterans Stadium; Burbank is at Burroughs. Muir is playing Pasadena at the Rose Bowl on Wednesday night.
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Football rewind
Sierra Canyon (9-0) faced a severe challenge from Gardena Serra before finally prevailing 35-28. Here’s the report.
St. John Bosco coach Jason Negro got his 200th career victory, according to CalHiSports.com. The Braves can win their first Trinity League title since 2018 with a win this week over Orange Lutheran.
In a battle of unbeaten teams, Rancho Cucamonga stopped a two-point conversion attempt with 38 seconds left to stay unbeaten and defeat Damien 36-35. Dakota Mendoza had the game-winning interception.
Corona Centennial won a shootout over Murrieta Valley 63-27. Cornell Hatcher rushed for 265 yards and six touchdowns. Quarterback Husan Longstreet completed 16 of 18 passes for 262 yards and three touchdowns.
Palos Verdes is headed to another Bay League title after pulling out a 34-31 win over Culver City. Here’s the report.
Newport Harbor won the Battle of the Bay 21-20 over Corona del Mar. Here’s the report.
St. Francis quarterback John Sanders rushed for 108 yards against Crespi, the fifth time this season has exceeded 100 yards rushing.
Palisades is headed toward winning the Western League title after a 28-24 win over Venice. Here’s the report.
Maya Angelou is 9-0 in the City Section. Here’s a look at the rising Phoenix.
Gardena stunned Carson 27-7 in the Marine League to improve to 8-1 under coach Monty Gilbreath, who was an All-City receiver for Taft in the 1980s. Xavier Grant forced two fumbles, returning one for a touchdown.
Here’s a look at the City Section top 10 with one week to go in the regular season.
Here’s a look at top individual performances for Week 9.
Here’s this week’s top 25 rankings by The Times.
Here’s last week’s score list.
Here’s the Week 10 schedule.
The Southern Section will release its football playoff pairings on Sunday at 10 a.m. with 14 divisions based on final CalPreps.com rankings. The City Section will release its pairings on Saturday afternoon using CalPreps and an in-house formula to seed teams.
Rising Loyola prospect
Football teammates call Scott Taylor “golden boy” because of his curly blond hair and ties to Loyola High. He’s 16 years old, stands 6 feet 4, weighs 226 pounds and is growing so fast that it might be wise not to bring a burger near him.
“If you feed me, I keep growing,” he said. “I eat everything they put in front of me.”
If Loyola had a place for babies to be born, Taylor would have been there. From birth, he was destined to be a Cub. His mother, Teri, is the daughter of former Loyola basketball coach and principal Bill Thomason. Of Bill and Mary Thomason’s 19 grandchildren, 13 are boys. Scott was baptized in the Loyola chapel.
“They all knew where they were going to high school,” Bill said.
Three are at Loyola, with six more to come. Scott has eight sacks and appears ready to be the next great football player from Loyola. Here’s a report.
Crenshaw hero
To watch Roberto Salazar of Crenshaw High boom a punt 50 yards is stunning when you consider he’s had zero training other than coach Robert Garrett telling him, “Drop the ball and kick it.”
“I’ve never been taught and never played soccer,” said the 16-year-old junior, who has with a 3.8 grade-point average.
So let’s examine the scene a week ago. Crenshaw had fourth -and -goal at the three-yard line against rival Dorsey while trailing 34-32 with 37 seconds left. Garrett faced a tough decision. Should he go for it and try for a touchdown or send out Salazar for a field goal? The kicker had not made one all season.
Like punting, Salazar learned kicking from Garrett.
“He just told me take, ‘Take three steps back, take two steps to the side, run to the ball, keep your head down and kick it through,’” Salazar said.
It was a nerve-racking moment for Salazar, who’s 6 feet 3, 186 pounds and prides himself on being able to do anything. He also starts at receiver and started playing plays safety too.
He made the field goal. Here’s a profile on a player who also plays baseball, basketball, tennis and runs track.
Gardena savior
In the 1980s, then future Olympic 400-meter champion Quincy Watts was the fastest sprinter in the City Section, one of his 400-meter relay teammates was Monty Gilbreath, an All-City receiver who’d go on to star at San Diego State.
Gilbreath is now in his third season as football coach at Gardena High, the surprise team in the City Section with an 8-1 record. His players are skeptical he was one of the fastest back then.
“I try to tell the kids how fast I used to be, but they don’t believe it,” he said laughing.
What’s clear is that Gilbreath has changed the culture. Last week, Gardena handed Carson its first loss. Gardena plays Narbonne on Friday and could win the Marine League championship.
Here’s a look at Gilbreath.
Soccer officials prepare boycott
Tom Bromhead is an actor on strike as a member of SAG-AFTRA. He’s also a high school soccer official who intends to stop working Southern Section games because of a pay dispute that could disrupt the 2024 season.
His son plays soccer for Burbank Burroughs, and Bromhead said even the teen doesn’t know what is about to happen.
“He hasn’t asked about it and I don’t think anyone is aware of it,” Bromhead said.
Most soccer official units are unlikely to assign Southern Section games, so schools will have to recruit their own officials but not pay more than the official Southern Section pay structure. Officials will gladly work City Section games because they were given a raise last year.
Here’s a report.
Golf
One of the best non-profit sports organizations is Friends of Golf. For years they have donated bags and clubs to high school golf teams to help sustain the sport. On Saturday, the organization teamed with G/FORE to donate 500 new golf shoes to City Section boys and girls teams. Some 2,000 shoes will be distributed across the Southland.
“This is wonderful,” Sylmar coach Wilquin Garcia said as he showed up to pick up 20 pairs of shoes for members of his boys and girls teams.
City Section commissioner Vicky Lagos was on hand at Birmingham to help give out the boxes of new shoes.
It’s a big week for Southern Section girls’ golf.
The individual tournament begins on Monday. Then comes the team championships Oct. 30.
Two golfers to watch out for are freshman Emily Song of Santa Margarita and junior Alexis Faieta of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame. Song won the Trinity League title and Faieta dominated in the Mission League, going 9-under par over two days.
Santa Margarita and Notre Dame are also considered the two best teams in Southern California.
Girls’ volleyball
Marymount came through with the biggest upset of the first week of the Southern Section girls’ volleyball playoffs, defeating Mission League champion Sierra Canyon in the Division 1 pool.
Here’s the report.
Here’s the Southern Section brackets.
Palisades earned the No. 1 seed in the City Section. Here’s the report.
Cross-country
Brett Ephraim questioned whether competing at the 75th Mt. SAC Cross-Country Invitational on Saturday morning at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut would be beneficial to his end goal this season, but after coming out on top in the featured race of the two-day event, the Division 1-2 boys’ team sweepstakes, the San Clemente senior was forced to reconsider.
Ephraim clocked a personal-best 14 minutes and 50 seconds on the hilly 2.93-mile course — an improvement of 13 seconds over his time at the same meet last year.
“This is such a prestigious race with so much history so to win it, it’s pretty special,” said Ephraim, who took the lead on the way up Reservoir Hill in the last mile. “I didn’t think it would be very helpful because we have our prelims and finals here, but in retrospect I’m glad I pushed myself to do it, and it gives me confidence going into the last month of the season.
Here’s the report.
Flag football
San Pedro (18-3), Eagle Rock (12-3), Crenshaw (14-1) and Birmingham (6-0) continue to look like the teams to beat when the City Section holds its first ever City championships in flag football next month.
In the Southern Section, which won’t be holding a section championship, Newport Harbor (24-1), Woodbridge (22-2) and Esperanza (19-0) are leading the way.
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Notes . . .
The Southern Section has reached agreement to hold its Division 1 football championship game at the Coliseum on Nov. 24 at 7 p.m. Last year’s final was at the Rose Bowl. . . .
Pitcher Connor English of Long Beach Poly has committed to Eastern University. . . .
NBC Sports Next is getting into the youth sports streaming business with the creation of SportsEngine Play. It could give competition to the NFHS Network, which has contracts with the CIF. . . .
Santa Margarita junior lacrosse player Catie Maroutsos has committed to Ohio State. . . .
Senior guard Elias Chin of Thousand Oaks averaged 21 points last season, but his biggest accomplishment might be getting a perfect score of 36 on the ACT. . . .
Golfer Lily Huynh from Oak Park has committed to St. John’s. . . .
Junior outfielder Quentin Young from Oaks Christian has committed to LSU. . . .
St. Bonaventure guard Donald Clark IV has committed to Rivier University. . . .
Setter Victor Lowe of Harvard-Westlake has committed to play volleyball for defending NCAA champion Hawaii. . . .
Linebacker Greg McClendon of Long Beach Millikan has committed to San Jose State. . . .
Receiver Jonah Dawson of Rancho Cucamonga has committed to Air Force. . . .
Hart infielder Brayden Jefferis has committed to Michigan. Hart pitcher Troy Cooper has committed to Cal Poly SLO. . . .
Chaminade offensive lineman David Abajian has committed to Kansas. . . .
Jerry Lovarov, who guided San Pedro to the 1992 City Section baseball championship, has died. He was 94. . . .
Los Alamitos cornerback Isaiah Rubin has committed to USC. . . .
Sebastian Rancik, a 6-foot-9 forward at JSerra, has committed to Colorado. . . .
Chris Mack, who was the track coach at Gardena Serra, is now the track coach at St. Francis.
Defensive back Dylan Riley of Rancho Verde has committed to Boise State. . . .
UCLA baseball coach John Savage has been getting an early winter look at his No. 1-rated recruiting class and said, “Really good class.” Among those making early positive impressions are catcher Blake Balsz (Santa Margarita), pitcher Justin Lee (Sherman Oaks Notre Dame), infielder Roch Cholowsky (Arizona Chandler), outfielder Dean West (Notre Dame), infielder Cameron Kim (Norco), outfielder Phoenx Call (Calabasas), pitchers Luke Rodriguez (Shafter) and Landon Stump (Live Oak) and infielder Mulivai Levu (Ocean View).
From the archives: Easton Mascarenas
During his days as a linebacker at Mission Viejo, Easton Mascarenas was a tackling machine. Not much has changed at Oregon State, where he leads the team in tackles with 64 after seven games.
Against UCLA, he was credited with 13 tackles. His step brother and former Mission Viejo teammate, Akili Arnold, had 10 tackles.
Here’s a 2021 story on Mascarenas at Mission Viejo.
Recommendations
From the Washington Post, a story on a 10-year-old seeking track stardom.
From the San Diego Union-Tribune, a story on high school sports participation numbers in San Diego.
From the San Jose Mercury News, a story on the death of the long-time De La Salle defensive line coach.
Tweets you might have missed
Until next time...
Have a question, comment or something you’d like to see in a future Prep Rally newsletter? Email me at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latsondheimer.
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Get our high school sports newsletter
Prep Rally is devoted to the SoCal high school sports experience, bringing you scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
