LONG BEACH — It was like the old joke about the two pass rushers who played a Thanksgiving game against an outmatched line.
“Let’s meet at the quarterback,” they told each other. “And make a wish.”
Mater Dei’s Tanner Williams and David Bailey kept meeting Servite’s Noah Fifita almost as soon as the snapped football reached his hand. They brought a lot of traffic with them.
When the Division 1 Southern Section final was over, Servite had one 28-yard touchdown drive and not much else. Mater Dei was able to win, 27-7, without a passing touchdown until Elijah Brown found C.J. Williams in the corner of the end zone, late in the fourth quarter.
It was the Monarchs’ first CIF title since 2018 which, for them, constitutes the breaking of a famine.
But it also preserved their chances of winning a tangible state championship and a mythical national title. It was also a massive contrast to their previous meeting in the fall, a breathless 46-37 win on Oct. 23.
“I love our pass rush,” said cornerback Cameron Sidney. “Our D-line always steps up, our inside linebackers always take over. I think all phases of our defense are on the same platform. And the offense helped us a little bit, hanging on to the ball like they did.”
Williams, a sophomore, had two sacks, and Bailey, a senior playing with a bandaged-up wrist, had one-and-a-half. They had four solo tackles each. Fifita, so effective as a runner in Servite’s semifinal win at St. John Bosco, gained 25 yards but lost 44 while he was sacked four times, and he threw for only 86 yards.
Although Tetairoa McMillan had an interception for Servite and caught a 4-yard touchdown in the first quarter, he had to settle for eight catches and 68 yards. “Our job was to limit him to no catches,” Sidney said. “He got some, but we did a pretty good job limiting him, and that’s one of the reasons we won.”
In the Oct. 23 game that was so electric it briefly knocked out the lights at Santa Ana Stadium, McMillan snagged 15 balls for 163 yards, and Fifita hit 26 of 41 passes for 306 yards.
The Friars tried to plug the middle of the field against Brown and played “off” coverage to limit long strikes. The Monarchs were agreeable to that. Raleek Brown chugged 164 yards on 23 carries against the light defensive boxes, and Ajon Bryant clicked off a 27-yard touchdown run. Elijah Brown only passed 14 times and his only 20-yard completion was the 27-yarder to Williams at the end.
In the third quarter, Servite moved the ball 7 yards — backwards. Fifita did hit a remarkable pass to Michael Welsh in the third quarter, but the officials’ flags indicated how they did it. Welsh was out of bounds and came back in for the catch, an illegal touching penalty.
“We put in a few new stunts for this game,” Williams said, “and from that point it just was a matter of execution.”
“We did change some things, really tried to double T-Mac more, but mainly the kids just got after it,” said Eric Johnson, Mater Dei’s defensive coordinator. “I thought we really made it hard for them to drive.”
Still, Fifita’s bottomless spirit was not broken. In the fourth quarter he was getting body-slammed on every snap, and yet converted a third-and-10 and then a third-and-19. A touchdown would have cut Mater Dei’s lead to a touchdown with more than four-and-a-half minutes remaining. Instead, Jeilani Davis picked off Fifita’s pass on fourth-and-10.
Mater Dei last played in this game two years ago, led St. John Bosco 28-5 and lost 39-34. There was no chance for payback in 2020, with COVID-19. The two did play during the five-game spring schedule and the Monarchs won that. Still, their hands were itchy for trophies.
“I don’t even know how to explain how it feels,” Sidney said. “This is all we were thinking about, after 2019, my sophomore year. We did our thing during the five games, but we all felt like we needed to come back and get this.”
If the goal was to make this game as one-sided as the stadium they played it in, they did that, too.
