Aragon Dons snap 27-year Central Coast Section football title drought

And the coach that led the Dons to their first title in 27 years is the same man who was on the sideline for the school’s three previous appearances. Head coach Steve Sell was an assistant to former longtime head man Britt Williams, who passed away just before the start of the 2021 season.

Williams was the second head football coach at Aragon, since the school’s founding in 1961. Sell is the third.

“Britt’s been on my mind a lot,” said an emotional Sell, who took a moment to collect himself, his voice cracking. “I know how he felt after those championships in ’92 and ’94. … I remember in ’92, sitting next to Britt and him saying, ‘Well, we won one.’”

Now Sell can say the same.

“There is a bit of relief (to finally winning one as a head coach),” Sell said.

Despite not having returned to a final since 1998, the Dons have been a CCS stalwart. But the program hit rock bottom in 2019, when a dearth of junior and senior talent forced Sell to bring up a number of sophomores — and even freshmen — to get on-the-job, varsity training. After taking their lumps and then weathering the 2020-21 COVID pandemic season, the Dons emerged in 2021 to complete the rebuilding project.

“This means everything,” said Aragon co-captain TY Faaumu, a junior lineman who was a freshman when the Aragon program was at its nadir during the 2019 season.

“We went 1-9 (in 2019),” Faaumu said. “We’ve just worked so hard (to get to this point).”

Many of the key players Saturday at Westmont High School in Campbell were in their first year of playing varsity football for the Dons two seasons ago. Faaumu, along with senior co-captain David Fononga, helped lead an offensive line that paved the way to 306 rushing yards for Aragon.

Faaumu also was a force defensively. He, along with another defensive lineman, Albert Zheng, came up with interceptions. Faaumu’s pick late in the fourth set up the Dons’ final score of the day — a Mone Hokafuna 13-yard rumble.

It was the first interception of his career, Faaumu said.

“To be honest, I blacked out for a second,” Faaumu said. “It was unbelievable.”


Faaumu came up with the Dons’ second of three turnovers of the game — Amaziah Tanielu recovered a fumble on the Sharks’ final drive of the game — but Faaumu’s INT was the exclamation point on what was a dominant defensive effort from Aragon. The Dons held St. Francis to a total of 37 offensive plays (compared to 69 for the Dons) and allowed just 108 yards of offense to the Sharks — 88 in the first half and just 20 in the second.

Offensively, Aragon simply wore down St. Francis. After rushing for 98 yards in the first half, the Dons went for 208 yards in the second. Ivan Nisa, a sophomore who was called up to varsity early in the season, rushed 164 yards on 19 carries and looked impressive doing it.

“You forget he’s a sophomore and a young sophomore — he didn’t turn 15 until October,” Sell said. “When you have guys like that, you don’t over-coach it.”

Nisa did the bulk of his damage on the edges as the Aragon coaching staff determined early on St. Francis was going to try to take away the middle, leaving the edges vulnerable.

“You can’t take away everything,” Sell said. “[Their defense] favored us to run that sweep.”

The only thing Nisa didn’t do was get in the end zone, but his teammates picked up the slack. Senior Hokafuna rushed for 69 yards on 13 carries, scoring on runs of 4 and 13 yards. Junior Jared Walsh added 73 yards on 17 carries, scoring on a 3-yard jaunt for the Dons’ first touchdown of the game.

Alan Tanielu, who is listed as a receiver, could be a top-notch running back as well. He had four carries for 15 yards and a 5-yard score.

“We’re blessed to have four running backs, almost five,” Sell said. “We’re very lucky.”

While senior receiver Lloyd Walter could be lumped in with the Dons other runners — he did have one carry for 2 yards — he might be more of an honorary quarterback as he took a toss from quarterback Dylan Daniel, pulled up and hit Tanielu wide open down field, who took it into the end zone for a 37-yard score that gave the Dons’ a 17-14 lead early in the third quarter — a lead they would not relinquish as the Dons outscored the Sharks 28-0 over the final two quarters.

But it was a defensive stand late in the first half that helped set up the Dons in the third quarter. Trailing 14-10, Aragon had forced St. Francis to punt, but the ball was bobbled away with the Sharks recovering at the Dons’ 19. But three plays later, the Sharks were denied when a pass was deflected at the line of scrimmage and into the waiting hands of Zheng to give the Dons the ball back with 1:36 left in the first half.

While St. Francis eventually came up with an interception on the ensuing drive, the Dons were in the game and had the momentum, receiving the second-half kickoff.

“The critical point was when we fumbled (trailing) 14-10 and they didn’t score,” Sell said. “That was costly for them. There’s a big difference between 21-10 to 14-10.”

After the Lloyd-Tanielu hookup, both defenses took over for the rest of the third quarter. Aragon finally got some breathing room when Hokafuna scored from 4 yards out to give the Dons a 24-14 lead with 10:47 to play.

Tanielu’s 5-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-2 gave the Dons a 31-14 lead with 5:07 left before they cashed in Faaumu’s interception with a 13-yard touchdown run.

Aragon opened the scoring by taking its opening drive to the St. Francis 8 before settling for a Cole Smith 25-yard field goal. After an exchange of punts, the Sharks put together their best drive of the game, marching 65 yards on six plays, with Johrdan Garibay scoring on a 31-yard run.

The Dons responded with a 12-play, 70-yard drive that was capped by a Walsh run up the middle from 3 yards out for a 10-7 lead.

It was short-lived, however, as St. Francis’ Garibay returning the ensuing kickoff 85 yards to give the Sharks a 14-10 lead with 6:27 left in the second quarter.

It was be the last highlight of the day for the Sharks.

With the win, Aragon qualified for the Northern California regional championship game, but it was the CCS championship that was Sell’s holy grail.

“I was nervous,” Sell said. “This was the game we wanted to win.”