M-A falls in Nor Cal Division 4-A championship game

The Bears (7-7) succumbed 24 hours later, twice taking the lead in the second half only to fall 20-16 to reborn El Cerrito in the CIF Nor Cal Division 4-A regional football finals Saturday night at Coach Parks Field.

“From 0-4 to where we’re at now, we’re up at the regional match for Nor Cal,” M-A senior lineman Jordan Lavulo said. “Shutout to our captain group. It wasn’t easy leading this, steering this. We lost a lot of players on the way. Some people took the easy way out. I give props to the people who stayed and fought through.”

The fight was evident on a frigid night in Atherton, where a full moon hung in the backdrop of a cool mist pouring over the field like something out of an NFL Films slo-mo reel. Chilled breath hung in the air, and only grew more prominent as the night wore on. And injuries were at a premium, too, as the physical style of both teams only seemed to provoke each side into a bone-crushing clash of “Quien es mas macho?”

“They put it out there,” M-A head coach Chris Saunders said. “I think that was evident. It was gutsy and it was tough and rugged as it could have been tonight, and really this season. I think the narrative of our season has been established from how we started to where we’re at now. And that’s really just pushed them, giving them that chip and that edge.”

El Cerrito (12-2) has overcome adversity, too. A perennial force in the Tri-County Athletic League Rock Division, the Gauchos were coming off their only losing season since joining the league in 2012 because off off-field issues — they finished 2024 with a 1-8 record on paper after playing a majority of the season with ineligible players, leading to five wins being overturned via forfeit, and head coach Jake Rincon stepping away from the program.

“It’s been a long grind — about 15 months,” El Cerrito first-year head coach Tim Johnson said. “When the situation happened in September of last year, Coach Jake (Rincon) trusted me with the squad and we won a lot of games while he was gone. And I think the disappointment was that we couldn’t finish the job that he started. But with this win tonight, the job is almost finished. Last year, it was a unique situation. But that was last year. I’m moving on. These players are moving on.”

With just 30 players on roster, and less than that suited up Saturday night, El Cerrito relied on blazing fast skill players and a stout defense to earn the program’s first-ever Nor Cal championship in five regional final appearances, the last coming in 2023.

That speed was on display in the closing minutes after M-A took a 16-13 lead with 4:23 to play after a gritty war of attrition for each and every yard, even after the Bears spent most of the fourth quarter in Gauchos territory. With M-A senior Monte Turner’s go-ahead wildcat dive into the end zone, the Bears seemed destined for Nor Cal glory.

“Through the roof,” M-A senior Matthew Kwon said. “I’m like: ‘We’re in this! We got this!’ And then it turned out the way it did. The score’s the score.”

M-A’s fortunes turned three plays later, when El Cerrito sophomore Cannon Jenkins took a Dejuan Compton Jr. pass on a swing route and took off like a rocket up the right sideline for a 54-yard score with 3:38 to play. Jenkins finished with four catches for 93 yards.

“We’ve got a lot of speed out here,” Johnson said. “It starts with some of our older guys, but them young guys, they’re going to be burning for some years.”

It took some time for M-A’s offense to get any traction in the game. El Cerrito got on the board in the second quarter on a speedy 4-yard sweep by junior Joezon Broussard with 8:35 remaining in the half. It would be another minute before M-A picked up its first first down on a drive that ultimately stalled.

But the Bears caught a break with under two minutes to go in the half when an El Cerrito pass was intercepted when M-A cornerback Diego Madrid hit a receiver just as the ball arrived, leaving the ball to pop up and into the hands of safety Joel Fifita at the Gauchos’ 39-yard line. M-A then got on the board when senior quarterback Teddy Dacey hit a wide-open Kyle Gabriel on a cross into the end zone to send it to halftime tied 7-all.

M-A closed the third quarter with a 33-yard field goal from senior Anthony Perez to take a 10-7 lead. El Cerrito answered immediately running play action to perfection, as (10-of-16 passing, 213 yards, two touchdowns, one interception) sold a trap fake to perfection and reloaded for a 60-yard scoring strike up the left side to a wide-open Mike Boyer.

A blocked point-after try left it at 13-10 El Cerrito, and there it would stay, even when the Gauchos got pinned deep in their territory after Jenkins intercepted a pass falling out of bounds at their own 2-yard line. El Cerrito moved the chains, but got pushed back to the 4 with two penalties. Then, on third down, Compton just escaped a safety, stumbling out of the end zone with his knee coming close to hitting the turf while still in the paint.

“I think he was down but he was falling forward out of the end zone on that play,” Lavulo said. “If we could have just grab more bodies and get more cloth on that, it would have been a safety.”

El Cerrito was forced to punt, and M-A advanced the return to the 15-yard line. Still, the Gauchos knocked M-A backward with a third-down sack. The Bears attempted a 42-yard field goal, which came up short, but Perez got hammered after the kick, drawing a penalty flag for roughing the kicker.

“The second time they did it too,” Saunders said. “He was hurt. Our guy was hurt after. That was a legitimate roughing the kicker.”

The referees initially conferred to decide the severity of the penalty, leaving the Bears wondering if a lesser penalty would only get a chance to kick again — a precarious spot as Perez was shaken up on the play.

“He was going to go for it,” Saunders said. “We didn’t have another option, but he was not feeling well, to say the least. ... I asked him: ‘Can we do it again?’ And, luckily, it went from running into the kicker to roughing.”

Three plays later, the Bears overcame their second deficit of the half, but couldn’t muster a third.

Dacey (19-of-31 passing 189 yards, one TD, one INT) danced through fire all night, and tried to work magic on the game’s final possession. The senior solved a fourth-and-2 with a 15-yard pass to junior tight end Leif Weintz. Then on third-and-5 from midfield, he found seior Gio Torres for an 8-yard outlet. Three plays later, on third-and-7 from El Cerrito’s 38, Dacey scrambled for 7 yards to earn a new set of downs.

“I think Teddy did great,” Kwon said. “Throughout this whole season, he’s been great for us. Just getting key third downs, fourth downs, converting, keeping the drive alive. And I’ve got to give that to him.”

El Cerrito’s defense hunkered down, though, defusing four pass plays to finish it.

“They are good on defense,” Saunders said. “There’s no ifs, ands or buts. They’re fast, they’re physical, and they played really good coverage. It was definitely a matchup of styles. ... We knew it was going to be a fourth-quarter game and we had the lead, we had our chance. And we had another chance. If I’m asking the football gods for anything, I don’t think I can ask for much more.”

With the win, El Cerrito advances to the CIF Division 4-A state championship game this Saturday to face Beckman-Irvine at Buena Park High School in Orange County.