Palos Verdes wins Division 2-A state football title in a rout


Ryan Rakowski enjoyed the kind of first half quarterbacks usually only dream about Saturday afternoon at Saddleback College. He threw for 228 yards and four touchdowns as Palos Verdes raced to a 27-point lead on its way to a 55-19 victory over Lincoln Twelve Bridges in the CIF Division 2-A state championship football bowl game.

The Sea Kings sophomore turned fantasy into reality with the help of acrobatic receivers like Evan Aguirre, Jalen Flowers, George Morley Boyd and Joey Koyama, each of whom had a scoring grab from their poised signal caller, who also had 35 yards rushing over the first 24 minutes of action.

The second half was not too shabby either for Rakowski, who added a pair of scoring tosses of 38 yards and 28 yards to Koyama to make it a 41-6 lead in the third quarter and wound up completing 20 of 25 attempts for 353 yards and six touchdowns to equal the state bowl record set by Jake Browning of Folsom in a 68-7 rout of Oceanside in Division I in 2014.

“It feels amazing, I’m super excited,” Rakowski said on the podium after being handed the trophy. “Shoutout to my mom and dad. We saw stuff on film we thought we could take advantage of. I honestly didn’t know about the record until one of the reporters told me.”

Rakowski’s immediate reward for his efforts was getting to watch the last 10 and a half minutes from the sideline as his backup, Knox Kiffin, engineered two more scoring drives, ending on runs of five yards by Christian Reis and 72 yards by Soren Hong.

Aguirre had four catches for 101 yards, Flowers had four receptions for 57, Morley Boyd had four catches for 37 yards and Koyama added three for 75 yards.

“We’re always super aggressive, so I wasn’t surprised we went for it twice on fourth down on our first drive,” Rakowski said. “Everybody can ball on this team. Even guys second deep in the rotation get it done. We were able to put it all together this game.”

The Sea Kings (11-5) kept the chains moving with 20 first downs, amassed 514 yards of offense and scored every time they had the ball en route to their first state bowl championship in their maiden appearance. Reis led the defense with eight tackles and brother Weston (both freshmen linebackers) added seven.

“He’s just a super competitor,” head coach Guy Gardner said of his quarterback. “As good a day as he had he’ll be the first to tell you there were a couple [of throws] early he didn’t get. He’ll take what the defense gives him. Our receivers did a nice job too.”

Braeden Ward rushed for 169 yards and two touchdowns in 23 carries for the Raging Rhinos (14-1) from Placer County.

—STEVE GALLUZZO

American Canyon 68, Palmdale 47

Opposite playing styles left Palmdale looking for defensive answers too late Saturday morning in a record-setting CIF Division 5-A state championship bowl game at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach.

American Canyon (13-2) ran up the score early with its ground-and-pound attack, and Palmdale quarterback Joshua Suarez could not match the scoring effort. The 6-foot-2 junior threw for five touchdowns and 286 yards, but it wasn’t enough compared with the Wolves’ 527 combined rushing yards.

The 115 combined points between the Falcons (12-6) and Wolves broke a CIF state championship game scoring record in the modern era — since 2006 — according to a CIF official.

Palmdale, which earned its first state championship berth by winning the Southern Section Division 12 title over Carter and the state regional final against Selma, gave up the most points it had allowed all season.

“Both defenses just couldn’t handle the offenses today,” said Palmdale coach Anthony Coleman. “They kind of kept us from making touchdowns to stay in the boat race, but my guys played their hearts out.”

Suarez connected with wideouts Joseph Mason and Zason Walker for a 51-yard touchdown and two first-half touchdowns, respectively. Running back Elleyon Clark tallied one rushing touchdown and one receiving touchdown.

“I’m going to be back,” Suarez said. “I left everything out there.”

—BENJAMIN ROYER





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