WHAT: CIF State Football Championship Division III Bowl Game
WHEN: Saturday, Dec. 15
WHERE: Home Depot Center, Carson (Calif.)
TIME: 11:30 a.m.
TEAMS: Central Catholic-Modesto Raiders (11-1-1) vs. St. Bonaventure-Ventura Seraphs (13-1)
SECTIONS: Sac-Joaquin (Central Catholic), Southern (St. Bonaventure).
RANKINGS: Central Catholic No. 39 overall in state (MaxPreps.Com), No. 17 Northern California (CalHiSports.com); St. Bonaventure No. 7 overall in state (CalHiSports), No. 8 overall in state (MaxPreps), No. 48 in nation (Rivals.com), No. 66 in nation (MaxPreps).
POINTS: CC 642 (49.3 ppg). SB 511 (36.5 ppg)
POINTS ALLOWED: CC 176 (13.5 ppg). SB 226 (16.1 ppg).
TOP RUSHERS: CC - Louis Bland (186-1,567-31 TDs), Max Nelson (78-1,078-15). SB - Darrell Scott (257-2,286-30).
TOP PASSERS: CC - David Halvorson (53-96-818-11). SB - Casey Serna (54-94-1,053-9).
TOP RECEIVERS: CC - Alex Young (29-405-5). SB - Blayne Lewis (24-694-7).
COMPLETE TEAM STATS: Central Catholic - Click here. St. Bonaventure - Click here.
CENTRAL CATHOLIC KEY: Long methodical drives to keep St. Bonaventure's quick-strike offense off the field.
ST. BONAVENTURE KEY: Control the potent offensive line of Central Catholic and tackle well.
PREDICTED SCORE: St. Bonaventure 35, Central Catholic 21.
OTHER GAME PREVIEWS: Division II,
Novato vs. Oceanside; Division I,
De La Salle vs. Centennial.TELEVISION: All games will be broadcast live on FSN Prime Ticket (Southern California) and FSN Bay Area (Northern California), with the lone exception Division III which will be shown live on FSN Bay Area Plus, available on satellite or digital cable.
LIVE AUDIO: Live audio and written play-by-play also will be available on the internet for all three games at www.kbcsports.com and www.cifstate.org.
OTHER EVENTS: California State High School Cheerleading and Dance Championships; High School Football Coaches Clinic featuring San Jose State coach Dick Tomey. Go to www.cifstate.org for more information.
TICKETS: Home Depot Center Box Office, local TicketMaster outlets or ticketmaster.com. Costs are $15 for adults, $8 for high school students (with a valid ASB card), seniors (60+) and children. All tickets general admission seating and valid for all three games.
By Mitch Stephens
MaxPreps.com
CARSON, Calif. - Central Catholic football coach Mike Glines was awarded the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for Valor while serving in Vietnam. His teams are disciplined, no-nonsense and run right at you. This is his 35th and final year in coaching and Saturday, he said, will be his last game.
St. Bonaventure's Todd Therrien is in his first year as head coach after starring for the Seraphs as a lineman in the middle 90s then serving as an assistant coach for six years. A tough-nosed player, Therrien runs a lot of spread formations out of the shotgun. He reminds his players to have fun and makes them personal DVDs with music of the day and game tape so they'll study tendencies and foes alike.
Saturday, he hopes, will be the beginning of a long and storied career at St. Bonny.
They won't just pit the best small schools from the North and South when Central Catholic and St. Bonaventure tangle Saturday at the Home Depot Center.
It will also be a battle of the ages, old school against new age.
"It's just an honor to be in this game," Glines said. "Everything is so professional. It's a first-class operation. They'll put their top 11 guys against our 11 and we'll see how it turns out.
"I'll tell you what though. If I can sneak a 12th kid on the field I will. That might give them some problems."
Glines hasn't lost any humor over the years. If anything he's gained some.
It's something Therrien has tried to pass off on his Seraphs, a team all but penciled into this game since Darrell Scott, one of the nation's top running backs, transferred into the school from nearby Moorpark during the summer.
St. Bonaventure, which also features an All American lineman Vaughn Dotsy (6-foot-5, 350 pounds), had one little blip - a 25-9 loss to eventual Southern Section Pac-5 Division finalist Crespi-Encino - but has since rattled off nine straight wins, the closest margin was last week's 42-28 Southern Section Northern Division triumph over Hart-Newhall.
A permanent change at quarterback with Casey Serna - an All-State baseball player who has signed a letter of intent to Oregon - has been the biggest key to the win streak most say. But Therrien thinks it's a change in attitude that has paved the way.
"I don't want them too tight," he said. "I tell them if you're not smiling and having fun then why are you out here?"
Of course, it's a lot more fun winning and both programs have had an abundance of that. The Raiders and Seraphs have been traditionally two of the best, if not the best, small-school programs in the state for years.
Central Catholic won 61 straight games from 2001-06, the second-longest win streak in state history according the calhisports.com record book, and with a 24-6 victory over Patterson two weeks ago, the Raiders won their sixth consecutive Sac-Joaquin Section championship.
The team's only blemishes this year were a 35-35 tie with 2006 Northern California Division III Bowl representative Cardinal Newman-Stockton and a 45-41 loss to SJS Division I finalist St. Mary's-Stockton, a game it led 26-7.
Since 1996 - Therrien's senior season - St. Bonaventure has won eight Southern Section titles and in 2005, under head coach Jon Mack, the team finished No. 1 in the state overall. The Seraphs have featured numerous All-State players with the most famous being running back Lorenzo Booker and Whitney Lewis, both State Players of the Year.
"We've heard a lot of good things about them over the years," Glines said. "They've built themselves quite a tradition. We'll have our work cut out for us."
Their workload will be considerably easier if the Raiders can control the ball. They certainly have the line and backs to do it.
Jonathan Groppe, Shon Martin, Dominic Galas, Clay DePauw and Daniel Johansen have paved the way to 4,376 rushing yards this season and an almost ridiculous 10.5 yards per carry.
Almost everyone by now knows about Louis Bland, the 5-10, 205-pound relentless back who has already won a pair of state wrestling championships.
He missed three games with a sprained ankle but has still piled up more than 1,500 rushing yards and 31 touchdowns.
"The best football player I've ever coached bar none," Glines said.
While Bland was nursing his ankle, another Raider emerged in junior Max Nelson (1,078 yards, 15 TDs) and now as a duo will give the Seraphs plenty to think about.
Therrien, like a true lineman, raved more about Central Catholic line than the kids who score all the touchdowns. The Oregon State-bound Galas, a center, and guards Johansen and Marin are third-year starters. The other two are second-year starters.
"I love the Galas kid," Therrien said. "He's unbelievable. I saw him at the USC camp. He broke his nose and he still kept playing. If all those kids are as tough as him we'll be in for the fight of our lives."
Don't think the Seraphs aren't a little hungry.
They love to blitz and attack, especially junior linebacker/defensive back Patrick Hall and linebackers Loren Powers (6-3, 210) and Dylan Davis (6-0, 210), only a sophomore.
Offensively, St. Bonaventure's fate rests largely on the big shoes of Scott, who said he tweaked an ankle on his first carry last week against Hart.
The 6-2, 215-pound senior, ranked the top running back in the country by CSTV's Tom Lemming, said he couldn't cut properly the rest of the game, thus he couldn't break any long runs.
He was good and durable enough to rush 29 times for 159 yards and scored four touchdowns.
As good as he was, the difference maker was Serna, who rushed 11 times for 140 yards and two more scores, including a 35-yard scramble that would have made Steve Young proud.
"He's pretty amazing," Therrien said. "Everyone knows what a great runner and athlete Darrell is but Casey can do about anything out there."
Where St. Bonaventure holds an edge is overall depth.
Many of Central Catholic's players start both ways and it got so thin in the Raiders' secondary one of the school's best athletes, baseball star Ryan Tiscareno went out for the team in the last two weeks, Glines said.
According to the longtime coach, who is also the school's baseball coach, Tiscareno is eligible to play because he completed the minimum amount of practices.
Glines said Tiscareno hasn't played on the team before but will see action in the secondary.
"I told him that his future is in baseball and tried to discourage him," Glines said. "He said, `Coach, the team needs some help and I can give it.' How can you say no to that?"
E-mail Mitch Stephens at mstephens@maxpreps.com.