Troy Thomas was naïve. He admits it. He thought he had seen high school rivalries in full bloom when he was a coach in the San Fernando Valley.
His team, Crespi, and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame got together every year and duked it out the way that fierce rivals do. So when he was hired as the head coach at
Servite (Anaheim) in 2005, he was unaffected by the rivalry with Mater Dei.
'How big could it be?' he thought.
It was pretty big.
That first week on campus, initial greetings were quickly followed by "Are we going to beat Mater Dei?"
"Even the lunch lady asked me about it," Thomas recalled.
Last season, after 20 years without winning – there was a 0-0 tie in 1992 – Servite beat Mater Dei, 30-20, another notch among the 15 games that ended with Servite (14-1) winning the State Bowl Division II championship and being ranked No. 1 in the state and No. 3 in the nation by MaxPreps.
Cody Fajardo, Chris Nichols, Kirifi Taula and Michael Marcoux are now gone. Left behind is a team that is undefeated through seven games and considered one of the best teams in the state – again.
And the two rivals are matched up once more for their annual battle since 1961, this time at Angel Stadium on Friday where Servite's first Southern Section championship team — an all-junior group that comprised the first varsity team in 1960 — will be honored.
Other Servite teams, ones that had been ordained by old-guard coaches as the ones who would end "The Streak," as it was known, had failed. A kick would hit a crossbar, an offense would seize up like a fried computer, a defense would crumble like feta cheese. Whenever
Mater Dei (Santa Ana) was on the opposing sideline, Servite – even on those occasions when it was the more physically talented team – went into paralysis. It happened in Thomas' first season and ignited the one time in his six seasons at the all-boys Catholic school that he absolutely lost it.
His emotion boiled over at halftime of the 2006 game, his team down 21-0. The reserved but competitive coach went ballistic in the locker room during his halftime speech.
"It wasn't the same team I had coached the previous six weeks," he said. Servite outscored Mater Dei in the second half but lost, 35-17, and as he talked to his wife and held his young son afterward, one of the alumni yelled at him, "Go back to (expletive) Crespi!"
This rivalry, Mater Dei vs. Servite, is a different animal. He sees that now.
But to Thomas, to position his program to actually win the big game, he spent the first five years of his tenure at Servite trying to convince players and coaches that the Mater Dei game was not any more important than any other game. What's it matter to beat Mater Dei but lose to JSerra or Santa Margarita or Orange Lutheran or St. John Bosco?
"Coaches would yell at practice during the week when a kid jumped offsides, 'If you do that against Mater Dei they're going to
kick your butt!'" Thomas said. "But we had kids jump offside every week in practice and the coaches didn't say anything. Happens every day."
So Thomas has tried over and over to downplay the so-called Holy War in Orange County. Yeah, it's a big game because it's a Trinity League game, but it's just a game. Go out and play like you do every day.
Last season, for the first time in who knows how long, Servite didn't even have a pep rally during the week leading up to the game against the Monarchs. Instead, it was business as usual. More than any other season, the coaches – most of them new to the program or the coaching ranks – followed Thomas' quiet, positive lead.
And on the field, players made plays.
Karlton Dennis and Jordan Jones – both returning cornerbacks this season – jammed USC-bound junior receiver
Victor Blackwell at the line of scrimmage. Troy Niklas, a returning lineman this season, busted through the line and disrupted USC-bound junior quarterback
Max Wittek.
Cody Fajardo, who is now at Nevada-Reno, passed for two touchdowns and ran for another.
Connor Loftus, who has already kicked a 52-yard field goal this season, kicked a 42-yarder for Servite's final points.
It wasn't all Servite, though. Blackwell caught one of Wittek's two touchdown passes, and
Corbin Anderson – who made his season debut a week ago with 113 yards against Orange Lutheran – carried for a touchdown.
"I thought we would handle it cool whenever we won, shake their hands and come back to Servite and go crazy, but we didn't," Thomas recalled. "In fact there wasn't much celebration at all. It wasn't that big thing that we kind of expected it would be. Players acted like it was something they had done before, and it's probably because we didn't treat it as a game that was any more important than any other."
When they faced each other a year ago, Mater Dei (6-5) had already lost three games, including the previous two weeks to Edison and Orange Lutheran (for the fifth consecutive year). This season, after losing in the first two weeks -- to Carson and, embarrassingly, 44-13 to Centennial-Corona -- Mater Dei is on a five-game winning streak and looks every bit capable of beating the Friars.
However, Mater Dei's potent offense will be matched against a defense that has been nothing short of brilliant. The first team has allowed only six touchdowns, and two of those came on drives of 22 yards or less.
Matt Inman and junior
Butch Pauu are tough-as-nails linebackers, and the special teams seem to be making big plays every week: Blocked punts led to touchdows in league victories over JSerra-San Juan Capistrano and St. John Bosco.
Servite is now the program with all the pressure. It has ended the streak, has won 18 consecutive games and looks to prove last year's victory over the Monarchs wasn't an aberration. It also looks to remain atop or near the top of various rankings, and certainly continue toward what it hopes will be a second consecutive Pac-5 championship and State Bowl berth. It is ranked No. 19 in the Xcellent 25 presented by the Army National Guard, and No. 23 nationally by the MaxPreps Freeman Ratings.
When Thomas took over, Servite had won only three league games over the previous four seasons. Since his arrival, Servite has won 10 playoff games, Mater Dei only four – including two in 2005.
Without question, Servite has been the stronger program between the two. Another victory over Mater Dei will only validate that. A loss? Well, Thomas has his team playing for only one thing: To punch its ticket to the playoffs where it has a 1-in-16 chance of winning another section title.
"I like those odds," Thomas said.
He should. He is the one who made them relevant again.
