High school footbal: No. 2 Mater Dei roars back to beat No. 6 Bishop Gorman 24-21

In high school football's biggest game of the weekend nationally, No. 2 Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) roared back from a 14-point deficit in the third quarter to take down No. 6 Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas, Nev.) 24-21 Friday night in Las Vegas.

Extending its win streak to 19 games, Mater Dei needed two second-half touchdowns and big stops on defense to complete the comeback and move to 2-0 on the season.

Junior quarterback Elijah Brown tossed three touchdowns and led the Monarchs into range for the game-winning field goal by senior Andre Medina with 3:32 to play.

The Gaels (1-1) were moving on their final drive, but that momentum came to an end when Nasir Wyatt sacked junior quarterback Micah Alejado to set up a fourth and 25 with under a minute to play. After a hook and lateral attempt failed, the ball was turned over and the Monarchs took a knee to leave the desert with a victory.

It was a magnificent performance by Brown who converted multiple second half fourth downs.

Facing a fourth and goal down 21-7 midway through the third quarter, the signal caller remained calm in the pocket and tossed his second touchdown pass of the night to junior Marcus Brown for a touchdown to cut the lead to seven. The Monarchs made a stop defensively and on their next offensive possession, Mater Dei again faced a fourth down near midfield. Again it was Marcus Brown in traffic catching the ball to extend the drive before taking a big hit.

A few plays later the game was tied after sophomore Marcus Harris caught a touchdown with 10:24 to play.

The Gaels weren’t done and drove down to the Monarchs' 10-yard line before senior four-star Leviticus Su'a drove through the offensive lineman on third down and goal to sack Alejado for a 10-yard loss. The Gaels missed a field goal and the Monarchs took over with seven minutes to play.

Aiming to take the lead, Elijah Brown drove the Monarchs inside the Bishop Gorman 10 on a nearly four minute drive that ended with Medina kicking the go-ahead field goal with 3:32 to play.

In front of a sold out home crowd, Bishop Gorman scored three first-half touchdowns and jumped out to a 21-7 lead at halftime after Alejado tossed touchdowns to junior Elija Lofton, Wisconsin commit Trech Kekahuna and five-star USC commit Zachariah Branch.

The Monarchs made it into the red zone once in the first quarter, but the drive stalled when senior Boston College commit Palaie Faoa recorded his third sack of the season. On fourth down and four at the Gorman 20, the Gaels stopped the ball carrier forcing a turnover on downs.

Mater Dei improved to 3-0 against Bishop Gorman after previous wins in 2018 and 2019.

The road doesn’t get any easier for Bishop Gorman as it heads to Hawaii to take on St. Louis (Honolulu) Sept. 2 before returning home to take on Hamilton (Chandler, Ariz), the fourth ranked team in state.