Nation's No. 1 team St. John Bosco gets a scare, holds off JSerra

The MaxPreps football editor joins host Tommy Tran to get you ready for the weekend.

Welcome back to Trinity League play St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.).

The nation's No. 1 team got all it could handle in its spanking new stadium, but survived a 35-28 Trinity League-opening win over a very game and previously unbeaten JSerra Catholic (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) squad on Friday night.

George Holani scored four touchdowns, including a 43-yard run that appeared to finally put the Lions (5-1) away midway through the fourth quarter, to go up 35-21. It was Bosco's first two-score lead of the night.

But like he did all night, Caden Bell (152 yards passing, three touchdowns) and JSerra responded. Bell threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Shimomura with 4:30 left, to cut the lead to 35-28.

JSerra actually stopped Bosco on its next possession, but had too many men on the field while the Braves were punting. That penalty gave Bosco a first down and it ran out the clock. Holani scored on two other runs of 2 yards each and he caught a 14-yard TD pass from DJ Uiagalelei.

JSerra used a punt block, interception and fumble recovery and turned them all into touchdowns to take a 21-14 lead with 53 seconds left before halftime following a 20-yard pass from Bell to Munir Mcclain.

But the Lions went for an onside kick, that was recovered by Bosco, which promptly tied the game up following a 50-yard completion from Uiagalelei to Colby Bowman and 2-yard TD run by Holani, making it 21-21 at halftime.

The Trinity League is known to be one of the toughest in the nation and this was further proof. Bosco coach Jason Negro said he wasn't surprised by the close call.

"They were undefeated and nationally ranked for a reason," he told Fox Sports West after the game. "I was expecting a tough game and we got it. I was proud how we pulled it together."

Bosco (6-0) is scheduled to play No. 2 Mater Dei in two weeks. Holani said the Braves weren't looking past the Lions. "Those guys were just tough," he said of JSerra. "It took everything we had to beat them. We got the win but we definitely need to work on some things."