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Weekly Notes & Recap, April 12-17; Spring Football Season Ends, Baseball & Basketball Take Center Stage

Apr 19 2021 04:20:54

The featured photo is by Mario Veliz from the La Salle-St. Anthony game on Friday.

High School Sports:

There is so much going on all at once that it’s reasonable to be unaware of all the SGV area sports news.

But we wanted to go over some of the more noteworthy events over the past seven days.

The Pasadena High School football program had its first undefeated regular season in more than four decades, if not longer.

Yes, it was a five-game season, but the Bulldogs (5-0) dominated their opponents from the first whistle on March 19th until they left the field at the Rose Bowl on Friday.

The Bulldogs defeated Burbank, Burroughs, Arcadia, CV and Muir by a combined margin of 199-66.

PHS’ 33-6 beatdown of Muir was just their second victory over the Mustangs this century and third since 1995.

Dante Coronel, Mekhi Fox, Daylon Beasley, Jamir Allen, Cameron Mitchell and the rest of their teammates and coaches have so much to be proud of.

It hasn’t been a good week for Muir sports.

Along with the PHS football program dropping the hammer at the Rose Bowl, the Mustangs baseball program dropped the first of two Pacific League games to Glendale on Tuesday, because many of their starters were on the football team.

Four days later, the Nitros defeated the Mustangs, 5-3, to get the season sweep.

Before this week’s victories, Glendale had won just four of their past 30 Pacific League games.

 

Glendora’s Braydon Brus and Bonita’s Trevor Cadam have been best friends since kindergarten.

Once teammates, but now Brus and Cadam star for the Tartans and Bearcats, respectively.

On Thursday night, both had multiple highlight reel plays, as GHS defeated Bonita, 35-28, in the 2021 spring football season finale.

Earlier in the day, Brus got an offer from UCLA and he proceeded to rush for 240 yards and four TD’s.

Not to be outdone, Cadam made a diving catch that set up one Bonita score and he picked off a GHS pass and brought it back 96 yards for a touchdown.

Ironically, just after Cadam’s heroics gave Bonita a 21-14 lead in the third quarter, Brus took the first play from scrimmage 56 yards for a TD and tied the game at 21-21.

Luckily for both sides, Brus and Cadam are both juniors, so we get another showdown in just over four months or so.

La Salle sophomore quarterback Richie Munoz proved on Friday night why his coaching staff and teammates believe in him so much.

Munoz threw for 253 yards and three TD’s, as the Lancers cruised to a 31-7 victory over St. Anthony.

But it wasn’t just his stats that impressed, it was just as much his scrambling ability, football IQ and an athleticism that is underrated.

In the video below, you’ll see Munoz scramble before finally finding senior Gio Butteri in the back of the east end zone.

Butteri, Marcus Powe and the other seniors deserve so much credit for keeping the ship from sinking after having three coaches in three years.

But second-year coach Ben Buys and his staff are in this for the long haul, and their future success will be rooted from this senior class.

St. Francis junior Max Garrison has been a beast since his freshman year, but if  you were one of the few on hand in Jim Bonds Stadium on Saturday night, Garrison’s skills caused people’s jaws to drop.

He rushed for three scores and caught two TD passes from Jack Jacobs, but it was his yards after catch or first contact that make him so lethal to Golden Knights’ opponents.

St. Francis hammered St. Paul, 54-0, to finish the season 4-2, and the following was easily the play of the night.

Ayala’s Jacob Badawi has turned in an unprecedented and remarkable senior year thus far.

Badawi, along with fellow senior running back Xavier Crockett, and freshman quarterback Bryan Wilson led the Bulldogs to a perfect 5-0 mark in football.

Ayala defeated Temescal Canyon, Bonita, Charter Oak, Glendora and Chino Hills by a combined margin of 177-28, including Friday night’s 42-0 beatdown at Chino Hills.

The Bulldogs defense deserves so much credit for shutting out three of their last four opponents as well.

But back to Badawi for a second.

He’s also the leadoff batter for the Bulldogs baseball team (9-1 overall, 3-0 in league), who along with Bonita, stand atop the Palomares League standings.

Through the first 11 games, Badawi is hitting .417, with 15 hits, 12 runs, 16 RBIs, three doubles, a triple and he hit a solo home run in Friday’s 9-5 victory over Glendora.

San Dimas senior Ryan Kim and his teammates fell to Rancho Cucamonga, 8-3, in the first game of a Saturday doubleheader.

Kim decided he was going to do something about that.

So, in the second game, Kim went 3-for-3, including a grand slam.

It was his third home run of the season.

He drove in five runs and the Saints defeated the Cougars, 11-2, to split the doubleheader.

The San Dimas victory snapped RCHS’s eight-game win streak.

SDHS (6-3) will travel to Serra on Tuesday and host Downey on Thursday before opening VVL play the following week with Northview.

Damien (15-0) piled up four more wins this week.

The Spartans defeated Claremont (77-47), Sonora (76-43), Hesperia (69-46) and they finished off the week with an 80-61 victory over Orange Lutheran.

What makes this program so special and tough to beat is not only the a-list coaching staff, but on any given night, there are a number of players that have led the program in scoring.

Just this week alone, RJ Smith paced the Spartans offense twice, and Jimmy Oladokun (pictured above) and Malik Thomas once each.

Damien will open Baseline League play on Tuesday, as they host Etiwanda.

Tip off is set for 6:30.

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