Calif. H.S. football state champs?

sammyg2 · 06:20 AM

For the first time in 79 years, California is going to have a high school football state champion, sort of.

They have invited the 3 best teams from so Cal and 3 teams from Northern Cal to play in 3 games next saturday for the state championship in div 1, div 2, and div 3.
They have been described as high school bowl games, but I'm gonna be there to see this.

Orange Lutheran, a local team that is supported by my church and where my kids will go when they get old enough, has been chosen as the so cal div 2 team to play against Palo Alto.
Orange Lutheran is a small private school that ended up with a 13-1 record, losing only to Servite (a perrenial local powerhouse and catholic private school) in double overtime.

Orange Lutheran won the CIF regional championship 2 years ago but this year they were bumped into a new division called the PAC-5, an open division featuring the best teams in the area including the trinity league made up of private Christian, catholic, and of course lutheran schools. Orange Lutheran is one of the smallest schools in that division. To win that is a very big deal. To have a shot at winning the division 2 state championship is a huuuuuge deal.

Go O LU!

URY914 · URY914's Garage

I'm pulling for Orange Lutheran because of the P-car connection, of course.

You see Martin Lurther was German.

pwd72s · 12-10-2006, 10:26 PM

Too bad Portland, Oregon's Jesuit High can't be added to the fray. Being touted in the local press as Oregon's best High Screw-all football team ever, they just won the championship game here by a 44 point (if memory serves) margin. It would be fun to see if their ego could be deflated a bit...

sammyg2 · 11:30 AM

BTW the quarterback from O LU has signed a letter on intent with USC.
He throws well and runs the option play well enough to make bear bryant proud.
He rushed for over 1000 yards in the regular season and passed for over 2500. Not bad for a quarterback.
My bet is that in a couple of years he'll be playing for the national championship, and after that he might even be in the running for the heisman.
http://www.ocvarsity.com/players/detail.php?playerID=28635&rosterID=21616&seasonID=8

Here's a video clip of the 2006 california state championship game. Note that Aaron Corp is the QB and is now a freshman at USC. He has a gun for an arm and can run with any wide reciever. A little more meat on his bones and this guy may be a household name in 2 or 3 years. I'm thinking heisman

Also #7, the reciever in almost every play is a now a freshman at boise state and will get his fair share of newspaper clippings before at's all over.

Tim Hancock · 12-11-2006, 08:06 AM

I never cared to watch highschool football until last year when our little rural highschool went all the way then won the Ohio division five state championship game played in Canton Ohio on the same field the NFL hall of fame game is played.

We were fortunate enough to have an outstanding QB and wide receiver who routinely hauled in 30+ yard passes while being double covered (both players set many records). We also had 3 other very good recievers and a couple good backs.

We would typically score 40-50 pts in the first half of all of our regular season games and then our second string JV guys would play the whole second half.

Our QB started as a freshman for Wayne State this year (pretty impressive for a lowly division 5 HS player) but tore his ACL during his second game and will have to wait till next tear. Our WR, as good as he was at football, decided to take a baseball scholarship instead of the many he was offered in football by mainly MAC football teams.

I have a highlight film of the season and the wide open aggresive style of offense of this team is just unbelievable to watch. This year after losing many senoirs, we lost in the first round of the playoffs 52-49 in the last seconds by a 35 yd td pass by our opponent. We scored 7 TD's, they scored 8. VERY exciting to watch this kind of football!

sammyg2 · 09:12 AM

One thing I didn't mention, this school has about 1100 students.
if half are boys that means they have about 550 to draw from to put together a team, and go to the state championship.
AFAIK they do not offer any scholarships to athletes.

I wish they did, then maybe I wouldn't have to pay the $8k per year per student for my kids who are pretty good at baseball and soccer. That's more than twice what it costs for them to go to St. paul's Lutheran school where they're at now.

New GT-3 vs. kids high school.
No brainer, kids come first but it still hurts.

EDIT: just found out that USA Today ranks Orange Lutheran as the #6 high school team in the country.

#1 ranked team is Concord De La Sal, a northern Ca team that is playing for the div 1 championship against Canyon Country.

sammyg2 · 11-25-2007, 10:47 AM

For those who care, it's a new year and new season and orange lutheran is at it again.
They were rated #6 in California and 43rd in the nation, but that was before they beat Mater dei (#1 in cal and #6 in nation) and beat Edison. Mater Dei lost again so they are completely out of the top 20, Looks like Orange Lutheran has a shot at the state chamionship and a top 10 ranking in the nation for the second year in a row. not bad for a small school. They have some more work to do, they are facing Long Beach Poly this week who are well known for their running game and gang killings.

The only game Orange Lutheran lost this year and last year was to servite ( a private catholic shool that up until recently was a state football powerhouse).
That's turning into quite a rivalry which is ironic based on the somewhat historical conflict of the catholic and lutheran religions. IIRC it was the catholic church who locked Martin Luther (a catholic priest) in prison for exposing the corruption in the catholic church. Who says history doesn't repeat itself?

I don't think that the Orange lutheran team is as strong as last year but they're only 3 games away from the state championship so they have a shot.
I'd like to go see the game but it's in Rancho Dominguez, which is a fancy way to spell Compton.
I don't feel comfortable taking my family to Compton to watch a Long Beach Poly football game.
maybe I'll just check the newspaper the next morning for the score, the arrest records, and coroner's report.