_________________________
______________________________
_________________________________
______________________________
_____________________________
_______________________
_________________________
______________________________
_________________________________
______________________________
_____________________________
_______________________
La Mirada High senior cornerback Max Rankin (third from left) and senior safety Drew Cobos celebrate after an incomplete pass intended for Mayfair High’s Chaz Gilbreath in last Friday night’s football game. Mayfair defeated La Mirada 42-21, the eighth straight win for the Monsoons in the series. PHOTO BY DILLON NICHOLS.
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
BELLFLOWER-The rivalry between former Suburban League combatants La Mirada High and Mayfair High has lasted roughly four decades. They even played each other in the 1998 CIF-Southern Section Division IX championship game, won by Mayfair 28-14 and the 2001 Division VI championship game, also won by Mayfair 22-9.
With La Mirada needing to snap a seven-game losing streak to the Monsoons and move to the upper half of the Gateway League standings, a one-possession game at the half turned into a runaway game in the second half as Mayfair, playing in its 65th homecoming game, defeated the Matadores 42-21 at Ron Yary Stadium on the Bellflower High campus. The Matadores dropped to 2-6 overall, 1-2 in league play while Mayfair remained tied for first place with Downey High. Those two will meet on the last night of the regular season with the league title on the line.
After a three and out to begin the game, Mayfair drove to the La Mirada four-yard line where Louis Johnson was stopped on fourth and one. On the previous play, Johnson had caught a pass from Jeremiah Calvin, but senior cornerback Max Rankin stopped him a yard short of the endzone. The Matadores turned that opportunity into the game’s first touchdown as junior running back Jordan Lauago’s one-yard run ended a 10-play drive that lasted 4:46. Three plays earlier senior Josh Gonzalez converted a third and five from the eight-yard line with a seven-yard gain.
La Mirada High sophomore cornerback Fernando Orozco (#42), senior cornerback Drew Cobos (hidden) and senior tackle Charlie Dowlin combine to stop Louis Johnson of Mayfair High in last Friday night’s Gateway League contest. La Mirada fell to the Monsoons 42-21. PHOTO BY DILLON NICHOLS.
“Oh, big time players,” said La Mirada head coach Lucas Mealy of the defense. “These guys, when they fly around, they make some big time plays, and we did a good job tackling. The third down was a big play as well to get us to that fourth down. Once again, when our defense flies around, we’re pretty damn good. Obviously, the points that we’ve given up…a lot of that is because we go for it on fourth down a lot and put [our offense] in tough situations. We’re going to continue to be aggressive and like I told the boys right now our playoffs start now.”
La Mirada was five of 12 on third down plays and two of five on fourth down plays. But on the first play of the second quarter, Johnson tied the game with a 35-yard run and from that point on, the Matadores had a hard time getting to Mayfair’s red zone. They were stopped on downs at the Mayfair 47-yard line, and the hosts would go up 14-7 with 2:25 left in the half on a 10-yard run from Calvin. Then on the last play of the half, senior Julian Bracamontes missed a 41-yard field goal.
“I wanted to show the kids the confidence that I have in them,” said Mealy of going for it on fourth down on the first possession. “Although we didn’t get it, and the defense went out there, I think it proved to the kids that I have faith in them, and it proved to me that we could do that because they went down the field and we got a fourth down stop. I would do it all over again.”
La Mirada had 132 yards of offense in the first half while the Monsoons had 35 more yards in nine fewer plays.
“They came back out and scored a big touchdown to start the second half and we went three and out,” said Mealy. “We didn’t move the chains and put our defense in adverse situation. Ultimately, our offense has to sustain drives. We can’t wait until things get out of hand to start sustaining drives.
‘I think in the first half, we played physically up front,” he continued. “But when you get down 21 or 28 points, you get a little pass happy and unfortunately, that’s kind of where we ended up.”
Another three and out early in the second half led to Mayfair’s fourth touchdown, a nine-yard run on a reverse from Chaz Gilbreath with 2:02 left in the third quarter. The Matadores responded as junior quarterback Santino Garcia, who was five of nine for 49 yards in the first half, connected with junior wide receiver Aaron Castro for a 16-yard play on first down, followed by a 19-yard run from senior running back Madden Carino. Then two plays into the fourth quarter, Carino scored on an 11-yard run. After that, La Mirada had three more possessions in which they were driving, but eventually stopped on downs, an interception and finally an 11-yard touchdown pass from Garcia to Lauago.
Following the possession in which the Matadores were stopped, Calvin tossed a 32-yard touchdown pass to Max Mitchell in which he eluded a potential tackler near the 40-yard line, which would have gone for a loss. When the Matadores got the ball back, they drove to the five-yard line before Miles Mitchell picked off Garcia at the two-yard line and went 98 yards the other way for a 42-14 lead with 2:33 left in the game. The pass appeared to be tipped off the hands of Carino around the five-yard line.
“I could come up with excuses but at the end of the day, we have to tackle,” said Mealy. “At the beginning of the year, we did some things where we were playing very high and we got better. But for me, the tackling…we showed some bright spots tonight. I’m going to talk to my team and let them know, when we get 11 hands to the ball, we’re pretty good. But when we try to leave people one on one tackling, we struggle. Once again, I could come up with every excuse in the world. I’m not going to do that; we have to tackle better. But I think we have to rally to the ball and that’s the key component to us finding success.”
Garcia finished the game completing 14 of 27 passes for 140 yards while Gonzalez led the rushing department with 65 yards on 14 carries. Carino and Lauago combined for 86 more yards on 14 carries while on defense, senior safety Drew Cobos picked up seven tackles.
During Mayfair’s eight-game winning streak in this series, this was the second straight and third time La Mirada has scored 21 points. It has not scored more than 21 points over the Monsoons since a 63-13 win on Nov. 4, 2016. That marked the third straight win over the Monsoons in which the combined score was 150-20 and was part of a stretch in which the Matadores won seven of eight games over Mayfair.
“I know more [about the rivalry] than most people give me credit for,” said Mealy. “I know how important it is to not just these kids, but to the school, to the community, to the city, and we did everything we could to try to prepare. It’s on me that we weren’t more prepared enough to win.
‘But we know Mayfair has a great program,” he continued. “Coach [Derek] Bedell has been there, I think, nine years and he’s got the thing rolling coming off a CIF championship and a state playoff berth. We have to continue to do everything we can to get to that level.”
La Mirada’s path for a potential playoff berth is simple; win the last two games of the regular season beginning with Friday’s home encounter with winless Bellflower.
