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Cerritos High senior Ruben Castro is off to the races as he returns the second half kickoff 96 yards for the go-ahead touchdown as the Dons knock off Artesia High 36-7 last Friday night. Cerritos won its fifth straight league title and has won 15 straight league contests. PHOTO BY JB QUIBRANTAR.
November 5, 2024
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
It may have taken a few seasons for the Cerritos High football team to get accustomed to the 605 League, but it’s safe to say, the Dons have rebounded and now, winning league titles still doesn’t get old. Cerritos put together another stellar defensive performance against a tough Artesia High team, intercepting senior quarterback Charlie Lopez four times and limiting him to 56 yards on 11 carries as the Dons, who began life in the league with six straight losses, won their 15th straight league game and fifth straight league title in a 36-7 win last Thursday at Dr. Hanford Rants Stadium.
Cerritos enters the CIF-Southern Section Division 9 playoffs on Friday with an 8-2 mark while the Pioneers, who are in Division 13, also conclude the regular season at 8-2. Artesia was limited to 216 offensive yards, five off from a season-low, and the four interceptions were season highs for the Artesia offense and Cerritos defense.
“I know who we played; the backs we played and the quarterbacks we played, and we’re a very physical team,” said Cerritos head coach Demel Franklin. “I know at some point we were going to be okay.”
“We told [Lopez] Cerritos was going to be ready to stop our run game,” said Artesia head coach Connor Crook. “It was a big passing week for us, and I told him to go out there and just sling it, trust yourself and make plays. Some things didn’t bounce our way and that’s football sometimes.”
After a scoreless opening quarter in which Cerritos was held to nine yards on six plays and the Pioneers 41 yards on 15 plays, Lopez put an end to his team’s longest drive of the night, scoring on a 20-yard run to cap a 10-play, 55-yard drive that took 6:37. After that, it was all Cerritos as the offense woke up and the defense kicked it into another gear.
The Dons had their longest drive of the game of nearly five minutes, running 11 plays and covering 89 yards. It ended when senior running back Dikshanta Adhikari scored on an 11-yard pass from junior quarterback Justin Sagun with 52 seconds left in the half.
After four straight runs from Adhikari to begin the drive, Sagun launched a 57-yard pass to senior wide receiver Ruben Castro who thought he was going to score. But it was called back because of a holding penalty. He still picked up 19 yards on the play as Cerritos had five first downs on the drive and faced just one third down situation.
“I’m sad I didn’t get the touchdown, but at the same time, it kind of gives us a momentum shift knowing that we’re there,” said Castro. “We always had a chance, but we were really there at that point, and I just wanted to show them that don’t sleep on me; I’m still here.”
The Pioneers thought they had some momentum going into the locker room when senior wide receiver Ahkil Sampson hauled in a 55-yard from Lopez. Four plays later, the red and black were facing a third and goal from the eight-yard line before junior linebacker Jacob Hoosac picked off Lopez in the endzone with 16 seconds left in the half. Hoosac would also lead the Dons with 11 tackles.
“That was a big momentum shift because, especially any turnover, we have to take advantage of that and execute on our part,” said Sagun. “But four interceptions is nice from the defense.”
That was the second of the four picks by the Cerritos defense; junior defensive back Michael Quibrantar intercepted Lopez with two minutes left in the first quarter. If the Hoosac interception wasn’t bad enough for Artesia, knowing it could have taken a lead, then the turning point came when Castro returned the second half kickoff 96 yards to the house.
“What I’m thinking was to get into the endzone,” said Castro. “But as far as what direction I wanted to go, it’s up in the air. Wherever I see the holes, I hit it, and then I know everyone’s going that way, so I just cut back and [another] hole is there.”
After the defense forced the Pioneers to punt, Cerritos went up 21-7 with a 30-yard connection from Sagun to Adhikari with 3:57 left in the third quarter.
“Man, we’ve had a few,” Franklin pondered as to what he thought was the turning point. “In the first half, they were kind of getting to us and our 3-4 was kind of leaking. We made some changes in the second half and then all of a sudden, it frees up our play-calling.”
“Things didn’t bounce our way; some energy and momentum things went their way to start the second half and it’s tough to bounce back from that at times,” said Crook. “All that affected it. It is what it is, but I thought our kids played hard to the end.”
The Pioneers finished off the third quarter by going 30 yards on seven plays with the big play being a 20-yard reception from Lopez to senior wide receiver Julius Padilla on third and nine. But again, the momentum quickly ended as junior Labrenten Wilson picked off Lopez on the first play of the fourth quarter. That would lead to a five-yard touchdown run from Adhikari nearly three and a half minutes later. Two plays before that, Sagun’s last pass of the night was a 36-yard connection to Castro on third and 21. He would complete 11 of 14 passes for 174 yards and had a stretch of nine completions in 10 attempts after the opening quarter.
“Last year, I wasn’t fair to him,” said Franklin. “I kept pulling him when he would make a mistake, so he couldn’t get into a rhythm. This year coming in, he knows off the top he’s the man, and he’s calm. I can talk to him differently; he understands situations and he knows when to get rid of the ball.”
“I would say the execution could have been a little better,” said Sagun. “But my teammates…especially Castro, he stepped up and made plays. I just want to thank my O-line keeping me protected out there.”
The final tally of the night came when sophomore quarterback Alexander Laurin threw an eight-yard touchdown pass to senior Josiah Ungos with four minutes left in the game.
Lopez, whose final interception with 1:45 remaining in the game went to sophomore Uriah Archie, who also had seven tackles, ended the night with eight completions in 16 attempts for 124 yards. On the ground, he had only three carries of over 10 yards, a far cry from what he had been doing all season. Padilla would gain 41 yards on 13 carries while Sampson caught three passes for 66 yards.
Cerritos High sophomore Uriah Archie caps off his team’s fourth interception in last Friday’s 36-7 win over Artesia High in a battle for the 605 League title. PHOTO BY JB QUIBRANTAR.
“Like I said, they’re a good football team, obviously, so they targeted [Lopez],” said Crook. “They watched the film and saw that he has a lot of good run plays for us and does a lot for us on offense. That was their gameplan and they stopped him a lot of the night.”
“[Our coaches] were telling us the gameplan and switching it up,” said Sagun. “The coaches [in the press box] watching us were telling us what’s going on, where the errors were at and on our part, we just went in and did what our coaches told us.”
Adhikari gained 35 yards on a dozen carries, but the story of the night on the offensive side was Sagun, who threw five passes to Castro for 80 yards, four to Adhikari for 59 yards and a pair to Ungos for 35 yards.
Artesia, which has reached the playoffs in five of the last six non-pandemic seasons, will visit Desert Hot Springs High with the winner facing either top-ranked Gahr High or La Puente High in the quarterfinals. Last season, the Pioneers reached the Division 14 semifinals.
“This is going to sting for sure, but I told the guys, ‘let it sting for 24 hours, then we have to move on’,” said Crook. “We have a whole new goal now. We kind of have three goals [at the beginning of the season]-win the opener, win league and win CIF. We didn’t get it done this year, but we have to suck it up and move on, and we’ll be ready to go next week.”
The Dons will visit top-ranked Highland High and if victorious, will square off against Burbank High or Monrovia High in the quarterfinals.
“It’s been a great season,” said Franklin. “Even the two losses, we learned so much about ourselves. Those were two very good teams, so I liked how we performed in those games and moving forward, I would put our chips on us.”
“I would say this one meant a lot more to me because now, I’m maturing as a junior,” said Sagun of winning the league. “It steps up in the ranks and we have to execute more and be prepared for the playoffs.”
