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Valley Christian High senior linebacker Lucas Witt stops Jacob Gallegos of San Dimas High late in last Friday’s CIF-Southern Section Division 9 semifinal game. Witt had three of his four tackles in the fourth quarter as the Defenders beat the Saints 28-12. Photo by Steve Fericean.
By Loren Kopff
Sports Editor | Follow X
September 12, 2025
SAN DIMAS-Valley Christian High head coach Brendan Chambers had plans of going to Tucson, Arizona for the Thanksgiving holiday to visit his in-laws had his football team lost to San Dimas High last Friday. He’s going to have to change those plans because for the first time since 2022, the Defenders are heading back to the CIF-Southern Section divisional finals.
V.C.’s staunch defense put together another stellar performance against the Saints, especially in the second half, and posted a 28-12 victory to earn a trip to the Division 9 title game against Ramona High. The game will be played on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. at Valley Christian Stadium.
This will be the seventh time in the program’s history that it will be playing for a divisional championship. V.C. has split the last six title games, most recently falling to Lancaster High 44-42 in the 2022 Division 12 game.
“I feel a little bit bummed for the seniors from last year; I feel like they were robbed,” said Chambers. “But with that being said, this senior class has really become something special. And they bought into what we’re trying to do in the program; they bought into each other.
“I’ve talked about this before, but if you look at those first two early losses, the season could have gone a different way,” he continued. “They really came together and figured out a way to change this thing around. I’m just proud of them. I’m grateful for the opportunity of playing for a CIF championship with this group of guys.”
Chambers was talking about last season’s 7-3 team that was hoping for an at-large berth into the playoffs after finishing in fourth place in the Ironwood League despite beginning the season with six straight wins. This season, there was no doubt for the Defenders, the sixth-seeded team in the division who finished in second place in league and are now 10-3.
“It’s just great; I feel like as a team, we’ve come so far,” said senior Oliver Boateng. “Against Calvary Chapel [Santa Ana], we went down and that was a rough week. We came back the next week against Mary Star and took a tough loss. That’s when everything turned around and we just came together as a team and fought through adversity. Each week we just got better and better and it has culminated to this.”
“It feels so good,” said junior quarterback Liam Sweeney. “We’ve been working all year; we started back in June; we’ve been working all this time, and this is the goal at the end of the day.”
Sweeney had been the backup signal caller for most of the season until junior Graham Lunzer, the transfer from St. John Bosco High, went down with a broken left tibia against Chino High in the first round. Sweeney entered the San Dimas game with 306 yards and five touchdowns but in the semifinals, completed 15 of 21 passes for 191 yards and three touchdowns. He completed five straight passes from late in the first quarter to the second quarter, and again from late in the third quarter into the final stanza.
“Prayers to Graham; hoping he gets better soon and all that,” said Sweeney. “It’s been great for me because I’ve worked so hard for a long time, too. So I get to finally come out here and show what I can do; show my skills that I’ve been working on for a long time.”
V.C.’s defense forced the Saints to punt after three plays to begin the game but couldn’t take advantage of it as Sweeney was picked off by Adam D’Amato near the end zone on third and one with seven minutes remaining in the opening quarter. The Saints, who were the 10th-seeded team, needed four plays to take the first lead as Jacob Gallegos, their leading rusher with over 1,250 yards, busted loose for a 53-yard touchdown run. However, a bad snap from center resulted in a failed attempt for the extra point.
The Defenders, who are on a six-game winning streak, ended the stanza with four runs from senior Cole Hefner and four passing plays, then carried that momentum into the second quarter. Four plays in, Boateng scored from a yard out as V.C. took a 7-6 lead.
But the Saints bounced back and rode the legs of Gallegos who ran eight times in a 10-play drive and scored when he caught a 34-yard pass from Brandon Meredith with 4:07 remaining in the half. The extra point was blocked and from that point on, the hosts would muster just 44 yards on 22 plays.
“We kind of knew that they were going to get some points early and that they were going to move the ball early,” said Chambers. “We knew all along it was going to be blow to blow. A lot of teams would get down early against a running team, but they fought back.”
Meanwhile, V.C. responded and took nearly four minutes off the clock capping off a 12-play, 61-yard drive with Boateng hauling in a 32-yard pass from Sweeney with 16 seconds left before halftime. Boateng, the team’s leading receiver, with 14 touchdowns and nearly 1,000 yards, slipped through the defense and was uncontested as he ran towards the end zone.
“I feel like every week I come out here I’m just more comfortable feeling better and getting more in the offense,” said Sweeney. “So it feels good.”
Probably the turning point in the game came right out of the locker room when V.C. received the ball and held onto it for nearly seven and a half minutes. The end result was a 26-yard touchdown pass from Sweeney to senior Sean Bouma. The Defenders ran 13 plays and covered 83 yards, making sure they kept San Dimas’ wing-T offense off the field as much as possible. V.C. converted on third and 12, fourth and six and fourth and three on the drive.
“I knew we had to score; I knew that was very important,” said Chambers. “I didn’t think we would eat up that much of the clock doing so. Credit to the O-line; I called them out at halftime, and I said we were going to ride their shoulders.”
After the defense forced the second three and out of the contest, V.C. iced the game with a quick five-play drive that ended when Bouma caught a 33-yard scoring play from Sweeney with seven seconds left in the third quarter.
“Oliver has been a great player for us all year,” said Chambers. “We’re trying to find ways to get him the football. We put in a Wildcat package; we didn’t run it a lot because of their defense. We were mostly spread and some wing set. But we’re always trying to get ways to get him the ball. We know he’s dangerous in space, and he had that connection with [junior quarterback] Graham [Lunzer] and it’s just carried right over to Liam.
“And then Sean coming up huge a couple of plays for us…attention to football,” he continued. “That touchdown pass wasn’t exactly how we drew it up. He adjusted, Liam adjusted and it was a touchdown. That’s just those guys making plays on the field.”
Boateng and Bouma each caught five passes with the former getting 63 yards and the latter 82 yards.
“Those are great guys; they work hard every day,” said Sweeney. “They come in here with a great attitude and are always before the team. We just have a great connection and they’re super talented. Sean is super-fast, and Oliver has a bog body and he’s fast, too. They’re great guys to throw to.”
“Liam has really stepped up,” said Boateng. “He’s stepped into a leadership role and looks really comfortable back there and it feels the same. I think we’re all just a close tight-knit group and our quarterback battle at the beginning of the year was close.”
Down by two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions, the Saints still stuck to their bread and butter, which was Gallegos. But V.C.’s defense held serve and limited him to 41 yards in the fourth quarter on a dozen carries while Meredith completed one pass for six yards. In fact, San Dimas could not get past the V.C. 43-yard line in the second half.
Besides Sweeney and the plethora of receivers that the Defenders have, Hefner carried the ball 23 times for 88 yards. He had entered the game as the team’s second-leading running back with 365 yards as Lunzer was also running at will prior to his injury with just over 500 yards.
“Getting Cole back there to run the football…he’s just a tough runner,” said Chambers. “He’s not going to have breakaway speed, but he’s going to get us those five or six yards, and when [opponents] start crashing up, that’s when we take a shot [through the air]. And I have to say, Liam has done a great job when we gave him the opportunity to throw the football.”
Hefner and junior linebacker Sam Melcher led the defense each with five tackles while senior linebacker Lucas Witt added four tackles. Of the 39 plays the Saints ran on offense, the two long touchdowns and an 11-yard run by Gallegos were the only ones that went for double digits. San Dimas, which entered the game averaging 340 yards per game, was limited to 192 yards and Gallegos, Meredith and Keenan Hoyt were the only players on offense who touched the ball.
“We knew we were going to look for [Gallegos] in the beginning, and as the game went on, it was looking more and more familiar,” said Boateng. “He broke one pretty far, but after that, we kind of figured it out. We were just on him all night.”
“It feels so good,” said junior quarterback Liam Sweeney. “We’ve been working all year; we started back in June; we’ve been working all this time, and this is the goal at the end of the day.”
Sweeney had been the backup signal caller for most of the season until junior Graham Lunzer, the transfer from St. John Bosco High, went down with a broken left tibia against Chino High in the first round. Sweeney entered the San Dimas game with 306 yards and five touchdowns but in the semifinals, completed 15 of 21 passes for 191 yards and three touchdowns. He completed five straight passes from late in the first quarter to the second quarter, and again from late in the third quarter into the final stanza.
“Prayers to Graham; hoping he gets better soon and all that,” said Sweeney. “It’s been great for me because I’ve worked so hard for a long time, too. So I get to finally come out here and show what I can do; show my skills that I’ve been working on for a long time.”
V.C.’s defense forced the Saints to punt after three plays to begin the game but couldn’t take advantage of it as Sweeney was picked off by Adam D’Amato near the end zone on third and one with seven minutes remaining in the opening quarter. The Saints, who were the 10th-seeded team, needed four plays to take the first lead as Jacob Gallegos, their leading rusher with over 1,250 yards, busted loose for a 53-yard touchdown run. However, a bad snap from center resulted in a failed attempt for the extra point.
The Defenders, who are on a six-game winning streak, ended the stanza with four runs from senior Cole Hefner and four passing plays, then carried that momentum into the second quarter. Four plays in, Boateng scored from a yard out as V.C. took a 7-6 lead.
But the Saints bounced back and rode the legs of Gallegos who ran eight times in a 10-play drive and scored when he caught a 34-yard pass from Brandon Meredith with 4:07 remaining in the half. The extra point was blocked and from that point on, the hosts would muster just 44 yards on 22 plays.
“We kind of knew that they were going to get some points early and that they were going to move the ball early,” said Chambers. “We knew all along it was going to be blow to blow. A lot of teams would get down early against a running team, but they fought back.”
Meanwhile, V.C. responded and took nearly four minutes off the clock capping off a 12-play, 61-yard drive with Boateng hauling in a 32-yard pass from Sweeney with 16 seconds left before halftime. Boateng, the team’s leading receiver, with 14 touchdowns and nearly 1,000 yards, slipped through the defense and was uncontested as he ran towards the end zone.
“I feel like every week I come out here I’m just more comfortable feeling better and getting more in the offense,” said Sweeney. “So it feels good.”
Probably the turning point in the game came right out of the locker room when V.C. received the ball and held onto it for nearly seven and a half minutes. The end result was a 26-yard touchdown pass from Sweeney to senior Sean Bouma. The Defenders ran 13 plays and covered 83 yards, making sure they kept San Dimas’ wing-T offense off the field as much as possible. V.C. converted on third and 12, fourth and six and fourth and three on the drive.
“I knew we had to score; I knew that was very important,” said Chambers. “I didn’t think we would eat up that much of the clock doing so. Credit to the O-line; I called them out at halftime, and I said we were going to ride their shoulders.”
After the defense forced the second three and out of the contest, V.C. iced the game with a quick five-play drive that ended when Bouma caught a 33-yard scoring play from Sweeney with seven seconds left in the third quarter.
“Oliver has been a great player for us all year,” said Chambers. “We’re trying to find ways to get him the football. We put in a Wildcat package; we didn’t run it a lot because of their defense. We were mostly spread and some wing set. But we’re always trying to get ways to get him the ball. We know he’s dangerous in space, and he had that connection with [junior quarterback] Graham [Lunzer] and it’s just carried right over to Liam.
“And then Sean coming up huge a couple of plays for us…attention to football,” he continued. “That touchdown pass wasn’t exactly how we drew it up. He adjusted, Liam adjusted and it was a touchdown. That’s just those guys making plays on the field.”
Boateng and Bouma each caught five passes with the former getting 63 yards and the latter 82 yards.
“Those are great guys; they work hard every day,” said Sweeney. “They come in here with a great attitude and are always before the team. We just have a great connection and they’re super talented. Sean is super-fast, and Oliver has a bog body and he’s fast, too. They’re great guys to throw to.”
“Liam has really stepped up,” said Boateng. “He’s stepped into a leadership role and looks really comfortable back there and it feels the same. I think we’re all just a close tight-knit group and our quarterback battle at the beginning of the year was close.”
Down by two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions, the Saints still stuck to their bread and butter, which was Gallegos. But V.C.’s defense held serve and limited him to 41 yards in the fourth quarter on a dozen carries while Meredith completed one pass for six yards. In fact, San Dimas could not get past the V.C. 43-yard line in the second half.
Besides Sweeney and the plethora of receivers that the Defenders have, Hefner carried the ball 23 times for 88 yards. He had entered the game as the team’s second-leading running back with 365 yards as Lunzer was also running at will prior to his injury with just over 500 yards.
“Getting Cole back there to run the football…he’s just a tough runner,” said Chambers. “He’s not going to have breakaway speed, but he’s going to get us those five or six yards, and when [opponents] start crashing up, that’s when we take a shot [through the air]. And I have to say, Liam has done a great job when we gave him the opportunity to throw the football.”
Hefner and junior linebacker Sam Melcher led the defense each with five tackles while senior linebacker Lucas Witt added four tackles. Of the 39 plays the Saints ran on offense, the two long touchdowns and an 11-yard run by Gallegos were the only ones that went for double digits. San Dimas, which entered the game averaging 340 yards per game, was limited to 192 yards and Gallegos, Meredith and Keenan Hoyt were the only players on offense who touched the ball.
“We knew we were going to look for [Gallegos] in the beginning, and as the game went on, it was looking more and more familiar,” said Boateng. “He broke one pretty far, but after that, we kind of figured it out. We were just on him all night.”
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