CIF-SS DIV. 9 CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Valley Christian’s defense is built Ram tough; gets school’s fourth football championship

December 2, 2025

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

Valley Christian High’s football team has been saving its best defensive performance for when it mattered the most, and the wait was rewarding. The Defenders sacked Ramona High quarterback Jesus Gonzalez seven times, limited the Rams to 102 yards rushing and staved off a fourth quarter rally to edge the Riverside-based team 14-12 last Saturday in the CIF-Southern Section Division 9 championship game.

V.C. picked up the program’s fourth divisional championship in seven tries, last winning it all in 2016. This was V.C.’s fourth trip to the finals since 2002.

“We wanted to come out hot out of the gate with energy, and with all we’ve got, and I think that’s exactly what we did as a team,” said senior Cole Hefner. “We gave it everything and with the seven sacks and the pressure that we kept putting on their quarterback, great shoutout to the defensive line. We worked our butts off and it turned out as a win for us.”

“It makes it really easy to call plays once we got the lead,” said V.C. head coach Brendan Chambers. “We try to milk the clock, which we’ve done a lot with Cole getting two and three-yard carries and try to find what works. It’s nice knowing our defense is going to go out there and make big stops.

“I wasn’t worried about it on fourth down; I was going to go for it no matter what and try to seal the game there,” he continued. “We didn’t, and they drove the ball down the field. But the two-point conversion [attempt] is all that matter, and we stopped them.”

Chambers is talking about Ramona’s last drive of the game, which began at its own 49-yard line with 2:25 left in regulation after the Defenders couldn’t convert on fourth and six following a false start infraction. On third and 10, Gonzalez found Michael White for a 21-yard touchdown play, making it 14-12 with 54.3 seconds remaining. But senior Sean Bouma knocked away the two-point pass attempt which would have tied the contest, and the Defenders recovered the ensuing onside kickoff to seal the victory.

V.C. gave up double digits in points in the fourth quarter for the first time since a 40-6 loss to Aquinas High on Oct. 6. But the story throughout the game was the suffocating defense which has allowed 40 points in the playoffs and barely over 300 yards on the ground in the last three playoff games.

Hefner, who grinded out 50 tough yards on 20 carries, was the leader of the defense with three sacks along with seven tackles. And he didn’t waste any time getting involved on the defensive side as he sacked Gonzalez for an eight-yard loss on the fourth play of the game, which was third and goal from the 10-yard line. On the next play, senior Dylan Teays picked off Gonzalez at the one-yard line and returned it 38 yards.

“We’re a team that doesn’t give up, and we never gave up,” said Hefner. “Honestly, I think we [have] a super good goal line defense, and at the 10, that doesn’t mean we’re going to let off the gas. We brought the blitz and got the sack and one thing led to another. We just kept putting pressure on them.”

The Rams immediately were called for a pair of unsportsmanlike penalties on the same play, but the Defenders couldn’t take advantage as junior quarterback Liam Sweeney was intercepted by Troy Long at the 11-yard line.

“We knew that their defense was going to be tough,” said Chambers. “They blitzed a lot, which makes it tougher. They played a lot of man coverage, and it was hard to get guys open.”

Staying with the theme of defense in the opening quarter, Ramona, the third place representative out of the River Valley League which was the 16^th-seeded team in the division, gained four yards after the interception and was forced to punt. That’s where a bad snap from center was recovered at the one-yard line where Sweeney’s quarterback sneak gave V.C. (11-3) a 7-0 lead with 6:47 left in the stanza.

Ramona’s ensuing drive, which was its longest of the game, ended at the 15-yard line after senior linebacker Lucas “Moose” Witt sacked Gonzalez for a two-yard loss on fourth and two. Then when the Rams got the ball back, they were looking to get on the board, but a 25-yard field goal attempt from Blake Hockman was unsuccessful.

V.C.’s defense went to work again on Ramona’s next drive as Hefner had a sack for a six-yard loss on the first play and a three-yard sack on fourth and eight with 4:55 left in the half. That sack may have decided the game because the Defenders took over from their own 31-yard line and fueled by a pair of Sweeny to Bouma passes of 18 and 17 yards, plus a six-yard connection to senior Oliver Boateng, scored their second and final touchdown of the game. On second and nine, Sweeney connected with Bouma for 26 yards with 1:06 remaining in the half.

Despite having the halftime lead while being outgained 182-97, Chambers and his team knew the defense was just heating up. Just in the first half alone, Gonzalez was sacked four times for losses totaling 19 yards and Ramona had five of its six drives stall inside the red zone.

“It’s a 0-0 ballgame and we knew we couldn’t let up,” said Hefner of the halftime speech given by Chambers. “We knew these guys are good and that they could come back and win this game. We weren’t going to let that happen; we weren’t going to let this game slip underneath our fingertips. We knew that we had to come out with everything we had and with more energy than the first half.”

It was more of the same in the third quarter as Ramona was stopped at the V.C. 18-yard line and punted after senior lineman Isaac Morales sacked Gonzalez for a five-yard loss on third and 11. In fact, Ramona’s defense held serve in the second half, limiting the Defenders to 41 yards on 22 plays.

For the game, V.C. was two of nine on third down conversions and did not convert any of its seven fourth down conversions while the Rams were seven of 16 on third down conversions and one of six on fourth down conversions. Sweeney completed nine of 14 passes for 85 yards with Bouma catching four passes for 65 yards.

Witt would lead the defense with eight tackles and had two sacks while senior lineman Teddy Dobmeier added half a dozen tackles,

“Great job by coach Randy [Williams] calling the defense, blitzing at the right times and playing coverage when we needed to,” said Chambers. “When we blitz, Cole and Lucas are just hard to block. We’ve been running Cole both sides of the ball during the playoff run and tonight was no different.”

But just as impressive as the defense was attacking Gonzalez despite him passing for 309 yards, the Defenders held Lorenzo Sims to 79 yards on 14 carries. He had entered the game with 1,819 yards but his total against V.C. was the third lowest of the season. Sims would score on a four-yard run with 8:34 left in regulation, but senior defensive back Noah Pelton blocked the extra point, putting the Rams in the position to go for two points in their second touchdown.

“It was big; it was nice to know we had that lead in the back of our pockets,” said Hefner of Pelton’s block. “But we still knew we needed to do everything we needed to do to stop [Sims].”

Probably the play of the night was when Sims got loose for a 38-yard gain early in the second half and was on his way to a touchdown before Hefner grabbed him from behind on a shoestring tackle.

“We knew we needed to stop [Sims] back there; he was going to be a tough guy to stop,” said Chambers. “Thinking about the game, [Sims] and [Isaac Mata] were the guys we were going to go after, and I think our run defense all season has been playing great.”

“I think we’ve had a lot of defensive games this season, and I think we knew that it was going to be another one,” said Hefner. “Our defense has stepped up and just like the past four games, our defense continues to do so. I’m so proud of these guys of how hard they’ve worked.”

V.C. will host Christian High out of El Cajon on Friday in the CIF Division 5-AA Southern California Regionals.

“It feels a little surreal,” said Chambers. “You look back to that Mary Star game [on Sept. 5] when we lost [22-21] to come to this point now, I give credit to the seniors and just this group of guys who have really bought into what we’re trying to do here. We’re just excited for the opportunity. I know some of the other [winter] coaches are a little unhappy because we have so many multi-sport athletes. But they can wait a couple more weeks because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that we have in front of us; something that doesn’t happen all the time.”

“We’re excited, but we have to get to work,” said Hefner. “The job’s not finished yet, and we still have a journey ahead of us. The goal has always been [to win] CIF and everything else is the cherry on top. But now, [a state title] is our goal, and I think when we have our mind set on something, this team really likes to achieve it.”