_____________________
_____________________
_____________________
_____________________
By Loren Kopff
Sports Editor | Follow X
December 3, 2025
In 2016, the Valley Christian High football team, fresh off the heels of a 59-13 win over Silverado High in the CIF-Southern Section Division 9 championship game, hosted Bishop’s High a week later in the Division 3-A Southern California Regionals. It was the first time the Defenders had played in a state game and nine years later, they are back again playing a 15th game in a season.
And just like that 2016 contest against the La Jolla-based school, V.C. (11-3) will be facing another team from San Diego County. This time, the Defenders are welcoming Christian High (7-7) in the Division 5-AA Southern California Regionals om Friday.
V.C. got to this point by holding off Ramona High 14-12 last Saturday in the CIF-SS Division 9 title game, its seventh straight victory and 10th in the last 11 games. Ironically, Bishop’s eliminated Christian 49-20 in the 2016 San Diego Section Division III championship game.
Once again, V.C.’s defense was stellar against Ramona, sacking quarterback Jesus Gonzalez seven times and limiting it’s 1,800-yard running back Lorenzo Sims to under 80 yards on 14 carries. The Defenders have yielded 40 points in the four playoff games and during the seven-game winning streak, have given up 86 points. That’s quite a difference from the 91 points allowed in the first five games of the season in which V.C. went 3-2.
Offensively, junior quarterback Liam Sweeney completed nine of 14 for 85 yards against the Rams, scored from a yard out with 6:47 left in the first quarter and tossed a 26-yard touchdown pass to senior Sean Bouma with 1:06 left in the first half. V.C. needed those touchdowns as it could muster only 41 yards on 22 plays in the second half.
In fact, it was Bouma who knocked away the potential tying two-point conversion pass from Gonzalez with 54.3 seconds left to play. Other key defensive plays last Saturday were a blocked extra point attempt from senior Noah Pelton and negative yardage on 10 of the 26 rushes.
The Defenders plan to do more of the same against the El Cajon-based school with Sweeney targeting as many as half a dozen wide receivers. Sweeney is 12 yards shy of 600 yards for the season and has filled in nicely since the second quarter of the first round game against Chino High when junior quarterback Graham Lunzer went down with a broken left tibia.
Senior Oliver Boateng (62 receptions, 1,003 yards, 14 touchdowns) leads the receiving corps with Bouma (42 receptions, 650 yards, six touchdowns), seniors Cole Hefner (31 receptions, 353 yards, three touchdowns), Max Douglas (17 receptions, 202 yards, two touchdowns), Dylan Teays (14 receptions, 148 yards, three touchdowns) and junior Byron Louis (14 receptions, 251 yards, three touchdowns) as the other threats.
Hefner leads the rushing attack with 502 yards on 134 carries and a touchdown and is 17 yards shy of tying Lunzer’s total in 11 games. He is also tops on the defensive side with 110 tackles and had three of the seven sacks against Ramona.
The Defenders have sacked opposing quarterbacks 19 times with Douglas and junior Sam Melcher each recording three sacks while Bouma had three of the team’s 10 interceptions with Louis and Teays each getting a pair.
It’s been a tale of two seasons for the Patriots who began the season losing five of their first six games and seven of their first nine. But the fifth place team from the Eastern League is riding a five-game winning streak including a 28-14 win over Central High from El Central in Imperial County last Saturday.
Quarterback Kaleb Runkle completed 18 of 23 passes for 280 yards and all four touchdowns with Ronnie Scott on the receiving end of four of those passes for 129 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Kai Rosier caught six passes for 70 yards as the Patriots are more of a passing team just like V.C.
Runkle has passed for 2,616 yards and 26 touchdowns while throwing only six interceptions, and Rosier, who has caught seven touchdowns, needs 24 yards to reach 1,000 for the season. Behind him on the reception total is Hank Houston, with 43 catches for 393 yards and six touchdowns, then Julian Morones, with 25 receptions for 204 yards. Four other players have caught at least 15 passes.
Christian has rushed for 1,359 yards with Runkle (115 carries, 493 yards, three touchdowns), Morones (62 carries, 423 yards, one touchdown) and Jacob Kirchhoefer (104 carries, 296 yards, three touchdowns) the leaders on the ground.
In playoff wins over Brawley High, Ramona High and Army-Navy High prior to the title game, the Patriots scored 116 points and given up 75. But the regular season was a different story as they scored 42, 16 and 13 points in the three wins while giving up at least 28 points in four of the seven losses.
The only other HMG-Community News area football team to play in a state regional contest was Cerritos High, which fell to Wasco High 7-6 two seasons ago in Division 6-AA action. That same season, the Ramona team that fell to V.C. defeated Pleasant Valley High 35-7 to capture the state’s Division 5-AA championship.
The winner of Friday’s game will face either Oakland-based Bishop O’Dowd High (9-4) or Chico High (11-2) next week for the state championship.
Prediction: V.C. 28, Christian 17
Last week: 1-0
Season to date: 47-25
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login