LONG BEACH – Amador Valley seemingly had Frontier-Bakersfield right where it wanted with 1:23 left in the fourth quarter of the CIF Division 3-AA state championship game at Long Beach City College on Friday night.
The Dons’ offense, so clutch and explosive all season, had the ball on their own 33-yard line down by four points. One more magical Amador drive seemed possible, if not certain.
“I thought we were going to drive down and we were gonna win,” Amador receiver Anthony Harrington said after he caught four passes for a team-high 89 yards and a touchdown.
But it was not to be.
Instead, on a night when Oregon State commit Tristan Tia was sacked seven times, the Dons’ final drive ended with the quarterback running for his life before throwing a desperation pass that fell incomplete on fourth down.
Frontier held on for the 18-14 victory.
“They were blitzing and sending heat, and we just weren’t getting rid of the ball on time,” Amador Valley coach Danny Jones said.
Even though Amador left Southern California without a state title, Jones had nothing but praise for his team after the final buzzer sounded.
“You guys looked at each other and said that I’m gonna freaking do it, and do things the right way,” Jones told his team in the final postgame huddle of the season. “We did that, and it got us here, it got us to a state championship. You guys should hold your heads up high.”
Frontier struck first, finishing a nine-play drive with a 13-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Brady Campbell to Malcolm Watkins on a run-pass option play in the first quarter.
Tia and Amador responded with an impressive six-play drive of their own. On fourth-and-3, Tia faked the handoff and rolled to his right. Instead of going for the sure first down on a short pass right in front of him, the Oregon State commit floated a longer ball to Ben Stout on a deep cross.
Stout rumbled 33 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the second quarter, and Amador led 8-6 once Tia bulled into the end zone on the two-point conversion.
Big-play Frontier answered back with back-to-back touchdown drives to end the first half. The first being a one-play, 77-yard burst that saw RJ Green bounce the ball to the perimeter and run untouched for a touchdown.
The second featured Campbell ending a six-play drive with a five-yard toss to Braxton Sherley for a five-yard score and an 18-8 halftime lead.
The Dons looked nothing like the offensive juggernaut that rolled through the North Coast Section’s Division II bracket en route to the program’s first section crown, beating Liberty, Windsor and Bishop O’Dowd along the way.
Once Tia and Co. reached NorCal, the Dons showed off their championship mettle, outscoring Oakland powerhouse McClymonds 22-6 in the fourth quarter to capture the regional 3-AA regional championship 44-33.
Jones, in his ninth season in charge of the Pleasanton program, led a team defined by aggressive, analytically-sound play. The Dons went for two after every touchdown and rarely punted.
That dynamic offense was rarely seen in the first half, with Tia constantly under siege in a crumbling pocket. The 6-foot-3 passer was sacked time after time and pressured on several other instances as he often attempted to extend plays. .
“Our whole game plan was just to stop him, because he was their offense,” Frontier defensive back Malcolm Watkins said about Tia..
Yet despite the blocking struggles, Amador got right back into the game early in the third quarter when Tia found Harrington on spectacular touchdown catch by the junior in the corner of the end zone.
The Dons’ defense held firm the next three drives, but Amador was unable to break through for the winning touchdown. The Dons finished their season 11-5, with a state title eluding the Pleasanton program.
“They knew how to adjust to what we were running, and they just came out on top,” Tia said.
