Determination and grit were how Santa Clarita Christian senior Jonathan Boelter said the Cardinals were able to win Saturday’s playoff opener.
Forced to go on the road despite an undefeated Heritage League campaign, the Cardinals (8-2) took down the hosting Faith Baptist Contenders (8-2) in the first round of the CIF Southern Section eight-man Division 1 playoffs, 26-20, in Canoga Park.
“All of us just had a lot of determination and just grit going into this because we really just wanted to prove a point, put it out there that we’re not here just to get run over,” Boelter said. “We’re not here to think, ‘We already beat you, so we’re gonna let you run over us.’ We came out here thinking, ‘We’re gonna win again and again.’”
Boelter scored twice to help the Cardinals take down the Contenders for the second time this season and advance to the semifinals.
“This team, we were talking about it before we came out, we are just like a family, and we come out here and we give it our all,” Boelter said. “Most of all, we play for the Lord, and to come out, know that it’s gonna be a fight and that we have to put everything out there so we can win again and stay in, it feels great. Feels amazing. Words can’t describe it.”
Opening the scoring early in the first quarter with a short run after a long series, Boelter put the Cardinals on top by two touchdowns midway through the third quarter, latching onto a screen pass before running more than half the 80-yard field to the end zone.
The Contenders would get one more score to cut the deficit to six, but the Cardinals refused to give up the lead.
After a turnover on downs late in the fourth quarter, SCCS senior quarterback Cayden Rappleye iced the game with his defense on the first play of the ensuing drive, snagging an interception. The Cardinals then got a couple of first downs to run down the final two minutes of the game.
“They ran that formation for a touchdown earlier, so when I saw the other two guys off the ball on the left, I knew he was going to run out,” Rappleye said. “So right as he went, I attached to him, and then they threw the ball and I just tracked the ball down and caught it.”
Rappleye ran in the Cardinals’ second score before hitting senior Eli Duhm on a deep ball to make it a 20-12 game heading into the half.
That long touchdown came just after the Contenders caught SCCS out with a guard-eligible play that saw Faith get a long touchdown of its own, with seemingly nobody on the Cardinals aware of the Contender wide open in the middle of the field.
SCCS head coach Austin Fry, an alumnus of Faith Baptist, said he had a play “in the holster” that could be used for a quick answer, with Rappleye and Duhm executing to perfection.
“We knew we needed an answer play to end the half, you know, because they kind of upped the ante to go into half,” Fry said. “And so we knew we needed to do the same thing.”
The Contenders tried to beat the Cardinals with a solid ground game, but SCCS was ready for it after stopping it in the regular season en route to a 39-32 victory.
“We probably did 45 minutes of just run defense two times this week where we just looked at every single front and every blocking scheme that they had, and just made sure that we were in the right spots,” Fry said.
In the way of a potential championship appearance are the Flintridge Prep Wolves (8-0), who beat Sage Hill in the first round, 35-7. The Wolves, who have no league to call home, haven’t given up more than 12 points in a game this year, and that coming in the very first game of the season, and are averaging nearly 50 points per game.
“I think watching Flintridge this year, you’ve seen them pretty much dominate everybody they’ve played,” Fry said. “You know, they’ve had a couple of closer games than you’d expect, but I think with our guys, knowing that we can come down to the wire, we’re not really afraid. It’s really just, we know that in every game, we’ve got to bring our best.”
As for the Cardinals’ confidence level?
“Ten out of 10,” Boelter said. “We can beat any team we want to. We have it all. It’s if we push ourselves and if we do what’s right. We just need to execute and prove it to ourselves. It’s us versus us.”
The semifinal game between SCCS and Flintridge Prep is set for Saturday at a location in the Santa Clarita Valley to be announced.
