The Brave News

by Diego Santizo, Sports Editor

The Braves look to head into Santa Ana next weekend with momentum as they look to stay undefeated in 2021.

Last Saturday afternoon, the home crowd was treated to a show as the Braves took yet another big step toward the season with a clinical 66-14 rout of the visiting JSerra.

Bosco (4-0, 3-0 Trinity) scored touchdowns on its first, third, seventh, 11th, 19th, 21st and 25th offensive plays, rolling up a 35-0 advantage by the end of the first quarter, pushing that to 49-0 after seven possessions and to 59-7 by halftime.

The Braves rolled up 419 total yards in the first half, 491 for the game and missed the end zone just twice all afternoon, settling for a Andre Meono field goal near the end of the first half and, with mostly reserves on the field, forced to punt in the third quarter.

They scored in special teams thanks to Rayshon Luke’s 85-yard punt return at the end of the first half and on defense after Zion Austin’s had a school-record 96-yard interception return early in the fourth quarter.

“We played really well, cleaned up a lot of the mistakes,” “We had just two penalties, we had no miss-tackles, and we executed. All the balls we threw were on time, we made our blocks, and we got so far ahead of them that we just overwhelmed them” Negro said in an interview with the Long Beach Press Telegram

The Braves will now turn their attention towards Orange Lutheran, who have just scored 20 points in its two games. Both resulted in losses to Servite (69-13) and Mater Dei (49-7). Lancers junior quarterback Logan Gonzalez threw for 197 yards, a touchdown and an interception against Servite.

The Braves have been using two quarterbacks, sophomore Pierce Clarkson and junior Katin Houser and both have had success.

Clarkson has passed for 406 yards and six TDs while completing 71.9% and has also rushed for 195 yards and a touchdown. Houser has thrown for 432 yards and six TDs and has completed 65.9% of his passes. Neither has thrown an interception.

The St. John Bosco running game — led by junior Rayshon Luke — is averaging 8.6 yards per carry. Luke has gone for 267 yards and four TDs on just 18 carries, a 14.8 average.

St. John Bosco’s first five games in this spring football season are all about preparing for the sixth and final outing, against Mater Dei to determine the Trinity League champion.

Negro knows his players are looking ahead to that game, even with Orange Lutheran headed to Bellflower on Saturday, and that’s totally okay. The eight meetings the past four seasons have decided the Trinity League or CIF Southern Section titles, and although there will be no playoffs this season, they see the April 17 faceoff at Santa Ana Stadium as a CIF final. Bosco was No. 1 in the nation in 2019, while Mater Dei had the title in 2017 and 2018.

“We mention it all the time,” Negro said. “You can’t hide from it. I mean, our kids know. We’re certainly not looking past our opponents, but it’s the elephant in the room, and we’re going to recognize it, because I think that’s the one thing we’ve done in our program the whole time, is we know what’s on the horizon, we know what we need to be successful in that game, and we’re going to use these opportunities before it to get there.”

Apart from Saturday’s game against Orange Lutheran, there will be a special Homecoming presentation taking place at half time where the first ever Homecoming King will be named! The nominees are Seniors Anthony Mejia, Andrew Cruz, and James Pearce.

Not only will there be a special presentation on halftime, but after the game there will be an afterparty taking place in the Quad. Students from Bosco and St. Jospehs are welcomed to attend as long as they show their wristband which will be available for pick up in front of the MPR from 6-7 PM.

The afterparty will be a nice little taste of what Homecoming could have been if the pandemic never struck and will conclude at 11:00 PM.