Editorial: An epic football memory for Ventura County
If you’re a casual sports fan, or perhaps one that follows only collegiate and professional teams, you may have missed one of the most thrilling, improbable finishes to a football game since the forward pass was legalized in 1906.
It happened on Saturday night, Dec. 2, in the CIF-State Division 1-A regional final game in San Diego and it was pulled off by the team from St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura.
It was mindful of one of those finishes dramatized in the television series “Friday Night Lights,” in which the mythical Dillon High Panthers always seemed to win big games on the final play of the game. But this one really happened, and it was just as improbable as any scenario a television screenwriter could concoct.
It happened like this: The St. Augustine team from San Diego, leading 20-14, had the ball on its 16-yard line, fourth down and 24 yards to go, with a mere 14.8 seconds remaining in the game. It chose to punt, but the kick shanked off the punter’s foot and went out of bounds just 14 yards downfield, at the 30-yard line.
St. Bonaventure took over with just 8.4 seconds left. Quarterback Anthony Wolter heaved a pass to receiver Drew Cofield, who was hit hard and brought down on the 4-yard line. The Ventura team quickly lined up and spiked the ball to stop the clock with 2.1 seconds remaining.
It thus came down to one play for the division championship. A daring play was called. Slot back Max Peters went in motion, then reversed course at the snap and took a backward pass from Wolter while running toward the sideline. Peters then launched a second pass that was caught by Kayin Booker in the corner of the end zone as the game clock read 0:00. Kicker George Mann booted the extra point to give St. Bonaventure a 21-20 victory.
One almost has to see this game-ending sequence to believe it. Thanks to YouTube, that can be done. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYCCdrB6cLw.
With the win, St. Bonaventure advanced to the state championship, which is to be held Saturday afternoon in Mission Viejo. Regardless of how that turns out, however, last week’s epic ending is destined to become lore in Ventura County high school athletics.
It will be to local high school fans what the 1982 classic Stanford-Cal game is to college fans. That’s the one in which Cal returned a kickoff, using multiple laterals and finally weaving through the Stanford marching band which had prematurely come onto the field, to win the game after time had expired.
The ending of that St. Bonaventure games belongs in that top echelon. Would that we ever get a Super Bowl that ends in such fashion.
Congratulations to the Seraphs and their fans. The same is in order for the Ventura College team, which advanced to the regional community college finals, and for the Simi Valley High team, which made it to the Division 2-A regional championship.
Oh, and there might be a life lesson in this that we can learn from the ill-fated coach of St. Augustine. Rather than punt, he could have had his team run the ball backwards and then out of the end zone for a safety. That would have given St. Bonaventure two points, but also would have used up all or most of the remaining 14.8 seconds, with the worst case being that his team would have had to kick to St. Bonaventure with just a couple seconds left in the game.
The lesson? Sometimes it’s necessary to do something unpleasant in order to achieve a greater goal. That didn’t happen in this case, and now St. Bonaventure High has a memory that will live forever.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Editorial: An epic football memory for Ventura County
