Prep Football

Update

A look at the Southern Section divisions in which Orange County’s football teams compete:

DIVISION I

This dream Final Four features the top four seeded teams with a combined record of 47-1. The lone loss came when Los Angeles Loyola and La Puente Bishop Amat met to decide the Del Rey League championship; Loyola won, 3-0.

The semifinal matchups are intriguing. One features a meeting of two long-time rivals, the other pits one of Southern California’s most prolific offenses against one of its stingiest defenses.

Mater Dei, defending champion and winner of 26 in a row, will take on Bishop Amat Friday, renewing a 25-year rivalry from the defunct Angelus League. The schools have met twice before in the playoffs: Mater Dei won, 28-21, in the 1994 Division I championship game, and Bishop Amat knocked the Monarchs out in the second round of the 1962 3-A playoffs with a 7-0 decision.

Bishop Amat has been designated the host school, and a Southern Section spokesman said the Lancers were trying to reserve the field at Citrus College.

Loyola is the designated home team for Saturday’s semifinal against Long Beach Poly, the Moore League champion that averaged 45 points in the regular season. Loyola has given up more than one touchdown only once in 12 games.

DIVISION V

The Sea View League will put a team in a section championship game for the 10th consecutive season, with Santa Margarita and Newport Harbor meeting in a rematch of last year’s title game, Friday at Newport Harbor.

The Sailors are 22-4 over the last two seasons, but that includes an 0-3 record against Santa Margarita, winner of its last 23 games. The Eagles won last year’s championship game, 38-0, and took a 45-6 decision earlier this season.

The other semifinal is a renewal of a rivalry that began in the 1920s in the Orange League between two of the county’s oldest programs. But when Brea-Olinda (11-1) travels to Tustin Saturday to meet the second-seeded Tillers (12-0), it will be the first game between the teams in more than 30 years.

Brea Olinda has won four Southern Section championships, but the last was the 2-A title in 1963. Tustin’s lone section championship came in 1948, winning a one-game playoff for the Southern title.

DIVISION VIII

Fourth-seeded Laguna Hills (11-1) finds itself as the only county team remaining, and will face Covina Northview, the Valle Vista League runner-up and a winner Saturday over top-seeded Rancho Alamitos.

Michael Jones moved into second place Friday on the section’s career rushing list with 6,624 yards. Of more significance was the 20-10 victory over Pacifica, which put the Hawks in the semifinals for the first time in his career.

The Friday semifinal will pit the passing attack of second-seeded La Mirada (11-0-1) of the Suburban League, sparked by Robert Herndon’s 36 touchdown passes, against Valle Vista League champion Covina, which needed a field goal in the final two minutes to get past Costa Mesa Friday.

DIVISION X

After losing twice in the Olympic League, Orange Lutheran again appears to be the team that posted a 4-0-1 record against an all-public school nonleague schedule. The Lancers’ second convincing playoff victory--a 35-6 decision over Santa Barbara Bishop Diego--puts them in a Saturday semifinal against Santa Monica St. Monica, a 21-3 winner over Calabassas Saturday night.

TOUCHDOWN KING

Tustin’s DeShaun Foster has the Southern Section touchdown record all to himself, with the elimination of Chris Hanks and Los Angeles Cathedral from the Division XI playoffs.

Both Foster and Hanks entered the week with 49 touchdowns scored, topping the section record of 47 set last year by Baldwin Park Sierra Vista’s Oscar Arzu.

Foster scored three touchdowns in the Tillers’ 40-19 victory over Foothill in Division V to push his total to 52. But Hanks was held without a touchdown as Cathedral fell to Yucca Valley, 37-22.