Heritage Storms into CIF Football Finals By Beating Cajon

Javier Luna races toward the end zone for a touchdown in Heritage's playoff win Friday night. Photos by Kristi Jo Aguirre of kristijophotography.com

By Daniel Millhouse

With temperatures dropping as low as 42 degrees by the end of the game, Heritage High School remained on fire Friday night, defeating the Citrus Belt League champions, host Cajon High, 24-15 to earn their way back into the title game for the Inland Division of the CIF Southern Section football playoffs.

The Patriots (13-0) were held to their lowest scoring total due to strong defensive play by Cajon (11-2), but Heritage never gave up the lead it took in the first quarter of the game.

Unable to contain his smile, Patriots head coach Kraig Broach (left) spoke enthusiastically about the victory after the game.

"We played good enough to play for one more darn week, that’s for sure," Broach said. "When you play a team like Cajon, it’s never going to be clean or easy because they’re one heck of a team over there. I was real proud of the guys and how they found ways to get it done tonight. Defensively, our defense just flew to the ball tonight -- very impressive.”

The Patriots took that lead during the first drive of the game, eating almost five minutes off the clock before scoring on a bootleg pass from senior quarterback Brett Virgil, who hit receiver CJ Newman in the end zone for a 3-yard touchdown pass.

Both defenses brought the pressure to their opponents. Key stops behind the line of scrimmage by Heritage’s Anthony Adcock and Quentin Asberry led to the Patriots getting the ball back within a couple of minutes.

Comparatively, Cajon’s defense stood up and stopped Heritage from scoring on its second drive when Cajon’s middle linebacker intercepted a pass by Virgil on their own 11-yard line, taking it back 34 yards to Cajon 45.

The Patriots stifled the Cowboys offense once again and were able to get the ball back fairly quickly. On the second play of their next drive, junior running back Javier Luna took a handoff and burst through the line, running the ball 41 yards for a touchdown, putting Heritage up 14-0.

As the Cowboys received the kickoff to start the second half, their fans cheered louder than before, trying to will their team back into the game. The Cowboys instead were stopped on a three and out after sophomore defensive lineman Parker Benner sacked the Cowboys’ freshman quarterback Jayden Daniels, for the first of his 1.5 sacks in the game.

With the lead in hand and the ball on the Cajon 36-yard line, Broach called in a play to his offense that appeared to knock the wind out of the Cowboys. The Patriots ran a rarely seen double reverse flea flicker, with the ball winding up back in the hands of Virgil just before he found senior running back Jalen Glover uncovered in the end zone for a touchdown pass that gave them a 21-0 lead.

"Everybody has that (a play) where you work on certain things and you look for an opportunity and it showed itself right there," Broach said after the game. "It was huge. That’s a credit to our guys because that’s something you just gotta practice and execute it when you’re only going to run it once, twice, a season. For them to do that, it was pretty cool."

The Heritage defense stepped up again on the next Cajon possession, stopping the Cowboys from achieving a first down within the first three downs. While punting the ball, Jaron Imbriani was hit by Heritage lineman Robert Solis, who appeared to be blocked into the punter. The Cowboys kept possession after the referees flagged Solis for the personal foul.

During this same drive, Heritage was flagged two more times for personal foul penalties, which led to the Cowboys finally ending up on the 4-yard line, before senior running back Wilbur Murray ran the ball in for the Cowboys’ first points of the night.

Going back to their running game, the Patriots took possession toward the end of the third quarter, ate the clock up, running over six minutes off the clock before adding to their lead when Tyler Baca chipped in a 21-yard field goal for a 24-7 lead.

"We’re a run heavy team and we’re kind of old school in the fact that we huddle. No one else does," Broach said about Heritage chewing up the minutes in the second half. "It’s not so much about chewing (clock). We’re looking to score. Some of those drives that didn’t necessarily result in a lot of points, shortening the game was pretty key. Especially when some weird things were happening near the end of the game."

Having little success in returning kicks, the Cowboys returner appeared to have called a fair catch on a short kick, but then pitched the ball back to Elijah Lilly, who took the ball back 63 yards before being tackled on the Patriots 18-yard line. With the momentum slowly shifting to the Cowboys, Murray scored on an 8-yard run for his second touchdown of the night, putting his team down by 9 after they scored on a 2-point conversion.

Heritage recovered an onside attempt by the Cowboys, but after quickly being stopped in less than two minutes, Cajon regained control of the ball with 3:30 left in the game.

The defensive line of Heritage dominated from this point on, sacking quarterback Jayden Daniels twice in three plays, forcing Cajon to have to go for it on fourth down and 31 yards to go for a first down.

Daniels threw the ball deep down the center of the field, but into a crowd of Heritage defenders. Senior linebacker Logan Dreese snagged the pass (left), putting the nail in the coffin for the Cowboys’ season.

Heritage’s rushing game ran for 317 yards total, led by Luna, who had 122 yards on 10 rushes and a touchdown, 98 yards rushing by Virgil on 16 carries, and 80 yards by Glover on 17 carries. Glover also had 1 reception for a touchdown for 36 yards.

Defensively, Benner had 1.5 sacks, Adcock had 7 tackles and 1 sack, Asberry had 6 tackles and 1 sack, Solis had 3 tackles and half a sack, and senior linebacker Jason King had 8 tackles. The defense on a whole allowed only 61 yards rushing, 14 of which came in the second half, on a total of 30 attempts.

"There was a lot of pressure, definitely," said Benner after the game. "We did our job and we executed. It was a good game."

The Patriots will host the Hawks of Citrus Hill High School (11-2) of Perris, the champions of the Mountain Pass League, on Friday night at 7 for the Inland Division championship title.

"We just have to go out there and do what we do," Glover said about what his team needs to do going into the title game. "We should be pretty successful."

Jalen Glover finds running room in helping lead the Patriots to victory.

Quarterback Brett Virgil capably led the Heritage offense once again.

Heritage High football players listen to the postgame comments from coaches after a big win.