Santa Rosa Academy to host Pasadena in football playoffs

Quarterback Marlow will lead SRA against Pasadena on Friday. (Photo by Action Captures Media Group)

By Doug Spoon, Editor

The Santa Rosa Academy football team will be at home Friday at 7 p.m. against Pasadena in the first round of the CIF-SS Division 13 playoffs, the CIF office announced today.

The Rangers are the only one of the four Menifee area football teams to make the playoffs. They have an 8-2 overall record and finished 4-1 in league play. SRA has outscored its last two opponents, 97-0.

In last Thursday’s 43-0 win over Silver Valley, quarterback Daniel Marlow passed for 238 yards and 2 touchdowns and rushed for 17 yards and 2 more scores. Junior Jacob Goode also threw a touchdown pass and ran for another. Dominic Vicente-Thomas caught 2 touchdown passes and Aaron Quesada caught one as well.

On defense, Caleb Delgado led the way with 8 solo tackles.

Paloma Valley recorded a 5-5 season record but lost four or five league games down the stretch, making a playoff berth seem unlikely. Sure enough, the Wildcats were left out of the brackets.

In their last three games, the Wildcats lost to Rancho Verde (34-12), Vista del Lago (45-7) and Liberty (35-20).

“I wasn’t surprised,” Paloma coach Juan Merida said about being left out of the playoff picture. “I told the kids our playoffs started two games ago. We needed to win at least one of those games to get in.”

Although Liberty beat Paloma in its final regular-season game, the Bison’s overall record of 4-6 (2-3 in league) was not good enough to make the postseason. Also missing the playoffs was Heritage, which like Liberty finished with records of 4-6 and 2-3. The Patriots ended their season with a 33-12 loss to Perris.