1 week Ago
SAN PEDRO — Poise. That was the keyword for the San Pedro football team throughout the week as it prepared for an elevated rivalry game against Banning. After all, it was the Battle of the Harbor: Playoff Edition.
Ultimately third-seeded San Pedro played with composure and control and emerged with a 37-26 victory over sixth-seeded Banning Friday night to open the L.A. City Section Open Division playoffs.
“We definitely played with a lot more poise this week,” San Pedro quarterback Marcus Jeronymo said. “Everyone knew what we were capable of doing. We just had to stay calm.
” It was going to be heated. It was going to be emotional. It was almost certain to get chippy.
After all, San Pedro posted a 34-33 regular-season overtime victory over Banning earlier this year at the Coliseum. Yet San Pedro (8-3) played a methodical second half to break open a 23-20 halftime lead and advanced to next week’s semifinals at Carson for another Marine League rematch that will require even more poise. San Pedro coach Corey Walsh credited the team’s Mental Health Coach Barry Heads – a former San Pedro quarterback – with setting the tone for this game with a speech at the team dinner that channeled John Wooden and former De La Salle head coach Bob Ladouceur.
“Coach Heads gave us some life lessons,” Walsh said. “He talked about giving your best effort, your perfect effort, on every whistle and every snap. Of having peace of mind that you did everything you could to win the game.
We achieved that tonight. “Overall we were super disciplined and poised.” Eventually San Pedro wore down Banning as Pete Eneliko ran for 109 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries behind the self-proclaimed “Great Wall of San Pedro” – a cohesive line that includes Nuriel Rodriguez, Quincy Couch, Frankie Rivera, David Medina and Joel Vargas.
San Pedro opened the second half with a 9-play, 64-yard drive capped by a 5-yard touchdown run by Eneliko for a 30-20 lead. Eneliko added a 2-yard scoring run on San Pedro’s next drive for a 37-20 lead. “We went out and won the first half.
Then we hit on all cylinders in the second half,” Eneliko said. It was a tough end for a Banning squad went winless in the Marine League but had two games that came down to the wire – the overtime loss to San Pedro and a late loss to Gardena. To its credit, Banning (4-7) battled throughout the game.
Steven Perez caught eight passes for 125 yards and three touchdowns, including a 20-yard touchdown catch from Noa Tuvalu with 2:05 left in the third quarter to close within 37-26. “We tried our hardest to not let this be the last game for the seniors,” Perez said. “Unfortunately it did not play out that way.
There is a lot of emotion right now, but I would not have wanted to do this with any other team.” Tuvalu completed 12 of 20 passes for 195 yards and 4 touchdowns and 1 interception. Adrian Guzman added three catches for 66 yards and a touchdown, and Jordan Villanueva had 13 carries for 82 yards.
An emotional Banning coach Raymond Grajeda told his team: “how does it feel right now? Let’s make sure we don’t feel this way next year.” San Pedro had several standout performances in addition to Eneliko. Jeronymo completed 17 of 27 passes for 184 yards.
Elias Redlew caught 10 passes for 122 yards. Dylan Franklin had a tone-setting 79 yards on nine carries with a strong first half. Sophomore quarterback Seth Solorio connected with Alex Diller for a 4-yard touchdown pass in the first half, and Dylan Moreno had a 21-yard field goal.
“I saw a lot of resiliency from our team tonight,” Jeronymo said. “We knew it was going to be a close game. If the defense gave up a score, we wanted to pick them up.
And they did the same for us.”.
