Thurs.-Sat., Dec. 4-6, 2025
A busy few days with, as usual, American football being a big part of it.
Specifically, Friday night's
SoCal Regional Division 3-AA game
There were a total of 28 Regional games being played this weekend, 14 in Northern California and 14 in Southern California.
Northern and Southern winners would meet in the State Championship game in their respective Divisions next weekend.
As far as the theoretical strength of the Divisions, the Open Division is the top dog followed in order by 1-AA, 1-A, 2-AA, 2-A, etc., until one gets to the Division 7-A game.
NorCal 1-A to 7-A team logos
SoCal 1-A to 7-A team logos
NorCal 1-AA to 7-AA team logos
SoCal 1-AA to 7-AA team logos
Our interest on Friday night centered around the Ventura H.S Cougars (12-2) SoCal Division 3-AA Regional game being played in exotic Arroyo Grande against the home team Eagles (10-4).
In actuality, this game is the C.I.F.-State Division 3-AA Semifinal playoff game.
Ventura H.S. Cougars
12-2 Overall, 5-0 Channel League
C.I.F.-Southern Section Division VI Champions
Channel League Champions
2025 Results
at Thousand Oaks (8-3) – Lost 38-13
at Rio Mesa (1-9) – Won 35-6
vs. Camarillo (2-8) – Won 38-21
vs. Dos Pueblos (4-6) – Won 49-7
at Newbury Park (6-5) – Lost 43-28
vs. Buena (4-6) – Won 34-23 *
at Moorpark (10-1) – Won 43-7 *
at Royal (3-7) – Won 44-9 *
vs. Oak Park (5-6) – Won 35-7 *
at Oxnard (0-10) – Won 56-7 *
vs. Salesian (7-4) – Won 42-31 **
vs. Moorpark (10-2) – Won 35-28 **
at Agoura (10-3) – Won 28-14 **
at St. Pius X-St. Matthias (7-7) – Won 63-28 **
* Channel League Game
** C.I.F.-Southern Section Division VI Game
at
Arroyo Grande H.S. Eagles
10–4 Overall, 4-0 Mountain League
C.I.F.-Central Section Division II Champions
Mountain League Champions
2025 Results
at Golden West (9-3) – Lost 35-28
at Newbury Park (6-5) – Lost 28-27
vs. San Luis Obispo (7-5) – Won 42-28
vs. Twelve Bridges (11-1) – Lost 42-41
at Righetti (4-7) – Won 64-35
at Nipomo (7-5) – Lost 33-25
at Paso Robles (4-7) – Won 56-14 *
vs. Lompoc (6-5) – Won 56-10 *
at St. Joseph (8-3) – Won 30-7 *
vs. Mission Prep (3-8) – Won 42-0 *
vs. Sunnyside (5-6) – Won 62-14 **
vs. Garces Memorial (7-5) – Won 42-29 **
at Tulare Union (9-3) – Won 24-21 **
at Bakersfield (10-3) – Won 23-20 OT **
* Mountain League Game
** C.I.F.-Central Section Division II Game
We had a two hour, 20 minute
drive up California's Gold Coast in
order to reach Arroyo Grande
Snarled traffic on the 101 Highway in Oxnard, Ventura and Santa Barbara slowed us down in our race against the Sun setting into the Pacific Ocean.
Our traditional pre-game meal was held
at Arroyo Grande's Blast 825 Brewery
Good food and camaraderie with Bret Phillips, Diego Renteria and a few other VHS fans and Ventura County area referees.
Arroyo Grande H.S. was located only seven minutes away from this fine brewpub.
I was struck by this mural proclaiming
the great football tradition at AGHS
I thought it was worth closer examination.
17, no, make that 18 League
Championships including 2025
This year's team made it 35 C.I.F. playoff appearances. Most of them were as members of the Southern Section before relocating in the Central Section a few of years ago.
Now 23 Quarterfinal appearences
and 14 Semifinal teams
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This year marked the Eagles ninth
trip to the Finals and sixth
C.I.F. Section Championship
All of this was fantastic information but it started the old gray cells churning.
All of this success started with the Eagles 1985 team that made it into the playoffs and then the 1987 squad that won the C.I.F.-Southern Section Northwestern Conference Championship.
But, wasn't Arroyo Grande H.S. much older than this 1985 start of the Eagles Golden Era of football excellence?
I had some digging to do.
Arroyo Grande H.S. opened its
doors in 1890!
I could not believe that in the next 95 years that the Eagles had, according to this mural, absolutely zero bright moments in their prep football history.
Then I started thinking some more.
It hurt my head.
Back in 1961, I was a Freshman at St. Francis High School where our Algebra teacher was Mr. Dick Landreau who was also the Golden Knights Varsity Line Coach. We had a great team that year that wound up 11-1, losing the C.I.F.-Southern Section AA Championship game to Santa Fe League rival Bishop Amat (10-1-1), 28-13.
That loss really stung as St, Francis had defeated Bishop Amat, 26-7, earlier in the season for the Santa Fe League crown.
But I digress. What jogged my memory was Coach Landreau's talking to our class about a Quarterfinal game that was marred by fog so dense that they stopped the game for a time and considered starting it again the next day. While I could not remember who exactly was in that contest, somewhere in the deep recesses, by the way I always loved recess, of my mind the words Arroyo Grande kept creeping into the conversation that I was having with myself.
More research was needed, on to the C.I.F.-Southern Section's monthly Bulletin archives.
BINGO!
That long ago game did include an Arroyo Grande squad!
Im sure the fog was a huge factor in the 0-0 tie with, wouldn't you know it, the Camarillo Scorpions. The tie breaker in those was which team made the most First Downs. Arroyo Grande advanced on the basis of their 12-6 advantage in First Downs.
They would lose the AA Semifinal game to Bishop Amat the next week, 21-0.
In those days only league champions and an occasional league second place with a fine record like Bishop Amat made the playoffs. So, most likely that 1961 Arroyo Grande team was a league champion to boot.
Still, the 1961 team's accomplishments were nowhere to be seen on the "Eagle Pride The Tradition Continues . . ." mural.
As a lover of history, this bothers me.
I can't help but wonder how many other A.G.H.S. pre-1985 teams earned the right to be included on that mural?
On to the SoCal Regional game . . .
The home stands were packed . . .
. . . so were the visiting stands
The Ventura Offense took the . . .
. . . opening drive in for a TD
End of the First Period
Ventura - 7
Arroyo Grande - 6
The Eagles throwing a rare pass
A.G.H.S. loves to run the football
Halftime
Ventura - 14
Arroyo Grande - 14
It was an excellent First Half with lots of hitting and highlight reel plays in all three phases of the game.
The Second Half was just as
entertaining as the First Half
Ventura's QB cam up big tonight
End of the Third Period
Ventura - 28
Arroyo Grande - 28
What a ballgame!
The Fourth Quarter was wildly different
Ventura scored at the start of the final period to take the lead again, 35-28.
The Eagles ensuing drive was a Three and Out in large part due to a huge hit by Ventura's Oregon bound blitzing LB, Tristan Phillips, on a Third Down tackle for loss play.
The Cougars got the ball back with 8:48 left on the clock and, in an impressive show of both mental and physical fortitude and will, possessed the ball the rest of the game.
On one play, with about 90 seconds left in the contest, a Cougar RB broke a play for about a 15 yard gain and could have scored easily but with a new First Down in hand, slid down to maintain Ventura's stranglehold on the clock and not give Arroyo Grande any chance of mounting any sort of miracle comeback.
Final Score
Ventura (13-2) - 35
Arroyo Grande (10-5) - 28
With this big win, the Cougars now move on to the C.I.F.-State Championship Division 3-AA game to be played next Friday at 8:00 p.m. at the Fullerton UHSD Stadium.
The Cougars will play the
St. Ignatius College Prep Wildcats
for California's 3-AA Championship
St. Ignatius is located in San Francisco and is the state's second oldest high school having been established in 1855 by the Catholic Church's mysterious Jesuit priests. In 1851, Bellarmine Prep was established in San Jose making it the oldest high school in the state as well as a league foe of St. Ignatius today.
The Wildcats are 8-6 this season having finished in Fifth Place in the West Catholic Athletic League.
In the post-season, St. Ignatius first won the C.I.F.-Central Coast Section's DII Championship before winning the NorCal 3-AA Regional Championship against the C.I.F.-North Coast Section DII Champion Monte Vista Mustangs (8-6), 17-13, on Friday night.
The Ventura-St. Ignatius 3-AA game will be the second half of a state title doubleheader on Friday at Fullerton UHSD Stadium. At 4;00 p.m., in the State Division 6-AA Championship Game, the NorCal Regional and C.I.F-Central Coast DIV Champion San Jose Lincoln H.S. Lions (11-3) will play the SoCal Regional and C.I.F.-San Diego Section DIV Champion Valley Center H.S. Jaguars (8-6).
During the regular season, Lincoln finished in a tie for Third Place in the Mount Hamilton League while Vally Center earned a Co-Championship in the Palomar League.
A chance to see two games in one day at the same stadium is enticing.
Before I forget, Michael D'Antuono's new team in Seattle, the O'Dea H.S. Fighting Irish (13-1) defeated the Mount Tahoma H.S. T-Birds (13-1), 21-14, to win the Washington State 3A Championship.
San Francisco St. Ignatius College Prep's list of notable alumni includes one Edward John O'Dea (1856-1932) the future Bishop of Seattle for whom O'Dea H.S. is named.
Coincidence, I think not, but I have no idea what it all might mean.
Great fun on a Saturday night
We had originally bought tickets to the Ventura Winter Wine Walk with Brian and Koreen FitzGerald.
Unfortunately and at the same time blessedly, they had to cancel at the last minute in order to race up to Atascadero to be present at the birth of their fourth grandson. Congratulations to all of the FitzGerald family on this great event!
In the meantime, we now had two extra Wine Walk tickets to use. As it turned out, finding someone to join us at the last minute was not as easy as I thought.
Getting Martha Jimenez to join
us WAS easy but we had to
improvise with that fourth ticket
We met a mature lady as we tried to find the check-in spot who in passing told us that her friend from Paso Robles was coming to join her but not until 6:00 p.m. as she was running late.
The Wine Walk ran from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. so she would miss out on most of the fun.
I made an executive decision and then told her of our situation with the extra ducat. She was shocked when we offered it to her as an early Christmas present. She was ecstatic and the three of us all felt that this gesture would someday earn us a few less days rotting in Purgatory.
Let the fun on Main Street begin!
The Ventura Winter Wine Walk is basically a promotion put on by the local Downtown Ventura merchants to get people to come to a street fair and enter their open shops that were all serving two ounces of wine if you were in possession of the special plastic wine cup provided by the Wine Walk staff when you received your special, yellow wrist band.
It wasn't so much of a wine tasting by various vineyards as I imagined, it was more of just random shops having bottles of red and white wines for us to sample at the back of their shops making us all travel through their stores and hopefully buying some things before we left.
Amazingly, the merchant's wine
shopping strategy worked on Laurie
Although both of these ladies were well into their cups at this point, Martha was strong in resisting the desire to buy trinkets.
Laurie on the other hand . . .
Let's just say that Laurie supported
the local economy quite handsomely
We were having a GREAT time!
All good things like the 2025
Ventura Winter Wine Walk
must come to an end
The three of us enjoyed our night in Ventura immensely.
Once back at home, we enjoyed the end of two Power Four Conference Games that had huge CFP implications.
If unranked Duke won the
ACC Championship chaos
would prevail in the CFP
Unranked Duke (8-5) beat
Virginia (10-3) in OT, 27-20
For the first time in CFP history the ACC Champion would not be included because two Group of Five Champions were ranked higher than Duke.
In the American Athletic Conference Championship game, #20 Tulane (11-2) prevailed over #24 North Texas (11-2), 34-21.
At the same time, in the Sun Belt Conference Championship Game, #25 James Madison (12-1) beat unranked Troy (8-5), 31-14.
Both Tulane and James Madison will be in the 12-team CFP thanks to Duke's upset of Virginia.
In the Big-10, it was the last two
undefeated teams in the country
What a HUGE win for the #2 Hoosiers
Indiana will, without a doubt, enter the CFP as the #1 seed.
Despite the loss, I would be shocked if Ohio State doesn't wind up seeded #2, #3 or #4 which brings with it a First Round bye.
Many in Michigan are now
big Hoosiers fans
What does this all mean to the Washington Huskies, you ask?
Although we won't know for sure until Sunday afternoon, there was lots of speculationSaturday night.
This game would be next Saturday night
The official name of this bowl game is The Bucked Up L.A. Bowl Hosted by Gronk.
Is that spelled correctly?
Anyway, this title will look good on the winner's bowl championship ring.
If true, it would the third time
that Boise State and the Huskies
have played in a bowl game
Overall, the Broncos and Huskies have played six times with the UW holding a 4-2 advantage.
The two schools played each other twice before, both times in the Las Vegas Bowl.
In the 2012 game, Boise State (11-2) beat the Huskies (7-6), 28-26.
They met again in the Nevada desert in the 2019 contest which Washington (8-5) defeated the Broncos (12-2), 38-7.
More like three moths actually
LIFE CONTINUES TO BE
GOOD!
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