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As Downey players celebrate in the background, Cypress players Matthew Morrell (3) and Hayden Frazier (66) walk off field after Vikings won the CIF Division 4 title game. (Photos courtesy Jim McCormack, For OC Sports Zone).
When you go undefeated in the regular season and then advance to a championship game with three incredible last-minute playoff victories it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that this is your year.
That was a premise Cypress High School’s football team embraced until Friday night, which turned out not to be the Centurions’ night.
The Centurions’ perfect record was shattered by an explosive Downey High team which led from start to finish, defeating Cypress 40-7 in the CIF Division 4 championship football game before a capacity-plus crowd at Handel Stadium on the campus of Western High School.
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The Vikings won the coin toss, elected to receive, and then scored on their first offensive series of the night. The lead grew to 13-0 at the end of the quarter and to 19-0 three minutes into the second period.
It was then that Cypress put together its most effective drive of the night, culminating in Aiden Houston’s 28-yard scoring strike to Matthew Morrell, who made a leaping catch in the end zone.
It was the 48th touchdown Houston had accounted for this season (29 passing, 19 rushing) and it was Morrell’s 15th TD reception of the year.
It gave many in the stadium the sense that perhaps things were stabilized and that the Centurions would make a game of it.
That optimism lasted all of 22 seconds. On Downey’s first play following the score, Jaylen Crutchfield took a option read handoff from Aidan Chiles and rocketed through the middle of the Cypress defense on a 76-yard scoring run that returned the deficit to 19 points. Crutchfield carried the ball seven times in the first half and gained nearly 150 yards.
“They (Downey) were the best team we’ve seen, by far,” Cypress Coach Richard Feldman said postgame. “Even so, I thought we had some opportunities that we just left on the field.”
Perhaps the best example of that was the first series of the second half.
Cypress overcame two early penalties, one a 15-yarder that wiped out most of the good yardage in the second half kickoff. That penalty was because someone on the Cypress sideline collided with an official running up field.
Even with the mishaps, Cypress reached the Downey one with a first-and-goal. An illegal procedure penalty moved the ball back to the six and then a bad snap lost another five yards.
On first down, Downey (12-2) broke up a good pass to Morrell in the end zone. Three ensuing passes also failed and the Vikings took over on downs.
Again, on first down, Chiles kept the ball on the option read and ran 89 yards for a touchdown only to have the play negated by a holding penalty.
On the next play, Chiles passed the ball to Bryant Carey near midfield. Carey made a stumbling catch of the ball, maintained his balance and completed the 94-yard scoring play.
Cypress (13-1) played in a CIF title game for the third time in school history. The Centurions won a title in 2007. The Centurions’ playoff wins included a 28-26 victory over Highlands, a 29-28 win over Millikan in which Cypress scored on the last play of the game and then converted a 2-point conversion with no time left to claim the victory.
Then, in the semifinals, the Centurions edged Newport Harbor on a field goal, 17-14, in the game’s final seconds.
The CIF title was Downey’s fourth in school history, counting a 7-7 tie with Downey in 1957, perhaps the most famous CIF championship game in history. Coch Jack Williams, in his 13th season as head coach, directed the Vikings to a CIF title in 2012.
—Courtesy Jim McCormack, For OC Sports Zone
