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Portola captains (from left) Nash Luper, Timmy Grettenberg, Anthony Riccardi and Diego Reyna head out onto the field for the CIF Championship game. (PHOTOS: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone).
Portola High School’s football team is out to “Protect the Bulldog Pedigree” one more time Saturday night in the CIF State 6-AA Bowl Final against Northern California champion Arcata at Fullerton High School.
It’s been a theme for the Coach Peter Abe’s program since the start of the varsity program in 2018.
“Once we outlined what the Pedigree core values were going to be, we needed something kind of catchy to kind of tie it all together,” Abe explained Friday night on the eve of the biggest game in school history.
To see additional photos, click on the first picture:
“Protect the Pedigree, just saying it and that kind of hash tag is a powerful messaging tool that is easily memorable and usable for social media and websites, text messaging and all that stuff to try to make it easy to remember.”
The principles are simple.
“We modeled it after the school’s core value of perseverance, respect, integrity and drive and empathy. Each paw pad on the paw logo represents difference themes of that and what it means to represent that value in the classroom, in the community and on the football field,” Abe said.
“It’s kind of a blueprint for attitude, behavior and performance in terms of executing things the way we want to execute them to keep ourselves in position for success, whether you’re applying that to your every day normal life, whether you’re applying it to athletics, it’s designed to help keep everybody’s eye on the prize and keep everybody focused and really engaged with the process so that the outcome is consistent and it is positive and it’s consistently what we want it to be.
“It gives the kids a really good reference for maybe when things aren’t going way you want them to go. It’s what we’ve been trying to do these 16 weeks and taking it one day at a time and trying to get better each week.”
Portola’s very first varsity game was in Aug. 17, 2018 when the Bulldogs defeated Fairmont Prep 39-20 at home. Kaveh Wojtowich scored the Bulldogs first TD on a 42-yard TD pass from Brandon Yue. The Bulldogs were led by Russell Sung, who scored three touchdowns.
“It was really cool to not only get that win but to see the energy and work that was put in from 2016 to 2017 to go out and get that first varsity win was pretty special,” Abe said.
THIS WEEK’S PRACTICE
The Bulldogs have had “overall a solid week of practice. The kids have been focused, high energy tempo, I think everyone is excited to have the opportunity but more excited about the possibility of putting on a good show and getting the thing done,” Abe said.
PEP RALLY
Portola held a pep rally on campus Friday featuring the band and cheerleaders as a sendoff for the team, which captured the CIF Division 11 title and is now going for its first CIF state crown.
“It was exciting, we’ve never been in this situation before as a school. It was cool to get the school to come out and support, they do sendoffs for state regionals and CIF finals,” Abe said. “To do a solo rally like that, we haven’t been able to do anything like that at Portola because no one has gotten to the state finals yet. So it was really cool to establish a new tradition for teams that get this far and hammer home the significance of a team getting this far.
“We’ve played almost a full season and a half of football and to be playing football this late December, it’s pretty special. I’m glad the student body was able to get out and witness it.”
A LONG SEASON
Abe has no complaints about what will be a 16-game schedule for Portola after Saturday’s game.
“I’m just happy that the kids are as healthy as they can be this late in the season and to have the opportunity to represent the section and the city and the district and our league is a blessing that’s for sure. “We’re definitely not taking it lightly. The kids have been working hard to try and live up to the moment.”
SATURDAY’S OPPONENT
Portola players and coaches have lots of respect for Arcarta, the Northern California champion who is 13-1.
“They’re big, physical, tall, they have a real mobile, dynamic quarterback (Luke Lemke) that can do pretty much everything and that O-line is pretty gigantic,” Abe said.
“We definitely have our hands full, it reminds us a lot of our Santa Paula (CIF playoff opponent) game, where they’re pretty effective running the ball, pretty effective passing the ball, they will be physical, they have a stout defense. We’ve been saying it the last five weeks, but it’s going to take a great football game on our part. We’re looking forward to stepping up to the challenge and trying to put on a good show for the community.”
KEYS TO THE GAME
The keys are simple, Abe said:
“Stop number 10 (Lemke) for them and control the ball,” Abe said.
SATURDAY PREPS
“It’s business as usual and as close to routine as we possibly can,” Abe said. “For us it’s similar to what we would normally do at a home game, but away. It’s not that far, it’s right down the street so our routine doesn’t change very much. Me and the kids will still be checking in around 2 o’clock or 2:30, we have our meetings, our walk-throughs, our pre-game meal, so I’m just excited to get to Saturday and get everything started.”
GAME TICKETS
Tickets for the 7 p.m. game may be purchased only through the GoFan app and Portola will be the home team for the game and will wear purple jerseys and dark pants.
For stories and photos Saturday, go to ocsportszone.com
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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