High School football: Sacred Heart Prep to face Righetti-Santa Maria in 5-A state title game
ATHERTON — Sacred Heart Prep is headed to its third state championship football game in nine years — matched up, this time, on its home field in Atherton against the Righetti Warriors of Santa Maria.
on Saturday, Dec. 11 at the Gators’ home field in Atherton.
The Gators shut out undefeated University Prep-Redding 20-0 in the 5-A North championship game last week and enter the 5-A state title game Saturday on a four-game winning streak after a 3-7 start.
“We get a chance to play a state game, which is something that’s only happened two other times in the school’s history, so it’s pretty exciting,” Sacred Heart Prep coach Mark Grieb said after the regional victory last week.
Sacred Heart Prep’s season hasn’t been smooth. Its playoff success came on the back of a rocky start in which it lost by no more than one touchdown against St. Ignatius, Mountain View, Hillsdale and Burlingame.
The Gators have won all four of their playoff games comfortably, beating Alisal-Salinas 42-0, redeeming their loss to Hillsdale with a 42-14 victory over the Knights and toppling Homestead 51-28 before their win against University Prep in the NorCal regional.
Righetti has charted a similar path to the state title game, entering the playoffs with a 1-8 record and sailing to comfortable victories in five playoff games against Atascadero, Coalinga, Ridgeview-Bakersfield, Liberty-Madera and a 14-7 win over Northwood-Irvine in the regionals.
SHP star defensive back Carter Shaw, son of Stanford head coach David Shaw, re-injured a knee during a punt return in the regional win and was on crutches after the game. Grieb said on Saturday that a return is not out of the question
After the win on Saturday, chants of “one more week” broke out briefly — a mantra the team adopted this year.
“In the playoffs, since I’ve been on varsity, we always play for one more week just to keep playing for your brothers and the seniors,” junior running back Andrew Latu said after the game.
The Gators will have a chance to claim the school’s first state title in three tries.
They lost to Corona del Mar in 2013 after beating El Cerrito 42-7 in a regional and lost to Rancho Bernardo in 2015 after a 56-20 regional win over McClymonds.
“We talked about that ever since we started the playoffs. It’s been a theme in our program,” Grieb said. “We just want one more week so we can be together as a team. These guys love each other and want to play for one another.”