The South Pasadena High School varsity football team lost at Los Osos 30-27 in its CIF Southern Section Division IX playoff opener on Nov. 3.
“We played against the No. 2 seed in our division and in comparison to last year, we moved up two divisions from 11 to nine, so I thought our kids did a real good job of just competing at a higher level,” South Pasadena coach Jeff Chi said. “We came up just a little bit short. We had our chances, there were some questionable calls that could have gone either way but we can’t really do anything about that at this point.”
Senior Jason Hong rushed for a team-best 125 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 26 carries. He finished the season 14th in the state with 1,938 rushing yards and was ranked No. 3 with 37 total touchdowns, according to MaxPreps leaderboards.
“He’s been very impressive throughout the whole season,” Chi said. “He’s just done an outstanding job keeping us in games and giving us opportunities to win ball games.”
Junior quarterback Zachary Lee completed six passes for 91 yards with a touchdown. Senior Giovanni Cruz had five carries for 60 yards with a touchdown, while junior James Dowd had three receptions for 48 yards with a touchdown.
Senior Devin Robinson had three carries for 35 yards and a pair of catches for 13 yards, while senior Sawyer Fox had a 21-yard carry and a 9-yard catch, and went 3-for-4 in PAT attempts.
Senior Luke Riffle, junior David Eisenberg and junior David Ortega each racked up nine tackles. Senior Carlo Williams tallied five tackles while senior Whitman Brida finished with four tackles and a sack. Senior Isaiah Hyun contributed three tackles, senior Logan Ayala and junior Jordan Rodgers each produced two tackles, and sophomore Trey Freking had one tackle.
The Tigers finished the campaign as Rio Hondo League co-champions alongside San Marino and Monrovia. It was South Pasadena’s first title in 47 years. The Tigers finished with a 4-1 record (9-2 overall).
First published in the November 10 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
