Cathedral Catholic downs Mission Hills Chaminade in Honor Bowl game

Needing a bounce-back win after a drubbing last week at the hands of a very good Corona Centennial team, Cathedral Catholic was dominant on both sides of the ball, beating Mission Hills Chaminade 50-17 in the second game of Friday’s Honor Bowl at Cathedral.

The Dons rolled up 554 yards on offense — 325 passing, and held Chaminade (2-1), ranked No. 37 in the state, to 241 — 80 of those coming on a fourth-quarter drive against Cathedral’s backups.

Trailing 10-7 in the second quarter, Cathedral ran off 43 straight points.

Last week, Cathedral Catholic (2-1), ranked No. 3 in San Diego and No. 18 in the state, lost 57-14 to Corona Centennial, ranked No. 11 in California.

“It was really important to bounce back,” said Dons running back Lucky Sutton, who had 17 carries for 113 yards, three touchdowns and was named the game’s MVP.

“There was a lot of focus in practice this week. We know we’re better than we showed last week.

“We just needed to clean some things up, keep our composure and get after it”

Sutton sat out much of the second half with cramps, but Darian Whaley picked up the slack with 12 carries for 84 yards and an 11-yard TD.

Defensively, Cal commit Jaxson Moi had three sacks as Chaminade rushed 30 times for 124 yards and a pair of quarterbacks completed 12 of 24 passes for 117 yards.

Cathedral’s Tanoai Letuli had an interception and the Dons scored on the next play with Charlie Mirer hitting Max Bayles for an 11-yard TD early in the third quarter, putting the game out of reach at 43-10.

“Monday, we talked as a team,” Moi said. “We said we were never going to let anything like last week happen again.

“The coaches kind of lit a spark in our butts.

“Chaminade is a good team, but we were a little more motivated tonight. We had some adversity last week, but we were able to fight through it this week. Chaminade has us down, but we hung together and got it done.”

Cathedral opened the scoring, going 52 yards on six plays in its first series with Sutton going the final 12 yards. He also had a 13-yard run on the drive.

Chaminade, going at warp speed on offense, answered with a seven-play 80-yard drive with quarterback Indiana Wijay — who didn’t start the game — hitting a wide-open Josh Mailander with a 38-yard scoring pass.

Chaminade briefly took the lead on a 26-yard field goal by Ryan McGuire with 4:00 to play in the half.

Those last four minutes, however, belonged to Cathedral.

Mirer hit Whaley to get a drive started and Sutton finished it with a 3-yard TD. Sutton had a pair of 11-yard runs on the drive.

After forcing a Chaminade punt, Cathedral too over at its 47 with 1:05 to play and Mirer hooked up with Rex Haynes for 52 yards to the Chaminade 1.

Mirer scored on a quarterback sneak with 27 seconds left to give the Dons a two TDs in 61 seconds and a 21-10 lead at the break.

Valor Christian, 30, Oaks Christian 7

Gavin Sawchuk scored on runs of 3, 21 and 50 yards as Valor Christian, the No. 1-rated team in Colorado, beat Oaks Christian.

Sawchuk, who had close to 200 yards rushing, is committed to Oklahoma.

Valor Christian improved to 2-0 while Oaks Christian fell to an uncharacteristic 0-3.

Today’s games at Cathedral Catholic pit American Fork, the No. 3 team in Utah, vs. Serra Gardena, ranked No. 22 in California at noon, and Sierra Canyon, ranked No. 4 in California vs. Corona Centennial, ranked No. 11 in the state.