INLAND FIELDHOUSE

CORONA – What impressed me most about the Santa Mater Dei-Corona Centennial varsity football game on Friday, Aug. 18, 2022 – aside from the Huskies nearly making a game of it in the second half – was the combined presence of SoCal sports media.

• CBS Sports Jim Hill
• L.A. Times Eric Sondheimer
• SBLive’s Tarek Fattal
• SCNG’s Dan Albano

It was a veritable who’s-who of high school sports press on site for the biggest football game in the country on the night and we were there for it, too, on the field, after the game, talking to its biggest players.

Husan Longstreet: “Really good. Lot to work on. Just excited to go to battle with this team. Tonight was a good battle from the start to the end. Not the result we wanted but we’ve got a lot to work on. They’re a good team, a great team, and with Frank at head coach now, that’s crazy. We just got to look at the film. Capitalize on the things we did wrong. I got to capitalize, see things faster. Man, Cornell’s a heck of a running back. The way he runs the ball he’s second to none in the nation. That’s probably the best running back I’ve seen. That’s a game-changer.”

Cornell Hatcher: “In the second half, when we scored in the second half, I thought we could still win the game. You never want to go into a game thinking, ‘It’s over.’ We always have a chance. You know what I mean? We had positive thoughts. We thought we could come back and win the game. We just wanted it. We went into halftime making some adjustments and doing what we needed to do, so as a team we worked well together. That’s all that really was.”

Matt Logan: “Defensively, I thought we were ready to play but offensively we struggled. It was miscommunication after another, and one of those deals where the headsets weren’t working, and we just looked discombobulated. All stuff that we can improve on pretty easily and we battled with these dudes, so we’re fine. We wished we would’ve had a little bit more from the running game in the first half. I think we know where we’re at and we compete. You want to play the No. 1 team in the country, and I don’t want to toot our horn after a loss but we played the No. 1 team in the country and we’ll be alright. (Cornell) kept battling and I think the o-line did the same thing.”

Mater Dei – 0 – 14 – 7 – 7 — 28
Centennial – 0 – 0 – 0 – 14 — 14
First quarter
No scoring
Second quarter
MD – M.Brown 23 pass from E.Brown (Zante kick), 11:02
MD – Davison 6 run (Zante kick), 3:15
Third quarter
MD – J.Smith 35 pass from E.Brown (Zante kick), 7:11
Fourth quarter
C – Hatcher 10 run (Junger kick), 9:36
C – Beyer 55 interception return (Junger kick), 4:32
N – Frazier 6 run (Zante kick), 2:27
Team statistics
Total plays – Mater Dei 65; Centennial 72.
First downs – Mater Dei 10; Centennial 20.
Penalties – Mater Dei 8-95; Centennial 4-30.
Turnovers – Mater Dei 1; Centennial 1.
Individual statistics
Rushing – Mater Dei: Davison 17-94, Frazier 8-39, E.Brown 4-17, Bryant 1-3; Centennial: Hatcher 20-99, Longstreet 15-35.
Passing – Mater Dei: E.Brown 13-23-173-1; Centennial: Longstreet 11-29-84-0, Catalano 1-1-11-0.
Receiving – Mater Dei: Bryant 3-48, J.Smith 2-38, M.Brown 2-30, Dixon-Wyatt 1-25, M.Harris 2-24, Ressler 2-12, Z.Brown 1-4; Centennial: J.Harris 7-64, Butler 3-17, H.Harris 1-11, Westbrook 1-2.
Interceptions – Mater Dei: None. Centennial: Beyer 1-55.