Prep Rally: Who makes the list of the best of the best local high school athletes?

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. My name is Eric Sondheimer. The new school year will present quite a group of elite boys and girls athletes, many of whom will become national names. Let’s explore the names to watch.

Elite of the elite

Etiwanda junior Scottie Antonucci is captain of the USA 16U national team in soccer.

(Legendsfcsoccer)

There are so many top athletes in Southern California for the 2024-25 school year for boys and girls that fans are going to be thrilled watching these future college and pro players.

Boys and girls basketball is particularly strong, but there are athletes ready to put on a show in the pool, on the field, on the track and in gyms around the Southland.

Here’s a look at the elite of the elite.

Southern Section football

Madden Williams of St. John Bosco caught 10 passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns against Sierra Canyon.

(Craig Weston)

It was a big weekend for No. 1 Mater Dei and No. 2 St. John Bosco.

With Santa Ana Stadium mostly filled, the Monarchs (2-0) took care of Las Vegas Bishop Gorman 31-15 in a matchup of teams ranked No. 1 and No. 2 nationally by several organizations. Here’s the report.

A young but talented St. John Bosco team opened a 17-0 lead at Sierra Canyon, then had to hold on for a 38-28 win over the Trailblazers.

No one was better than junior receiver Madden Williams, who caught 10 passes for 252 yards and three touchdowns. Here’s the report.

Gardena Serra met rival Long Beach Poly in San Diego and prevailed in their usual close, hard-fought game 27-21. Skylar Robinson had an interception for Serra late in the game to preserve the victory. Serra is 2-1 and Poly is 0-3 after playing three top nonleague teams before Moore League play begins.

Six Trinity League teams are a combined 15-1 and looking like a good bet to all make the Division 1 playoffs. Mater Dei is traveling to Hawaii, Orange Lutheran is headed to Las Vegas to face Bishop Gorman and St. John Bosco is traveling to Northern California to play San Mateo Serra in big games this weekend.

Laguna Beach is 3-0 after a 51-0 victory. Here’s a report.

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, the school that produced NFL kickers Nick Folk and Kai Forbath, turned to kicker William Weisberg for a winning field goal to beat St. Francis. It’s the second straight week Weisberg has delivered a game-winning kick.

The wildest game of the week saw Downey pull out a 69-68 win over Long Beach Millikan behind quarterback Oscar Rios.

Here’s this week’s top 25 rankings by The Times.

Here’s the top performers list.

Here’s the scorelist.

Here’s this week’s schedule.

City Section football

Samuel Richard of Crenshaw (44) rushed for 144 yards in 8-6 win over Hamilton.

(Robert S. Helfman)

Crenshaw showed off a Jerome Bettis-like sophomore running back in Samuel Richard during an 8-6 victory over Hamilton. He scored the only touchdown in the fourth quarter and added the two-point conversion run while finishing with 144 yards rushing.

During one play, he ran over a Hamilton defender. Several other plays, he was breaking tackles and forcing multiple players to try to take him down.

Garfield put itself on a path to the City Section Open Division playoffs with a 14-6 win over King/Drew. Mastice Jauregui had 10 tackles for the Bulldogs.

The City Section remains wide open with teams getting beat against Southern Section opponents, such as defending champion Birmingham losing to Oak Park 31-6.

Here’s this week’s City Section top 10.

Flag football

More than 110 girls flag football teams showed up at UCLA on Saturday for a jamboree sponsored by the Rams. The excitement and competition showed the growth in the sport in just its second year of existence in California.

Each team played two games.

San Pedro, showing it will compete for the City Section flag football title, upset Southern Section power Esperanza 14-12.

Here are flag football scores.

Coliseum, SoFi sites

Drones spelled the words “The Black Eyed Peas” during a halftime concert at a game between Garfield and Roosevelt at the Coliseum in 2022.

(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)

The Coliseum and SoFi Stadium will host City Section rivalry football games next month.

First up is a tripleheader involving the flag football, junior varsity football and varsity teams from San Pedro and Banning playing at the Coliseum on Oct. 18.

Then comes the East L.A. Classic matching Garfield and Roosevelt on Oct. 25 at SoFi Stadium. There also will be a flag football game, JV and varsity game at SoFi. Tickets go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster.

Oct. 25 is shaping up as a big night for fans, with St. John Bosco playing Mater Dei at Santa Ana Stadium in the premier Southern Section matchup.

Girls volleyball

Sierra Canyon is off to a 9-0 start.

Mater Dei finished runner-up to San Diego Cathedral Catholic in the Dave Mohs tournament final, losing 2-1. Cathedral Catholic is 17-0 and might be the No. 1 team in the state.

Murrieta Valley made the semifinals before losing to Cathedral Catholic.

Cross-country

The first set of preseason Southern Section cross-country rankings are out, and Great Oak is No. 1 in boys with Ventura No. 1 in girls.

Here’s the link to rankings.

Basketball

The daughter of a Harvard-Westlake assistant coach Ed Estavan gives attention to Nikolas Khamenia.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Nikolas Khamenia, back in Studio City after winning his second gold medal of the summer, was also back working out with the basketball team Tuesday. He had a morning workout, then practiced with the team in the evening. He spent Sunday and Monday on an official visit to Arizona after traveling from Hungary, where he was named MVP of the U18 World Cup 3x3.

He is in great physical shape and has grown to the point Harvard-Westlake is listing his new height as 6 feet 9 (he’s 6-8.5 without shoes),

His main focus now is choosing a college. He visited North Carolina last weekend, is going to Duke this coming weekend and will end recruiting with a visit to UCLA on Oct. 3. His former Harvard-Westlake teammates, Trent Perry and Christian Horry, are freshmen with the Bruins.

Harvard-Westlake won’t be giving him a parade for winning two gold medals this summer for USA national teams.

“Nah. We only get parades winning state championships,” he said. “That’s something I have to do.”

In big transfer news, standout junior guard Kaiden Bailey has left Calvary Chapel and transferred to Santa Margarita. His father was supposed to be the coach at Calvary Chapel but won’t be. Bailey played last season at Crean Lutheran.

Brannon Martinson, a 6-8 junior who was the top player at Mater Dei, has checked out of school, Frank Burlison reported.

The continued movement of players even after classes have begun makes it difficult to project which teams will be a potential Open Division champion. Stay tuned.

Future of prep sports

The CIF governs high school sports in California.

(CIF)

It’s time for fine-tuning, creativity and some commonsense solutions.

The California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports in the state, is holding a series of Zoom meetings this week with stakeholders entitled, “The CIF Commission for Strategic Priorities.”

Seven committees will begin the process of offering ideas, solutions and recommendations over issues involving athletic trainers, championship events/competitive equity, equity, mental/physical health of student athletes, officials, sportsmanship/fan behavior/discriminatory acts, and transfer eligibility/appeals.

Here’s the report.

54 years of officiating

Brian Brennan poses for a photo before a high school football game he’s about to officiate. (Benjamin Royer / For The Times)

(Benjamin Royer / For The Times)

Brian Brennan is in his 54th year as a high school official.

The spry 76-year-old with bushy gray hair growing horizontally off his head like a subdued Doc Brown is the white hat — the boss — on his crew. Brennan is in his third stint as OCFOA president and stands behind the quarterback for Friday night lights. When Capistrano Valley’s Todd Marinovich broke Pat Haden’s Southern Section career passing record in 1987, Brennan was there in his white and black stripes. Those were still his early days — later building rapport with coaches such as Mater Dei’s Bruce Rollinson.

Here’s a profile.

Notes . . .

Dave Carlson has resigned as water polo coach at Los Alamitos. . . .

Crespi forward Peyton White has committed to Nevada. . . .

Euri Kim from Beckman High is one of the winners of the National Junior Tennis & Learning Essay Contest. She won in the 16 and under division. Each winner received a trip to New York from Aug. 21 to Aug. 24, during which they were able to experience parts of US Open Fan Week, accompany USTA Foundation Chairperson and 18-time grand slam singles champion Chris Evert on Wall Street to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange and participate in an immersive learning experience with representatives from Deloitte. . . .

Standout junior girls’ soccer goalie Peyton Trayer of Santa Margarita has committed to North Carolina. Standout junior soccer player from JSerra, Peyton Marinos, has committed to Stanford. Junior Kaia Santomarco-King of Harvard-Westlake has committed to Colorado. . . .

A South East High football player, Christian Garcia, died on Wednesday nearly two weeks after suffering a serious injury during a junior varsity game on Aug. 23. Here’s the report.

Girls’ basketball player Lev Feiman from Brentwood has committed to UCSD. . . .

Girls’ basketball player Jordin Blackmon from Bishop Montgomery has committed to Rice. . . .

Long Beach Jordan football coach Jon Nielsen has taken a leave of absence from the program.

From the archives: Arlis Boardingham

Lake Balboa Birmingham wide receiver Arlis Boardingham (1) catches a pass and runs for a touchdown.

(Alex Gallardo / For The Times)

Former Birmingham receiver Arlis Boardingham is starting at tight end in his third season at Florida. He had 26 receptions last season. He had two catches for 16 yards on Saturday against Samford.

At Birmingham, he was the City Section player of the year in 2021 after leading the Patriots to the Open Division championship.

Here’s a story from 2019 on his potential.

Here’s a story from 2021 when he was the Back of the Year.

Recommendations

From Dallasnews.com, an editorial on transfers disrupting high school sports in Texas.

From CBSSports.com, a story on former Servite defensive tackle Matt Graham‘s road to stardom.

From Slamonline, a story on Tajh Ariza and transferring to his father’s alma mater, Westchester.

From OCVarsity.com, a story explaining transfer policy.

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