State's top offense may be at St. Mary's of Stockton…….Citrus Hill, Hawthorne extend state's longest winning and losing streaks……Loyola football coach resigns……Third Sac High girls bb player commits to big-time program…Go inside for closer look at all four stories.

By Mark Tennis, Executive Editor

So how good is the offense of the 5-0 and state top 10-ranked Stockton St. Mary's football team?

Well, we've seen several teams that are currently in the top 10 of the ESPN RISE FAB 50 national rankings – including state No. 1 Oaks Christian of Westlake Village and Florida No. 2 Lakeland – and we'd say that the St. Mary's offense is just as impressive, maybe even better, than either of those two teams.

This doesn't mean we think St. Mary's as a team overall is at the level of top 10 in the nation --- those other two we mentioned are superior defensively – but on the offensive side of the equation the Rams have few equals anywhere you look from coast to coast. Top-ranked St. Thomas Aquinas of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and previous No. 2 Byrnes of Duncan, S.C., could be better, but beyond them there is possibly no others.

The first ingredient to an unstoppable offense is obvious: balance. Even if a team had the greatest running back of all-time or the greatest quarterback of all-time, if that team can't run and pass equally well then opposing defenses can much more easily defend them. Then within those two elements the unstoppable offense needs to have multiple weapons who can catch the ball, run with the ball or throw it. Of course, there also has to be more than solid players up front along the offensive line doing the blocking.

St. Mary's clearly has all of these ingredients and, while there are teams you can point to around the state that have scored more points, none of those teams have played opponents like Central Catholic of Modesto (St. Mary's scored 50 against the Raiders last Friday), Lincoln of Stockton (48) or Bellarmine of San Jose (34).

Quarterback Marcus McDade has assumed controls of that offense after serving as a backup to current Oregon State true freshman Cody Vaz. After a spring and summer in which McDade proved he was a legitimate Division I college prospect, he's continued to progress in the fall. Against Central Catholic, the 6-3, 185-pound senior completed 12 of 24 passes for 270 yards and three touchdowns and also ran for a score.

"It's definitely fun in this offense,” McDade said shortly after last Friday's outing. "It's a lot of relief and takes a lot of pressure off me to know I've got four receivers like the ones we have. All I have to do is get them the ball.”

One of those receivers, Cal commit Josh Harper, said McDade has come a long way in a short time.

"He's improving every week,” Harper said. "We've still got work to do, but we're not far from getting to where we want to be.”

Harper didn't score against Central Catholic, although he had two called back after penalties. He's the best breakaway threat among the receivers and is the best at running after catching the ball.

Louie Lechich, the 6-3 senior who caught 15 passes in last year's CIF Div. II bowl game partly because Harper was out with an ankle injury, landed two of McDade's touchdown passes last Friday. The team's other two options are 6-3 junior Alex Michaels and 6-2 junior Justin Cox.

Maurice Howse is the team's top running back and is one of the top running backs in Northern California. He scored on a screen pass from McDade against Central Catholic and also hit paydirt on a 17-yard run. Chad West is an effective runner as well and there's even a promising sophomore, Marcus Brown, who returns kicks.

Head coach Tony Franks also has no qualms about inserting Jordan Davis and two fullbacks to run out of a power I-formation in short yardage situations. Davis scored on a one-yard run against Central Catholic and already has seven touchdowns on the season.

The offensive line, which was a question mark heading into the season, has done more than just hold up so far, but might have problems against a strong, physical defensive front like the one the Rams might face in the Sac-Joaquin Section Div. II playoffs.

No disrespect to any of the other strong teams that should be in those playoffs, but a matchup between the St. Mary's offense and the Grant of Sacramento defense (the best we've seen so far this season on that side of the ball) would be epic.

Losing Streak, Winning Streak Updates

After a 61-7 loss on Friday night to Leuzinger of Lawndale, the Hawthorne High football team extended the longest current losing streak in the state to 36 games.

The Cougars unfortunately moved up into that top spot after Mark Keppel of Alhambra snapped its 40-game losing the week before with a 36-0 shutout of El Monte Mountain View. Edson Gomez paced the win with two touchdown runs plus a touchdown pass.

Saddleback of Santa Ana also has snapped a long losing streak in the last two weeks. The Roadrunners ended their 23-game slide with a 34-21 win over Century of Santa Ana and then made it two wins in a row on Friday by topping Godinez of Santa Ana, 35-25.

McLane of Fresno now has the second-longest losing streak at 24 in a row. The Highlanders actually won via a forfeit this week against Taft, but on-the-field results is all that counts in this category of our record book. According to the Fresno Bee, Taft forfeited the game because it was scheduled for a Thursday and school adminstrators did not sign off on any games for a Thursday.

On the winning side, Citrus Hill of Perris clubbed Notre Dame of Riverside, 52-10, on Friday and pushed its winning streak to 33 games, which is the longest current winning streak in the state.

Still sitting at No. 2 on that list is defending CIF Division II state bowl game champ Cathedral Catholic of San Diego with 26 straight wins. The Dons were idle this week.

Another San Diego Section school, Oceanside, has a longer unbeaten streak than Cathedral Catholic at 29-0-1 but not as long of an unbeaten streak as Citrus Hill. Like Cathedral Catholic, the Pirates also were idle this week.

Kearin resigns at Loyola

Missing on the sidelines for the Loyola of Los Angeles football team during Saturday night's 35-14 loss against unbeaten Valencia was former head coach Jeff Kearin, who resigned within the last week.

Expectations were high when Kearin came to the school in 2005 after he guided Brophy Prep of Phoenix to an Arizona state title. Then in his very first season at Loyola the Cubs won the CIF Southern Section Division I title. The Cubs failed to make the playoffs the last two seasons and although they did get into the Pac-Five Division playoffs last season they didn't last long with a 37-7 loss to Mission Viejo in the first round.

This year, with highly-recruited running back Anthony Barr coming back, Loyola was foreseen as a darkhorse candidate in the Pac-Five Division. But Barr went down early with a season-ending knee injury and the Cubs haven't been the same. The loss to Valencia dropped their record to 2-3.

There's obviously some behind-the-scenes reasons for Kearin to depart during the season. We just hope that this proud program can turn it around under interim coach Adam Guerra, who has been the team's defensive coordinator.

Third Dragon heading D1 in girls hoops

It's close to preseason rankings time in boys and girls basketball and it's no secret that one of the top girls  teams in Northern California is going to be Sacramento.

The Dragons were only 23-10 last year, but three of those losses were to nationally-ranked St. Mary's of Stockton and the last one of those losses was by just 75-69 in the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs.

A great indicator of how good Sac might be is that a third player of the team's senior class has now committed to a major Division I college. According to the Sacramento Bee, 6-3 center Kyra Dunn will sign with Pittsburgh next month. The other two Sac players who already have committed are guard Brittany Shine with Florida and forward Erica Barnes with Arizona.

If any of our readers want to chime in on which teams should be included in our own preseason state rankings, be sure to let us know.

Corrections or comments? Email mark@studentsports.com and be sure to leave a comment of your own so others can check it out.