Proving that the lineup is much more indeed than the incredibly versatile Isaiah Burse, a showdown of 8-0 teams in Modesto on Friday night was taken by host Modesto Christian, 21-16, over Escalon.

While Burse was the best playmaker on the field, junior tight end Raymond Nelson was a force as well, senior running back Kevin Roya had some clutch runs (10 carries, 55 yards) and senior running back Aaron Brown had a touchdown run for the Crusaders.

Modesto Christian improved to 9-0 and will stay atop the CIF North Small School bowl game rankings. Head coach Mike Parsons' team couldn't hold onto that ranking a year ago after losing to Escalon.

(Note: It is not our intention to entice gambling in any way with these predicted scores. We will only use actual scores, not point spreads. Finally, because we greatly respect all coaches and student-athletes who step onto the field to compete, the winning margin of some predicted scores could be pared down.) 

After a couple of 3-3 weeks, we bounced back with a 5-1 showing and are now at 36-12 with two weeks to go in the regular season. Here are the predicted scores and analysis for the top games around California coming up this weekend:

The "Battle for the Bell" has been an intense rivalry over the years and this year's game at Cal-State Fullerton could turn into an instant classic. Even if both teams weren't 8-0, this would be an intense and emotional game. With Fountain Valley, it's hard to say what is the best team it has beaten after eight weeks, but it might be the 4-4 Newport Harbor squad the Barons topped last week by five points. Edison, on the other hand, has beaten some pretty tough teams in the past six weeks. The Chargers handed Dana Hills and Servite its only losses of so far. A source we trust commented on how good he thought Servite looked against Mater Dei and we can't get over how good Edison played in its win over Servite. Fountain Valley was a little sloppy last week and will need to be perfect in this one and that's always hard to do in such an emotionally-charged game. We'll be at this game, but for live coverage you can tune in to IBNSPORTS.com. Rankings: Edison is No. 5 overall in the state and is No. 46 in the ESPN RISE FAB 50. Fountain Valley is No. 24 overall in the state and is No. 20 in the overall SoCal top 20.