CERRITOS-The Harbor City Narbonne High School football team strutted into its California regional state playoff game with some pretty gaudy credentials. Before its matchup with Corona of Centennial at Cerritos College to see which team would represent Southern California in the state championship game, Narbonne, featuring one of the best prep quarterbacks in the country in Troy Williams, carried a No. 1 state ranking.
Narbonne has been even recognized nationally, earning a Top Ten berth in several high school football polls, even going as high as being ranked No. 2. Xcellent25 Rankings had the Gauchos ranked ninth in the nation. Narbonne had earned those high standings because of they had been doing on the football field.
Narbonne has been dominant on both sides of the ball this season. The Gauchos have held opponents to 143 points total, while scoring 662 points themselves. And they’ve been putting up impressive numbers all season.
Before entering this contest, Narbonne had beat up on some of best teams in Southland, whipping Long Beach Poly in a 56-0 rout, defeating Gardena Serra 22-9, eking out a 18-17 win against prep powerhouse Mater Dei and bullying its way past Crenshaw High School in a 25-0 shutout victory for the CIF-Los Angeles City title. It was an impressive resume the Gauchos had built.
With those victories under its belt, it would seem that Narbonne would fulfill its destination of playing in the state title game. The Gauchos fell one game short of that goal. One minute and 10 seconds to be precise. Narbonne (14-1) and Williams saw that dream go up in smoke after losing to Corona of Centennial 41-34 in a wild game that once saw the Gauchos down 20-0.
Narbonne, after a dismal start in which they punted the ball three of the first four times they had possession of the ball, finally got untracked with a scoring drive on the team’s fifth series of the game.
After going down 20-0 zip, Williams, who has verbally committed to the University of Washington, then marched his team the length of the field, punctuating the scoring drive with a 23-yard touchdown pass to Jon’tae Roberson to put Narbonne on the scoreboard. Centennial roared right back to score another touchdown right before halftime to take a 27-8 lead into intermission.
Things looked pretty bleak for Narbonne at that point. Outside of their only scoring drive, Williams and the Gauchos’ potent offense showed no signs of life whatsoever in the first half. Narbonne’s usually dependable, stingy defense appeared leaky and disoriented. If ever a game smelled of a blowout, this one was it.
However, all of that changed in the second half as Narbonne came out and started playing the way they had been playing all season: and that’s lights out. With the offense clicking on all cylinders, Narbonne got to within four points (27-22) of Centennial by the end of the third quarter, and had the game’s momentum swinging their way. Centennial responded with another scoring drive at the beginning of the fourth quarter to expand its lead to 34-22.
Undeterred, Williams came back with another scoring toss to Roberson to cut the lead to 34-28 with a little more than five minutes remaining in the game. Narbonne’s defense then stiffened on the Centennial’s next possession, forcing Corona to punt. Again, Williams and Narbonne marched down the field, this time tying the game with a minute and change left in the quarter on a three-yard run by A.J. Richardson.
Instead of kicking the point after attempt, Narbonne opted to go for the two-point conversion. They failed. Centennial, thanks to two defensive pass interference calls against Narbonne, came right back in less than a minute to score the game-winning touchdown with 22 ticks left on the clock, robbing the Gauchos of their dream season.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
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