The Sunset League football title belongs to Los Alamitos and Coach John Barnes once more.
The Griffins defeated Edison High 35-14 last week at Veterans Stadium to gain the school’s 17th Sunset league title. It’s the 15th time that Barnes has achieved a league title as the Griffins head coach.
Los Al faces El Toro High in the first round of the CIF-SS West Valley division playoffs on Thursday, Nov. 13 at Vets Stadium.
Los Al averages more yards per game, 428 yards to the Chargers’ 126 yards, and they average slightly more points a game, 40 points to the Chargers’ 35 points.
El Toro’s quarterback Trey Tinsley has had a killer season for the Chargers this year. Standing at 6-foot-3, Tinsley is towering player that has had a lot of success with El Toro despite the Chargers’ third place South Coast league finish. Tinsley is averaging over 300 passing yards a game and has already thrown almost 30 touchdown passes this year.
Los Al’s Matt Locher is all too familiar with hurrying quarterbacks as he has led this year’s Griffins from the linebacker position. Locher is a 6-foot-3, 240-pound athlete that can stop a running back in full sprint just as well as he can brush off tackles when carrying the ball. Locher has recorded more than 100 total tackles on defense so far, and has scored at least once in six out of 10 games.
Against Edison, Locher ran in two touchdowns, one of which he ran in for more than 30 yards.
Capping off the Griffins run game is another talented linebacker, senior Denzal Brantley, who scored 10 touchdowns including receiving touchdowns in the last four games.