As he held the championship trophy high, San Pedro flag football coach Ron Carter faced his players and shouted “third time’s a charm!”
The Pirates beat Marine League rival Banning 14-7 in the City Section Open Division final Saturday night at Contreras High in L.A. to capture their first flag title and avenge an overtime loss in the final two years ago.
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The first half was a defensive stalemate, but the Pirates scored on an eight-yard strike from sophomore quarterback Daniela Ardaiz to senior receiver Lexi Lopez late in the third quarter. Ardaiz ran for the one-point conversion to make it 7-0.
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The Pilots tied it on Victoria Guerra’s 11-yard touchdown catch and the subsequent one-point conversion run by Arianna Martinez with 8:55 left in the fourth quarter.
San Pedro (18-8) marched to the five-yard line on its ensuing possession before Ardaiz threw a dart to Lopez, who outmuscled a defender for the ball at the goal line for the go-ahead score with 2:13 left. Maya Solorio caught the one-point conversion to make it 14-7.
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Banning (12-11), which lost both of its league contests against San Pedro by six combined points, moved to the Pirates’ 26 before Ardaiz picked off a pass over the middle at the 15 and returned it to the 35 to seal the victory with 7.6 seconds left.
Ardaiz finished the season with 60 touchdown passes and Lopez had 28 touchdown catches, none bigger than the last one — the final grab of her career.
“I was the only freshman on the team the first year and this is my last game, so I wanted to play my best,” said Lopez, who also plays second base and pitches for the Pirates’ softball team.
The winning touchdown play was called “Smash Right.”
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“The most important thing was to catch it with two hands and hold onto the ball,” Lopez said. “I didn’t know if it would be a touchdown. … I didn’t think it was across the plane.”
It was San Pedro’s 90th win in the last four seasons — the most of any City school since the sport debuted in 2023 — and it eased the pain of the Pirates’ previous playoff failures. They had a tying score called back in a loss to Birmingham in the inaugural Open Division final, lost to Banning the next year and were upset 14-13 by eventual champion Marshall in the semifinals last season.
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Nina Ramirez threw three touchdown passes — two to Cindy Martinez and the other to her sister Amber — and Taiya Johnson and Sydney Tibbals each intercepted a pass in the fourth quarter to preserve the shutout in Cleveland’s 18-0 victory over King/Drew in the preceding Division I final. The Cavaliers (13-5) finished on a seven-game winning streak.
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Cleveland lost to El Camino Real 26-0 in the Division II final in 2024. King/Drew lost to Narbonne 7-0 in the Division I final the same year.
North Hollywood scored twice in the first half of the Division II final and held on for a 12-6 victory over Westchester, which cut its deficit in half with three minutes left in the fourth quarter. It was the first City title for the Huskies (16-4), who denied the Comets (12-6) their second crown. Westchester captured the Division III crown last fall.
In the first game of the day, Crenshaw defeated South Gate 7-0 in the Division IV final, and in the following Division III final, Sotomayor scored late in the fourth quarter to edge Santee 6-0. The Cougars (10-10) and Wolves (19-8) both won their first City titles.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
