Century ends CIF playoff drought with decisive Zeta League victory over Godinez

Century players and coaches celebrate after clinching a CIF playoff berth Friday. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).

Century High School’s football team is going to the CIF playoffs after an historic 41-7 Zeta League victory over Godinez Friday night at Santa Ana Valley.

It’s the first trip to the playoffs for the program since 2004, according to Coach Lance Neal, who watched his team jump out to a 28-0 halftime lead.

Friday’s game was a battle for second place and the second and final automatic CIF playoff from the league. Century is 6-4 overall and 2-2 in league while Godinez is 5-5 overall and 2-2 in league. Godinez can still apply for an at-large entry based on a .500 overall record.

“It’s something we talked about, we thought during the summer we could win four to seven games and we won six, we hit a little bit of a rough streak,” Neal said. “We were playing like this in the pre-season and then, I don’t know why, we were practicing good but we weren’t as sharp for a couple league games and they bounced back tonight.

“I’m really happy for them. They’ve worked really hard and they deserved this and I thought they deserved it and I wasn’t sure if it was going to work out the way we’ve been playing, but tonight, they came out and they earned it so I’m really happy for them. They worked hard and they deserve success.”

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Century came out on fire in the first half behind running back Noe Najera. Najera wound up with four touchdowns and 156 yards rushing. Najera set the tone in the first quarter with a 52-yard run. He also hauled in a 27-yard TD pass from quarterback Daniel Joya and had two 1-yard TD runs in the second half.

Joya was on target, completing 14 of 17 passes for 261 yards and two touchdowns. He connected on a 7-yard TD pass to Anthony Guerrero and a 27-yard TD pass to Najera in the second quarter.

Godinez broke the shutout on a 3-yard TD run by Alexis Jimenez in the third quarter. But Century’s defense dominated after that and several quarterback sacks backed the Grizzlies up.

Henry Vega led Godinez rushing for 115 yards on 13 carries.

“We’ve been talking about it since freshmen year, we have to make it happen, and execute, let’s be leaders out there and execute,” said Joya of a talk he and Najera had on the way to the game.

“It means a lot, because hard work pays off and the dedication all these boys had when you don’t want to wake up at six in the morning, seven in the morning and come to practice, but they put on those pads and we come out and ball out, and we came out and practice harder every single day.”

“We’ve been executing our assignments, we have a great coaching staff, everybody plays their heart out, we’re ready, come Monday, we’re back in the lab and ready to go,” added Najera.

Najera credited his teammates for helping him score the four touchdowns.

“They’re all thanks to my team,” he said. “They all block for me and they all do a great job. We all just execute our assignments. Everybody blocks, everybody runs hard, we all do our job.”

“Noe has been running great all year,” added Neal, the coach. “He had 200 yards last week against Saddleback and Daniel was really good all pre-season and then he struggled a little bit in league so I was really happy for him to perform like he had been performing earlier in the year tonight.”

Godinez coach Aron Kaye was having a lengthy meeting with his players after the game as the Century players began to exit the field.

CIF playoff pairings will be announced Sunday.

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com