PHOTOS: Crean Lutheran coach says team ‘will bounce back’ from loss for CIF playoffs

Ty Benefield of Crean Lutheran goes up for a catch as John Santos of Cypress defends Thursday night. (Photo courtesy Crean Lutheran Shutterbugs / Ted Rigoni).

Crean Lutheran High School’s football players and coaches will find out Sunday who the Saints will face in the opening round of the CIF playoffs next week. It will be Crean Lutheran’s first trip to the playoffs since 2017.

Coach Rick Curtis said after Thursday’s 42-6 loss to Cypress that he expects his squad to be ready.

“They will bounce back, we haven’t had a lot of adversity throughout the year, we will see how they respond,” he said.

Curtis said he’s convinced the players will come out ready.

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Thursday’s game, witnessed by about 1,200 fans including enthusiastic members of the Blue Zone student section, was for the league title. Cypress fans, like Crean Lutheran fans, packed their side of the on-campus stadium.

Both teams had already clinched playoff berths, Cypress perhaps in Division 4 and Crean Lutheran in possibly Division 7 or 8.

“They’re a great football team and a great football program,” Curtis said after Thursday’s game. “They’re a bigger school, we were just excited to be in the championship game and our kids played really hard, they prepared hard and were ready to play.

“You can’t make mistakes against a great football team so we had to to bring an A game. We didn’t have an A game, we had some mistakes early and their quarterback (Aidan Houston) just ran all over us. He did a great job. They’re well coached and they found the seams on third downs in the second quarter and they kept converting on the long third downs, and that hurt us.

“But I’m proud of our kids, we went 9-1 and in second place and we’re going to the playoffs. There are a lot of great, posiitive things going on. It was a great crowd and a great environment and pretty fun. We have nothing to be ashamed about, we’re just proud of our kids and how hard they played. I don’t think we’re going to play a team as good as these guys, they’re going to be Division 3 or 4 and we’re probably going to be Division 7 or 8.

“What a season, to be able to play in the championship game and turn the program around to where we are. I think we’re making some noise in Orange County.”

“I would like to be in a division where we’re seeded, that would be great and to have a home game and to have this environment again would be awesome. But we will wait until Sunday and see where the chips fall.”

Hundreds of Crean Lutheran students gathered before the game for a pre-game celebration and the students, packed into a bleacher section in the end zone, had plenty to cheer about early when Crean Lutheran took a 6-0 lead. Quarterback Gavin Rogers connected with Ty Benefield for the score.

But undefeated Cypress, behind Houston, took charge after that, jumping to a 21-6 halftime lead. The Centurions led 35-6 after three quarters.

“Benefield is the real deal, Gavin Rogers plays great, we have a lot of other weapons with running backs and receivers and we have six players on defense who are sophomores,” Curtis said. “So we have a lot of young kids and we’re excited about the program.”

Curtis is optimistic about the future of the program, which had just one win last year on the varsity level. The junior varsity team will battle Cypress JV for the league title Friday,

“The future is great, we’re super excited about our sophomore class and tomorrow (Friday) we’re playing for another championship,” he said. “It’s fun to see.”

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