PHOTOS: Portola earns first trip to CIF finals with home playoff victory over Baldwin Park

Portola players including Malachi Moore (26), Anthony Riccardi (23), Diego Reyna (5) and Nash Luper (3) celebrate after a CIF semifinal playoff victory over Baldwin Park Friday night. (Photos courtesy Mark Bausman, For OC Sports Zone).

Portola High School’s football team added another chapter to its historic season Friday night defeating Baldwin Park 30-14 in the CIF Division 11 semifinals at Portola.

However, the story is not quite complete.

The Bulldogs, who were making their first appearance in the semifinals since starting varsity football in 2018, move on to the CIF title game next Friday at Portola vs. El Rancho, which defeated San Gorgonio 28-21 in the other semifinal.

To see the slide show, click on the first photo:

Portola (7-6) started the season 0-5, entered the playoffs as the No. 16 seed, finished second in the Omicron League and now is in the finals, much to the delight of their excited student supporters.

“We’re proud, we get to celebrate the legacy, not just of one kid, one coach, one player, one team but we’ve been working on this for about 10 to 12 years in terms of program development, culture development from those coaches and kids who were here,” said Coach Peter Abe, the Bulldogs coach from the start.

“We jokingly call them the 12 kids on the fence, those 12 kids who started the program on the fence and knew nothing about what football was, they listened and they built strong foundations. We’ve been through our ups and downs as a program and because of that legacy we keep rising to the occasion.”

It was a true team effort for Portola.

Quarterback Nash Luper had one of his best outings completing 6 of 12 passes for 133 yards and two touchdowns, placekicker Ishaan Kedia kicked field goals of 41, 21 and 32 yards, running back Diego Reyna carried the load offensively with 132 yards rushing on 14 carries and a 24-yard TD run which put the Bulldogs ahead 30-14 with 2:58 remaining in the game.

Reyna was the primary running back. Timmy Grettenberg has been the dominant leading rusher for Portola but Abe said he limited his carries due to a minor injury. Grettenberg wound up rushing for 34 yards on eight carries.

“It was day to day so we didn’t want to push it,” Abe said. “But we didn’t want to force it, force it here and win or lose, then he’s not good for next week or the future, so we were conservative with him today.”

The Bulldogs defense put constant pressure on Baldwin Park quarterback Jake Garcia. Adam Nofal had some key quarterback sacks which backed up Baldwin Park.

“(Nofal) broke our sack record, guys came up big when it counted, we didn’t have any turnovers (in the first half), we had sacks, offense moved the ball and put it in the end zone and put the ball through the uprights and we get some defensive stops, we get our field position and the rest is what you saw, field position wins games,” Abe said.

“We’ve seen the extreme highs and the extreme lows all year. We are confident that we can rise to that occasion. The kids don’t panic, they don’t get too low or too high. They just keep playing. I’m so proud of those guys for that, play Bulldog football, we got a shot.”

Baldwin Park (7-6) took the opening lead when Mark Carbajal scored on a 5-yard TD run with 5:40 left in the first quarter. The Bulldogs cut the lead to 7-3 on Kedia’s first field goal. Portola moved ahead 10-7 when Luper connected with Jamal Abdelkarim on a 7-yard TD pass in the second quarter. The score was set up on a 26-yard pass play from Luper to Anthony Riccardi.

In the third quarter Baldwin Park’s Aldo Hernandez intercepted a pass and returned the ball 35 yards to the Portola 5-yard line, setting up Carbajal’s second TD to put the Braves ahead 14-10.

But Luper responded on the next series, connecting with Malachi Moore on a 67-yard scoring strike to give Portola a 17-14 lead.

Kedia added two more field goals and Reyna’s TD run capped the scoring and sent the Bulldogs onto the finals.

“It was just a great team effort, I was putting the ball in places where our guys could make great plays and those plays were made,” said Luper, the Portola quarterback.

Portola was hoping to use the big play in the game in the biggest contest of the season.

“We ran it in practice, we saw it was going to be open, we ran that same exact play once in the game and I hit a check down route, we saw that he was open so we went right back to that later in the game for the touchdown,” Luper said. “It feels amazing, I want to take it all the way. I want to shoutout my offensive line, those guys work their butts off and none of this would be possible without them.

“I also want to shoutout the scout offense in practice because they help us prepare and get ready for games.”

Reyna, the running back, praised the preparation of the Bulldog coaches.

“They put in a relentless effort and relentless time for us to have this success, I have to thank my O-Line, they helped us get stuff rolling on offense and I got to thank that D-line as well, they’re getting all that pressure,” said Reyna, who also played defense.

Reyna was prepared to carry the bulk of the running game, he said.

“He (Grettenberg) was a little banged up but he still came out and did the most he can for the team and that helped us with the victory tonight,” Reyna said. “It was overall, just a great team effort.”

Nofal, who was a force all night on defense, was ecstatic too. He led the way with four sacks.

“I give all my credit to all my coaches, definitely my teammates helping on the D-Line, we always have a fantastic and phenomenal game, luckily I broke the sack record for the school and I believe I broke the sack record for most sacks in a game as well,” he said.

Carbajal led Baldwin Park rushing for 63 yards on 16 carries. Garcia passed for 125 yards but was intercepted twice.

Abdelkarim had the second interception deep in Portola territory with eight seconds left. The Bulldogs then ran out the clock and celebrated.

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