PHOTOS: Sunny Hills completes Chapter 14 with a CIF title and gets ready for regionals

Sunny Hills coaches and players celebrate the team’s CIF Division 8 title Saturday night. (Photos courtesy Jim McCormack, For OC Sports Zone)

There have been countless references to a “storybook” year when discussing the 2019 Sunny Hills Lancers this season and now that Chapter 14 has been written anyone not witness to what has transpired in the last four weeks would think any such book belonged in the Fiction Department.

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But, as we all learn sooner or later, truth is often stranger than fiction.

That would be the case with the Lancers, who overcame two fourth-quarter deficits to defeat Santa Barbara 24-21, in the CIF Division 8 football title game at San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara.

“We can’t just win,” said Lancer Coach Pete Karavedas with a smile. “We’ve got to make it interesting.

And interesting the Lancers have been … In three of their four playoff wins, they’ve had to score 14 fourth-quarter points to prevail … Tustin (21-14), Trabuco Hills (31-27) and, Saturday night, Santa Barbara.

Saturday night, playing before a damp, enthralled crowd that included an impressive contingent of Sunny Hills’ fans, the Lancers, who had trailed since Santa Barbara’s first drive of the night, took a 17-14 lead with 8:13 remaining when Vince Silva caught a 5-yard pass from Luke Duxbury.

That didn’t last long. Santa Barbara, led by 6-4, 225-pound junior quarterback Deacon Hill, a Wisconsin-commit, zipped down the field with Hill scoring on a 29-yard run up the middle after first dropping back to pass. Hill was responsible for all three Santa Barbara scores, throwing a 20-yard TD pass to Dakota Hill and running two yards for another.

Facing defeat with 4:35 remaining, Sunny Hills mounted its own comeback with a drive up-field. On the seventh play of the march, at its own 42, Duxbury found Silva in the crease and Silva pulled away from a would-be tackler on at the 20 and raced 58 yards for the TD that pulled Sunny Hills back ahead 24-21 with 1:38 remaining.

In the last two games, Silva, a junior who also plays linebacker, has scored six of the Lancers’ seven touchdowns, five on passes from Duxbury, who has thrown four fourth-quarter TD passes in the last two games. Silva scored Sunny HIlls’ first TD Saturday night on a 9-yard run.

Santa Barbara (11-3) had one timeout remaining, and the remarkable Hill at quarterback leading the Golden Tornado (a reference to the school’s football teams that reach the playoffs).

And, as could be expected, Hill move his club downfield, reaching the 19 with 28 seconds to play. It was there that Hill’s end zone pass, intended for Dakota Hill was intercepted by the Lancers’ Wilson Cal in the end zone.

“We were in a zone with help from the safeties, but Wilson didn’t need it,” said Karavedas. “”He just won the race to the ball.”

A week earlier, Carson Irons’ interception at the one secured the semifinal victory over Trabuco Hills.

Saturday’s victory not only earned the Lancers’ a cherished CIF championship plaque, their first in 27 years, but a trip to Bakersfield, where they will play Bakersfield Christian Saturday in the Southern California Regional opener.

RELATED: Breaking Saturday story and photo on Sunny Hills

 —Story courtesy Jim McCormack for OC Sports Zone