Crosstown rivalry rolls onto gridiron
SCCS, Trinity to face off in 11-man for the first time
Just how important is this football game?
It already has an official logo and nickname attached, and there’s even a sponsored pre-game tailgating event. All this before a single down of 11-man football has been played between these two teams.
In a local rivalry game already charged with emotion and some colorful history, Santa Clarita Christian (4-1) will face Trinity Classical Academy (3-1) on the football field this Saturday at Canyon High School starting at 7 p.m.
The matchup between the two private Christian schools is being dubbed “The Faith Bowl.”
It will be the first gridiron contest between the teams since 2010, when both played 8-man football and Trinity was a brand new program. That’s the only time the teams have faced off, and SCCS — then an 8-man powerhouse — won it 46-0.
A lot has happened since then to build a whole heap of anticipation for this weekend. “For the people who know the history of the two schools, it’s going to be a real doozy of a game,” said Trinity head coach Les Robinson.
This game was put on the schedule almost immediately after Trinity announced it was moving from 8-man to 11-man back in February.
SCCS had already made
the step up to 11-man prior to the 2011 season, which negated the possibility of the rivals facing off at the time.
But there was always a plan to reignite an annual matchup.
“Whenever Trinity announced they were 11-man, all (my) players were like, ‘You’ve got to get them on the schedule.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve already talked over the years,’” said SCCS head coach Garrick Moss.
Athletes at the schools first became acquainted on the basketball court and baseball diamond.
SCCS has mostly held the upper hand in baseball, winning 10 of 12 matchups. Boys basketball has been much more evenly split, though Trinity holds a slight edge in the series, 7-6
he rivalry came to a head this past season on the hardwood, where Trinity squeaked by SCCS twice in a pair of thrilling games. The first of those two was a wild double-overtime game that ended with Ian Caddow’s buzzerbeating 3-pointer to give his Knights
the 77-75 victory.
Caddow is a senior tight end and linebacker on Trinity’s football team, and he understands the meaning of Saturday’s game as well as anyone.
“There’s more to it. This game means more. We’re the only two religious high schools in Santa Clarita, so in a way it’s fighting to be the best in Santa Clarita,” said Caddow, who is Trinity’s leading receiver with 393 yards and four touchdowns while also posting a team-high 54 tackles.
For some SCCS players, the pain of those basketball games still resonates. It only fuels the excitement for Saturday’s matchup.
“This has kind of been one of the main goals of the season,” said SCCS junior wide receiver Jacob Moss. “I remember over the summer when we were practicing, the coaches were just like, ‘Week 6, week 6 (against Trinity).’ And that was just a topic that was going around.”
And as if there weren’t enough storylines going into Saturday, there’s also the fact that Robinson was SCCS’s offensive coordinator for two years before he took over the Trinity job.
He helped install some of the same
concepts that the Cardinals still use.
And they’re working very well so far, with SCCS quarterback Tristan Miller leading the CIF-Southern Section East Valley Division with 1,750 yards and 26 touchdown passes.
Moss is leading the division with 629 receiving yards.
“What they do, they do well,” Robinson said of the SCCS passing attack. “Nobody does it better in that division.”
While SCCS is pass-happy, the Knights strive for more balance. Running back Caden Kulp is the centerpiece of the ground game (108 yards per game) while quarterback Tyler Lee is in charge of the aerial side (807 yards, nine touchdowns).
The bottom line is SCCS has played at this level for four and a half seasons already, while Trinity is only four games into its first 11man season. The Cardinals also have a big advantage in roster size, with 35 players compared to Trinity’s 21. On paper, that would make the Cardinals significant favorites.
Then again, in these rivalry games, you just never know.