<\/span><\/p>\nThe best returner on the Friars’ team is Cody Fajardo, their starting quarterback and their most dynamic player. <\/span>Fajardo, a first-team all-league selection in the Trinity League last year, has an accurate short\/mid-range arm, and the strength to get it downfield, if less accurately. <\/span>He’s also a threat running the ball, a skill he used with some success against Lakewood\u2014if that young Poly defense doesn’t keep a man watching him, they could get burned, especially late in the game. <\/span>Fajardo, though, is a real talent\u2014two times he had his team in the two-minute drill against Lakewood last year, and those were his two best drives. <\/span>He’s a natural leader on the field, and it shows; he’s backed up by stud receiver Chris Nicholls, and maybe the best offensive line in Orange County.<\/p>\nThat line, which is of course central to everything Servite does, is hampered by a crucial injury to all-league tackle Matt Jakubiec, whose absence (due to a dislocated kneecap) could be felt if Poly spends time in the Friars backfield. <\/span>They’ll need to find a way to disrupt that line, because if Fajardo gets time, he’ll be dangerous.<\/p>\nDefensively, the Friars are a little friendlier. <\/span>Their strength is in pass defense, and it’s\u2014ahem\u2014unlikely that the ‘Rabbits will game plan a pass-first offense. <\/span>The Friars have a legitimate weakness against the run\u2014that’s how they lost the Lakewood game, giving up 247 yards (and three TDs) to the Lancers. <\/span>If Poly can contain Fajardo, and pound the ball straight at the Friars, they should get the Moore League schedule kicked off right. <\/span>We believe they can, which is why we’re picking Poly.<\/o:p><\/strong><\/p>\nGet out to the game tonight at 7pm to help usher in another great year of football\u2014you will probably be able to spot every other local coach there scouting one team or another, since nobody else is playing. <\/span>If you get there early enough, say hi to one of our staff, we’re planning on showing up about around six. <\/span>And if you can’t make the game for some reason, we will be posting live twitter updates (which you can see in the bottom right corner of our home page) throughout the game, and of course bringing you a highlight video and a game writeup later Thursday night.<\/o:p><\/p>\nHappy Thursday\u2014and welcome back to football season!<\/o:p><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SoCal high school football kicks off tonight with Poly\/Servite\u2014we break down what you should watch out for, and make our prediction for the first game of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"images\/archive\/sports\/image1251955498-86096.jpg\")
Photo by Angie Yen<\/em>