<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Despite Tesoro’s undefeated record going into their CIF semifinal match against Orange Lutheran, I think most people assumed the Lutheran Lancers would win—after all, fate seemed to dictate it. <\/span>O. Lu and Poly have met in the playoffs in the last two years, and both games have been classics, the first a 23-22 Lutheran win (after Poly missed its final extra point) and last year’s meeting, a 2-0 victory by Poly that’s one of the all-time great games played in Southern California (unless you don’t like defense). <\/span>Plus, O. Lu had just beaten previously unbeaten (and highly ranked nationally) Sherman Oaks\/Notre Dame. <\/span>Apparently, somebody forgot to tell Tesoro, who absolutely manhandled the Lancers, 42-14. <\/span>The Titans will now advance to face Poly in the championship game this Saturday at 7:30pm, at Angel Stadium.<\/span><\/p>\n Tesoro was impressive in pretty much every phase of the game—they came out firing on offense, running the ball effectively behind a massive offensive line, and throwing all over a pretty talented Lutheran secondary, too. <\/span>Robbie Picazo was 15\/21 for 206 yards and three TDs for the Titans, and he could’ve taken a stroller for a walk inside the massive pocket his linemen walled off for him. <\/span>Running back Zach Mitchell was elusive and explosive, but much of the credit for his 100+ yard performance has to be given to that line, which made life pretty easy for him.<\/span><\/p>\n But while Picazo and Mitchell (as well as standout receiver Preston King) are impressive, it was the Tesoro defense that propped them up, limiting Lutheran’s three-headed running back hydra to just nine yards—last week against undefeated Notre Dame they had over 300. <\/span>The Titans kept the Lancers out of their side of the field for the entire first half, sacked O. Lu’s QB five times, ripped and recovered a fumble, and had a pick. <\/span>And, thought it won’t be noted in a stat line, I didn’t see a single missed tackle.<\/span><\/p>\n In other words, they’re looking really, really good in coach Brian Barnes’ second season wearing the headset. <\/span>Fox Sports talked to Poly coach Raul Lara at halftime, and he had plenty to say about the Titans’ lines. <\/span>“They’re huge. <\/span>I couldn’t believe how big they are.”<\/span><\/p>\n As to whether or not they’re good enough to topple the Jackrabbits—well, we’ll find out on Saturday in a clash of the undefeateds. <\/span>Stay tuned this week as we’ll break down how these two teams match up, as well as give some keys to a Poly victory.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some initial thoughts on Tesoro, who Poly will meet this Saturday.<\/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-5192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192","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=5192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5192"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5192"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}