South Hills High School Varsity Football Team

When high school football teams gather in the spring and regroup in the summer, one of the biggest goals throughout camp is practicing on Thanksgiving, which eight area teams have the privilege of doing today after advancing to the second round of the CIF-Southern Section divisional playoffs.

For South Hills, practicing on Thanksgiving is almost a tradition.

The Huskies haven’t missed a second-round appearance this decade, and have advanced to the second round 16 of the last 17 years.

The last Thanksgiving practice the Huskies missed was in 1998, and prior to that was 1992.

No. 2 South Hills (9-2) escaped last week’s opening round of the Southeast Division playoffs with a 28-21 victory over Bonita, and will be on the road against Crescenta Valley (8-3) in Friday’s second round at Glendale High School at 7 p.m.

“When you look back and think about it, we have been very fortunate,” South Hills coach Steve Bogan said. “Your goal is always to be the best you can be, to be in the hunt and practice on Thanksgiving, because that means your a step closer to your ultimate goal.

“But the irony is, you’re never satisfied with it, only one team is going to be happy when it’s all over. You have to move on and start thinking about the bigger goals.”

South Hills is the only area team to advance to the second round every year this decade.

“What I have always believed is just to keep working on the next game, and the next play,” Bogan said. “You have to keep moving forward. If you become a museum in your mind you start taking things for granted, and you think (what you’re accomplishing) is not that big of a deal, but it is a big deal. For me personally, keeping that effort mentally and physically is a big part of what we try to do.”

Like most teams, South Hills will have a morning practice then turn the players loose to be with their families.

“You don’t do a lot of things different, it’s your normal Thursday practice, just a little earlier,” Bogan said. “On Friday we will have a team breakfast, then a walk-through and be ready to go.”

Down the street West Covina (7-4) will be preparing to take on top-ranked Charter Oak (10-1) in another Southeast second-round game at 7 p.m. Friday.

The Bulldogs have made it to the second round five of the past six years and advanced to the semifinals last year.

Bulldogs coach Mike Maggiore said today’s morning practice will include family members.

“It’s a special day, you don’t mind having family and friends around,” Maggiore said. “Afterward, we will have some food for the kids to eat, watch some film and then get ready for Friday.”

The last time Baldwin Park advanced to the second round was 1992, a year after the school’s second divisional title in 1991.

The Braves (9-2) are facing Whittier Christian (8-3) in the Mid-Valley Division second round on Friday at Whittier College, but don’t have anything special planned today, just the normal routine.

“I haven’t had a chance to think about how long it has been since we had a Thanksgiving practice, but that’s always the goal,” Baldwin Park coach James Heggins said. “You want to be part of that short list of teams that gets to keep playing, that’s what it’s all about.”

Heggins said making sure everyone is healthy and in good spirits is important.

“We will do things as normal as we can (today),” Heggins said. “It won’t be very intense and not very long, the kids want to be with their families.

“At this point in the season you are who you are, you just have to sharpen things up and leave it all out there come Friday.”

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GLENDALE -South Hills High School kicker Austin Daugherty put the foot back into football.

His two field goals sparked the second- seeded Huskies to a 33-23 victory over Crescenta Valley in a CIF-Southern Section Southeast Division second-round game at Glendale High on Friday night.

“I had to bounce back after missing that first one,” Daugherty said. “Being a kicker you just have to forget about it and shake it off. I haven’t had many (field goal) opportunities this year but you have to come up big when you need to.”

The Huskies (10-2) will host Diamond Ranch in a semifinal game next week. The Panthers knocked the Huskies out in the second round last year.

Daugherty’s second field goal made it a three-possession game and the Huskies defense allowed the Falcons (8-4) only four plays in the third quarter.

Geoffrey Vaughns was held to 43 yards rushing but caught five passes for 103 yards and two touchdowns and had two interceptions to lead the Huskies.

“Our plan was to control the clock,” Huskies coach Steve Bogan said. “We ran just enough to control the clock and bring some play-action passes to light that could help us.”

The Huskies had four interceptions in addition to recovering two onside kicks.

Dakota Behr recovered both onside kicks and caught a 43-yard pass from Jake Shirley for the first score of the game.

Daugherty drove the final nail in the Falcons’ coffin when he punted the ball out of bounds at the Falcons 9-yard line.

“I haven’t had to punt in two years,” Daugherty said. “I had to step up when Jake Shirley got hurt and I just came through.”

Bishop Amat’s last-minute 28-21 victory over Mater Dei in the CIF-Southern Section Pac-5 Division playoff opener was the game of the night Friday, but Charter Oak and South Hills, the top two teams in the Southeast Division, played perhaps the best games of survive and advance.

Charter Oak hung on to defeat Muir 20-19 after nearly blowing a 20-0 lead in the fourth quarter and survived a do-or-die two-point conversion attempt by the 4-7 Mustangs.

South Hills raced to a 21-0 lead against Bonita (3-8), but needed Jamel Hart’s 15-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter to squeeze out a 28-21 win after the Bearcats rallied to tie the score in the third quarter.

“We were on the bus home when someone said Muir had a chance to win going for two,” South Hills coach Steve Bogan said. “I’m going, `Whoa.’ You just never know. That’s football, you just never know.”

Charter Oak (10-1), the defending champion, is 23-1-1 over the past two years and entered the playoffs by outscoring its Miramonte League foes 123-0.

South Hills (9-2) almost was as dominating down the stretch in winning the San Antonio League by a 23-point margin mostly because of its defense.

How did both teams, with arguably two of the best defenses in the Valley and a lot of pre-playoff swagger, come within minutes of missing Thanksgiving practice?

“Teams played inspired football this time of year,” Bogan said. “When you see a team come back on you, you can grit your teeth and say how much you want it but that won’t change a thing.

“You have to make great plays with great effort, and if you’re the better team you will turn it around. You just don’t want to hit the panic button. You have to stay in control and fight your way out of it.”

Charter Oak coach Lou Farrar described Friday’s near-disaster like a rope slipping through your hands and trying to hang on for dear life.

The Chargers led 20-0 with 8:27 left when the dominoes started to fall.

The Mustangs scored the potential game-tying touchdown on quarterback Jarron Williams’ 30-yard touchdown pass to Ormoni Duncan with four seconds remaining to make it 20-19.

“I don’t know if we were too relaxed or what, but you see it in the NFL on Sunday’s. You’re moving along and then on one play, the momentum just shifts and its hard to get back,” Farrar said. “You feel that rope slipping and it’s kind of out of your control. You’re squeezing and squeezing but it keeps slipping and slipping. That’s what it felt like.”

Farrar said he was not surprised by Muir’s decision to go for the win instead of the extra point and had a feeling Williams would try to make a play. He was right and Chargers lineman Keith Smith stopped him on a draw play.

“We kind of figured they wanted to settle it then and there,” Farrar said. “It was nerve-racking. After they scored and called a timeout, you could see it on our kids faces, they were down, down, down.

“When they were setting up for the final play I looked at Keith and said, `Don’t take your eyes off him (Williams), he’s going to try and make a play.’ He (Smith) didn’t just stuff him, he cracked him. He was moving faster than the quarterback was coming, it was an incredible goal-line stop.”

Farrar wouldn’t describe it as a wake-up call but he did say the coaching staff had a long weekend.

“We watched film on Saturday and were the most miserable 10-1 coaching staff in the Valley,” Farrar said. “We have such high expectations for our kids. It wasn’t their best game or our best job of coaching.

“But that’s what the playoffs are all about. You never know how a team is going to rise or react. Muir is a heck of a football team. It’s one thing to prepare for them, but their speed and how hard they hit is something you can’t measure watching on tape.”

The Chargers will be on the road in Friday’s quarterfinals against West Covina (7-4). They know the Bulldogs will be hungry after the Chargers beat them twice last year, which included a quarterfinal win.

“People are going to say, `Hey, Charter Oak got its wake-up call,’ ” Farrar said. “It’s not like that. There are turning points in games, but you can’t turn momentum off and on like a switch in the playoffs.

“What you have to do is emphasize to your team to never let up. Maybe that’s what we were guilty of (against Muir). When you have a team down like that, you have to finish them.”

South Hills’ close call could be attributed to not having quarterback Jacob Shirley, who sat out with a sprained knee ligament but is likely to start on Friday when the Huskies meet Crescenta Valley (8-3) in their quarterfinal at Glendale High School.

In the long run, Bogan said Charter Oak and South Hills might benefit from having to scratch their way out of danger.

“Anytime you overcome adversity successfully it builds depth and adds a component of confidence that you know how to find a way to win,” Bogan said. “When I was (a player) at Cal Lutheran, there was an expectation that you were going to win even when you were down, because that’s what you do. You can’t talk that into someone; that’s experience that builds on you.”

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