Jubilant Warren High School football players celebrate after their 49-14 rout of cross-town rival Downey last Friday. (Photo by Jeff Hernandez)
Story Created:
Nov 18, 2009 at 5:39 PM PST
Story Updated:
Nov 18, 2009 at 5:39 PM PST
Jesse Callier and Bailey Cowins were not about to let their cross-town rivals join them in the CIF Southern Section Western Division playoffs that open Friday.
Downey High School, in a must-win situation regarding a postseason berth, simply was no match for Warren, which completed a perfect (5-0) run through the San Gabriel Valley League and a 9-1 regular season with a 49-14 victory.
The Bears host West Torrance, the third-place team from the Bay League, at 7:30 p.m. Friday in a playoff opener. Downey’s season ends with a 3-7 mark.
Warren, which has lost only to unbeaten Vista Murrieta, the state’s fifth-ranked team, will lean heavily on the likes of Washington-bound running back Callier, who rushed for 277 yards and four touchdowns on 23 carries against Downey, and Cowins, who caught two scoring passes, including an impressive one-handed grab.
The Bears are averaging 41.1 points per game, led by Callier’s 2,632 rushing yards and 38 TDs.
What made the win even sweeter for the Bears was avenging last year’s loss to the Vikings.
“This felt awesome,” Warren coach Chris Benadom said. “Last year we were flat against Downey.”
Warren came out of the gates strong as usual.
The initial drive took three plays, which included a reverse that Cowins ran to the 50. Callier ended the drive with a 50-yarder for the score.
Downey answered immediately as they held possession for the remainder of the first quarter with a mix of wildcat runs, a 31-yard play-action pass, capped by Steven William’s 5-yard touchdown run in the beginning minutes of the second quarter.
Callier answered with a 67-yard scoring run.
Warren would soon take off from there and allow Downey to score only once more until the final quarter.
Benadom mixed his play calling, opening up the pass game more frequently.
Their running game left the Vikings secondary susceptible to the deep pass and the Bears took advantage on a play-action 32-yard TD pass to Cowins as he beat the corner through the left side putting them up 21-7 with 5:42 to go in the half.
“We wanted to try something different and spread it around more,” Benadom said.
Callier scored two more times to end the half with a 20-yarder and the third quarter with a 40-yard TD run.
The Bears dominated on the defensive side by putting enormous pressure on Vikings quarterback Steven Cervantes and hitting anybody coming across the middle of the field exceptionally hard.
Christian Gutierrez and Augafa Vaaulu combined for 1.5 sacks for the game and Jamil Magee had his first pick of the night at the Bears 20, which he returned for a TD to put Warren up, 35-7.
“Jamil was a big key tonight,” Benadom said. “We moved him around on the defensive side and he found the right places. We mixed up the defensive calls and did well disguising some cover two’s.”
With 3:15 left in the third quarter, Cowins beat the corner again down the left side and stretched his left hand out to make the grab in the end zone for a 34-yard TD pass that made it 42-7.
“I beat the corner every game,” Cowins said. “We just come with the mind set to dominate every team.”
RSS Feeds 
