SAN FRANCISCO — Much has been said about St. Ignatius’ two-quarterback system, but how about the Wildcats’ running back tandem?
On Saturday, both Joe Celentano and Jahsai Shannon were firing on all cylinders at the same time, and it was a beautiful thing to watch. The two combined for 151 yards and three touchdowns as the Wildcats won a rematch with Mitty in the CCS Division I Quarterfinals in dominant fashion, 28-7.
Celentano ran for a 44-yard score for the game’s first touchdown, Shannon ripped off a 37-yard TD on the first play of the second quarter and Celentano finished it off from three yards out in the fourth as St. Ignatius (9-2) won a playoff game for the first time since 2014.
“We’ve got a special thing going,” Celentano said after his 14-carry, 105-yard performance.
Anticipation was rampant after brackets were released, setting up the Wildcats and Monarchs to take the field with their starting quarterbacks after both Teddye Buchanan and Shamir Bey missed their Nov. 1 meeting, a 21-7 SI victory, with injuries.
“Before that game, I talked with Shamir and we said hopefully we’d see each other in the playoffs,” Buchanan said.
They did see each other, and it was Buchanan who came out on the winning end of the showdown. He completed his first 12 passes en route to going 16-for-18 for 145 yards and ran for another 65 on 11 carries, giving sixth-seeded Mitty (6-5) fits.
The Monarchs missed a 34-yard field goal on their opening drive, and Buchanan made up for a block in the back penalty with a 17-yard gain before Celentano’s dash to the end zone. Andrew Cummings forced a Bey incompletion for Monarch three-and-out on the following drive, and a 12-yard completion from Buchanan to Danny Ryan, one of six on the day for the WCAL’s top receiver, moved the hosts across midfield before Shannon’s longest run of the season to open the second quarter. Then the Wildcat defense brought the thunder with big hits from Seta Netane, Deven Enos and Buchanan for another three-and-out, and Buchanan threw for his lone touchdown of the day to open up a three-score lead, connecting with Mike Harrison from 20 yards out.
“I just try to stay ready every single play,” said Harrison, who had three catches for 42 yards. On the rare occasions when defenses manage to slow Ryan, who had 73 yards on the day, Harrison always seems to be open for a key play, and he was again in the second quarter on Saturday.
Defensive pressure forced a Bey incompletion and turnover on downs after Mitty had crossed midfield, with the SI defense unrelenting even as cornerback Chad Jensen missed a second straight game with a fractured metacarpal. The senior suited up but was never needed as the Wildcats’ depth dominated. Hansen, Enos, Celentano and Nick Glafkides all managed to break up passes as the Monarchs were held to their second-lowest passing total of the season, having only posted fewer yards when Bey missed their first meeting with SI.
“It just came through our preparation,” Hansen said. “All week we were studying route concepts and we pretty much knew what they would run in certain situations. From our situational awareness, we were able to take them out of the pass game completely. Everybody’s really smart in our secondary and we really key in on what we’re supposed to do.”
The lockdown defense limited both Ian Collier and Reymello Murphy to just three receptions and kept Bey from ever targeting Connor Gambelin, even as the Monarchs rotated different sets between the slot and wideout positions to try to create mismatches.
“They’re just really sound,” Mitty head coach Sione Ta’ufo’ou said. “Great job with their blitzes, great job with their stunts up front.”
Bey completed 10 of 18 passes in his final high school game, with 44 of his 104 yards coming on a third-quarter touchdown to Murphy. The ensuing drive would extinguish any chances of a comeback as Celentano started it with a 10-yard gain and ended it with a three-yard plunge.
The final minutes were spent with starters on the bench for both teams as SI’s Red Sea student section chanted “we want Valley,” drawing the attention of the Valley Christian players who had made the trek to the Sunset District to scout their next opponent. Zach Taylor-Smith, who started in the teams’ first meeting and completed four of his eight passes for 47 yards on Saturday, finished the game at QB for the Wildcats. Mitty got impressive carries from JV callups Antonio Cabrera and Taron Thang in the final minutes but couldn’t reach the end zone before time ran out, marking the fifth time SI held an opponent to single-digits this year. They did it to the Monarchs twice, something that no other team had done all year aside from Marin Catholic and Valley Christian.
Though their season ended with a whimper rather than a bang, there was plenty of reason for Mitty to look positively at the road ahead.
“We have a culture now,” Ta’ufo’ou said. “We’ve got something we can play for.”
The three-game losing streak to end the season and the careers of some outstanding seniors also didn’t stop the Monarchs from maintaining good spirits.
“I think I was a part of something special,” Bey added. “I don’t think it was just me. As a class, our main goal was to change the way people looked at Mitty football, and I think with the help of everybody, we’ve really done that.”
As well as everything went for the hosts on Saturday, they’ll have to be at their absolute best against a Valley Christian team that only allowed two opponents to even score more than seven points this year and beat the Wildcats 17-7 back on Oct. 5. There were few negatives to pick out for SI on Saturday, but failing to finish two drives that ended with missed field goals should provide a place to start for a coaching staff that would otherwise be hard-pressed to find negatives from Saturday.
