High School Football scores from around the area:
Thursday October 21
Rosemead 37 El Monte 0
Arroyo 54 Gabrielino 0
Bassett 33 Ganesha 6
Chino Hills 37 Damien 36
Pasadena Poly 34 La Canada 24
Baldwin Park 34 Montclair 12
Covina 30 Chino 20
Friday October 22
La Serna 42 El Rancho 7
Northview 21 San Dimas 7
Ayala 35 Bonita 14
Loyola 6 St. Francis 3
Burbank 48 Crescenta Valley 25
Monrovia 55 Temple City 6
Mayfair 48 Norwalk 7
Garey 41 La Puente 18
Glendora 24 Los Osos 7
Schurr 48 Montebello 18
Muir 20 Burroughs 0
Downey 62 Lynwood 6
South Pasadena 24 San Marino 21
La Mirada 33 Bellflower 12
Bishop Amat 29 Chaminade 18
West Covina 10 Claremont 7
Pasadena 63 Arcadia 17
Artesia 18 Pioneer 17
Bell Gardens 53 Keppel 0
San Gabriel 28 Alhambra 17
St. Paul 52 Crespi 35
Colony 49 South Hills 6
California 48 Whittier 14
Diamond Bar 34 Nogales 20
Gladstone 35 Sierra Vista 6
Alta Loma 24 Charter Oak 21
Wilson 47 Workman 0
Chaffey 42 Don Lugo 6
Dominguez 27 Paramount 7
Downey 62 Lynwood 6
Rowland 14 Pomona 6
@ Moor for Life: Since 2013, the football program at Alhambra High has been almost entirely about player development.
Nearly all the players on the successful 2018 and 2019 teams were freshmen at AHS in 2015 and ’16; many of them played on the freshman team and some joined the program later. All of them were coached up, and we had very few transfers on our roster.
Our player development efforts were set back substantially by the pandemic and the school district’s failure to provide adequate logistical support, particularly when it came to medical clearances and Covid-19 protocols in early 2021.
Alhambra ended up playing only one game in the spring season, which meant that going into the current fall season, our juniors and seniors had either one game of varsity experience or none at all.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Alhambra beat Bell Gardens and became the second-seeded team in the Almont League via coin tosses. We have made the playoffs, so we’ll have at least one more opportunity for player development in 2021.
@ Bottom Line: For roughly the last two decades in the Alhambra district, AHS has been a reasonably competitive number two academically to that bastion of learning known as Mark Keppel High School.
But, Alhambra High has taken a big hit during the Covid-19 pandemic. To start with, “distance learning” was not the unqualified success that the district administration has claimed.
Then, when the schools fully reopened in August, the district made some moves which adversely affected AHS.
The continuation high school (Century High) was emptied out and all of its students were returned to the regular high schools. That was done to accommodate young adults with special needs who were displaced from their school sites out of the district’s desire to house teachers who are providing Zoom instruction to students who did not return to school.
Many of the Century High students were sent to Alhambra, creating a situation that hasn’t been beneficial to anyone involved. The learning environment at AHS has suffered as a result.
And then there are some of the facilities…
Inglewood has legit players not coaches…….
Recruiters with talent look like good coaches. Don’t be fooled
@ Moor: Milvon James was the head coach at Hawkins High School when the football team won an L.A. City Section championship but then had to forfeit games and vacate the title when an academic fraud scandal surfaced.
I don’t think the details about who did exactly what were ever made public, but Mr. James was in charge of the football program at the time. As a result, he had to take some of the responsibility for what happened.
In addition, the AUSD seems to be in a pretty cautious state now, after having been burned by some of its past hires for both athletic and academic positions. I believe the district has become allergic to bad publicity and the possibility thereof.
Inglewood has the James brothers as coaches. They know to build a winning program look at what they did at Hawkins high. Wish they would come to Alhambra.
Inglewood is legit!!!
@ Moor: It looks almost completely certain that we must beat Bell Gardens in order to have any chance for a playoff spot.
One thing for sure is that Alhambra can’t touch Schurr. The Spartans are 4-0 in league with one game left, while we’re 2-2. But, there are a couple of ways in which we could make the playoffs.
The most clear-cut way is to defeat B.G. (which is now 3-1) and thus beat out the Lancers for third place. This scenario also involves San Gabriel beating Schurr, an outcome that would leave those teams tied for first place at 4-1. (Of course, we’re assuming here that CIF will award three playoff spots to the Almont League.)
A more complicated scenario would occur if we were to beat B.G., but Schurr defeats San Gabriel. Then, Schurr would be all alone at the top (at 5-0), but three teams—San Gabriel, Bell Gardens, and Alhambra—would end up tied for second place with records of 3-2. Then, there could be coin flips in which one of the teams loses out. (Or, would it be possible for all three second-place teams to qualify for the playoffs if an at-large berth is thrown into the mix?)
By the way, I don’t know how CIF intends to handle its playoff selections. Its decisions alone could make a big difference for a few teams across the Southern Section.
Before I go, I’d like to present another possible scenario: B.G. beats Alhambra (which I hope doesn’t happen), while San Gabriel beats Schurr. That course of events would leave B.G., San Gabriel, and Schurr in a three-way tie for first place. If that happens, I imagine that all three teams would make the playoffs as league co-champions.
So, yeah, the plot thickens…
I’m curious: precisely WHAT does Alhambra high do well enough to make anyone want to go there? Could the bad football situation at AHS actually be rooted in the fact that a majority of public schools are poorly maintained and operated? Shouldn’t we have a system where garbage schools go out of business, and only the efficient and innovative survive? I’d bet that your average AHS student looks forward to their next class about the same as they do the next football game.
Off subject. And coverage area. What about Inglewood man that team has become something special. That coach has went in there and turn that program around them and Warren top 25 in the state. I’d love to see that game.
I don’t care how either did it cause it all about winning
@Ron coach eric bergstrom came from occidental college as a supposed offensive guru and took him a long time to find that freshman QB who is at Monrovia now still putting up number. While coach Eric is struggling to get some wins. granted erics record deserves a second look as he took over a mess and made more of a mess having to learn how to high school ball. But weres the play development within the program from freshman to jv to varsity? He may have to follow the Gil policy doing the winning years recruit some players and give them some leeway.
For those bashing the Ganesha coach, I’m going to go on a limb and say that he did what was best for his team. You guys don’t know what it was like out there for those kids. Not enough players out on the field and too many hurt. He put ego aside and put The safety of his players first.
@ Moor for Life: Eric Bergstrom and his offensive coordinator, Mike Mackintosh, coached up a small, untested freshman quarterback and we went on a 20-3 run in 2018 to 2019. The coaching staff also worked with the receivers, the running backs, the offensive line, the defense, and the special teams. It took all of those parts to make it work.
Coach Bergstrom’s record is 41-42 since he took over the varsity football team in 2013. While he certainly doesn’t have the best record so far, he’s already the fourth-winningest coach in the history of the program.
Some people don’t seem to know that the great Gil Ruedaflores was 18 games below .500 after 11 seasons as head coach. His teams then went a combined 19 games over .500 during a 10-year run which allowed him to finish his career at AHS with a mark of 111-110-2.
If Gil hadn’t been permitted to continue after his 11th season, he never would’ve become the second-winningest football coach at Alhambra High.
As for the facilities at AHS, they are hardly a selling point for attracting our hometown athletes or even our students in general. The facilities are a disgrace.
@ron what are our chances for playoffs? We lose the tiebreaker to SG and Schurr.
@ron doesn’t look like we lift weights SG running that pro style offense I-Formation football was man handling our d-line.
@Ron Not having facilities is an excuse this isn’t D1 football. we need a coach who can coach the boys up. Look at Bassett high they get hector to be head coach and they get better he leaves they go back to losing and now he is back and turning around. Sierra vista seem thing Matt and Sergio become head coach and they turn it around and they get fired and now Sierra vista is back to losing. We also need to keep you Ron for doing stats when we run it back with a coach maxie or Sergio.
@ Moor for Life: Either you are sadly misinformed or you’re deliberately pushing disinformation. You seem to be someone who hasn’t been on the Alhambra High campus for many years.
While our most recent principals have been supportive of the AHS football program, the district administration has not been. The athletic facilities at AHS have been particularly neglected.
The football side of Moor Field is still a work in progress, in spite of recent upgrades. In addition, the on-campus athletic facilities have substantially deteriorated over the course of decades. The building which houses the football weight room, football office, and boys’ locker room dates back to 1924 and has been only modestly renovated in all that time. The “new” gymnasium, where the team room is located, was completed in 1964 and is clearly showing its age.
Following our gridiron successes in 2018 and ’19, we knew going into 2020 that we were likely to be somewhat down in terms of overall talent and numbers. However, those problems have been exacerbated by player transfers and a Covid-19 pandemic that’s now approaching the two-year mark.
The issues we’re facing at Alhambra High won’t magically disappear, even if you get rid of the entire coaching staff as well as the statistician for good measure. But, of course, people like yourself will continue to offer simplistic solutions.