{"id":97743,"date":"2026-08-10T21:54:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=97743"},"modified":"2026-08-10T22:49:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T05:49:01","slug":"mid-cities-league-at-a-glance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=97743","title":{"rendered":"Mid Cities League at a Glance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Marcus Castillo and the Norwalk Lancers are the team to beat in the Mid Cities. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Norwalk went unbeaten in the Mid Cities last year and are still the champs until someone knocks them off. Bellflower may be that team and Cal is ready to take the next step with several key returning players. Santa Fe looks for a bounce back year in a new league. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

By Tim Peterson <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Projected order of finish: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Norwalk- Head Coach: Anthony Cobbs. Norwalk swept through the league last year and went 10-1 overall before losing to Warren in the CIF Division 9 playoffs. Anthony Cobbs has taken over at head coach for Ruben Guerrero who stepped down after the season. The Lancers love to pound the ball and ran for over 3,000 yards last season. Norwalk did lose its top two ground gainers to graduation but have a couple sold backs in Jayden Barrios and Julian Lewis. Defensive end Marcus Castillo is set to have a big year for the Lancers as he anchors the Norwalk D-line. Onosai Faamatau will lead the linebacking corp. The Lancers will run the same offense and continue to run it until somebody stops them. Last season nobody could. If they can’t again you can expect to see the Lancers at the top of the Mid Cities League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Bellflower- Head Coach: Keith Miller. Bellflower made the playoffs last year after going 3-2 in the Mid Cities and advanced all the way to the CIF Division12 Semi-Finals before falling to Santa Paula. Quarterback Darion Richardson returns at quarterback for the Buccaneers. He had 681 yards and 10 touchdowns last year. Receiver Austin Miller had a huge freshman year with 883 yards and 13 touchdowns last year. He will be Richardson’s favorite target. Defensive end David Nansen, another sophomore, will be a key performer on defense, He had 64 total tackles last season. Bellflower looks like a team that will challenge and make a playoff push.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Gahr – Head Coach: Greg Marshall. Gahr went 4-1 in the Mid Cities League last year and 7-4 overall. The Gladiators have a couple good running backs in juniors Brandon Martinez and De’mir Cunningham. Gahr has several returners on defense as well. After coming close last season they again have a shot to make the playoffs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. California – Head Coach: Patrick Winchell. Cal was a .500 team last year going 5-5 overall and 2-2 in league. That was in the Del Rio and now the Condors have moved into the Mid Cities. The Condors have several returning players and are looking forward to a big year. “We will be young but the kids have worked hard since December. Two sophomores are competing at quarterback and both are good athletes and will see playing time. One of them is also a defensive back,” said head coach Patrick Winchell. “Our strength will be our perimeter players. We have all of our receivers and defensive backs returning from last year and all but one were all-league. We do need to get some varsity experience under our belts but it’s a good group of kids and they’ve worked pretty hard. It should be a fun season.” he added. It will be really fun for the Condors if they can finish third or higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Santa Fe – Head Coach: Ryan Bateman. Santa Fe, another Del Rio League team last season, has also moved to the Mid Cities League. Santa Fe is coming off of a tough year going 2-8 overall and 1-3 in league. Receiver Jeremiah Norman returns at receiver and should provide a spark on offense. He had 24 catches for 345 yards and four touchdowns last year. Quarterback Cole Castaneda is back as well after throwing for 1,206 yards and eight touchdowns last year. Santa Fe allowed 294 points last year while scoring 185. They will need a big improvement in that area to be successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Paramount – Head Coach: Matt Howard. Paramount went 0-5 last year but that was in the Gateway League. now the Pirates are in the Mid Cities League. Quarterback Zechariah Moreno is back after throwing for 375 yards last year. Junior Deon Anthony had over 200 receiving yards last season and should be Moreno’s favorite target. Will the Pirates have enough to make a move in the Mid Cities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Peterson can be reached at tim.midvalleysports@gmail.com or on Twitter @tspeterson40. Facebook-Tim Peterson. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norwalk went unbeaten in the Mid Cities last year and are still the champs until someone knocks them off. Bellflower may be that team and Cal is ready to take the next step with several key returning players. Santa Fe looks for a bounce back year in a new league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball","category-high-school-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97743"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97759,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97743\/revisions\/97759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}