The562’s football coverage for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Long Beach Poly alums Wendell “WoWo” Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.
Friday night’s CIF-SS Division 11 playoff opener between St. Anthony and El Monte was sure to leave the losing team heartbroken, as both teams had many opportunities to seize control of a tight, thrilling game. In the end, the Lions (9-2) made a few more plays than the Saints and were able to prevail, upsetting No. 1 seeded St. Anthony (3-8) at Clark Field 18-13.
The Saints turned the ball over three times in the second half, but kept fighting. Head coach Jeff Magdaleno said he wasn’t surprised that his team kept after it.
“There’s absolutely zero quit in this team,” he said. “The fight is what makes us who we are. I told them in the locker room at halftime, these are the times we shine. When we’ve got our backs against the wall, I take this group any day. We didn’t back down at all. We shot ourselves in the foot quite a few times, yeah, for sure–and you take that away, we win the game. That’s the thing that stings.”
The Saints were without quarterback Aidan Jones, who was injured in their playoff-clinching win over Harvard-Westlake last week. That loss loomed large as the Saints came up short offensively with a series of turnovers.
The scoring opened with a 46-yard touchdown run by El Monte bruiser Aaron Rivera, who plowed ahead to put his team up 6-0 after a missed extra point. The Saints would take the lead by winning the field position battle early in the second quarter, when a Lions punt from their own end zone was returnable for Andres Mendoza.
The senior scooped the punt and ran it back 45 yards to paydirt, putting the Saints up 7-6 after the conversion.
With less than three minutes remaining in the first half, the Saints took over on their own 40 yard line. After a false start, quarterback Jai’r Condley took a sack that moved his team back to their own 28–a bad snap then moved them back to their own 17, where they set up to punt. The snap went over the punter’s head and he had to fall on it in the end zone, giving el Monte the 8-7 lead on the safety.
The Lions hit a big play on a long wheel route completion to Anthony Ramirez that got them down to the one yard line late in the half. They ended up scoring on fourth and goal on a one-yard run by Rivera that made it 15-7 at halftime.
The Saints made a switch at quarterback, inserting Evan Martinez. That move looked prescient as they got an opening drive touchdown after an 18-yard completion set up a 57-yard reverse touchdown run by Mendoza. However, Mendoza was flagged for celebrating, which meant that the two-point conversion happened from the 18 yard line, and it came up short leaving the Saints still behind 15-13.
The Saints defense played valiantly, with their only points given up being a 30 yard field goal by Rivera after a fumble by the Saints offense set the Lions up in great field position.
The Saints meanwhile struggled to keep the ball–they fumbled to end the drive before the field goal, then after driving to the four yard line early in the fourth an interception went El Monte’s way. The next Saints drive also ended in an interception.
Finally in their last drive of the game, the Saints once again got into the El Monte red zone as they started from their own 23 and would drive to the Lions’ seven, before a fourth-down throw into the end zone was just wide. That gave the ball back to the Lions, who kneeled it out to secure the win.
