Jason Mohns signals his fourth championship last year. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365.com)

 

The seedings may not bear this out, but we had No. 2 Saguaro and No. 4 Salpointe listed as our top two teams in the preseason Sollenberger Football Prep Magazine. The Sabercats earned the top spot in our preseason poll and the Lancers entered the poll in the second spot. Both were easy choices.

The Sabercats (11-2) won their fourth championship in a row last year (38-20 over Catalina Foothills) which made nine titles since 2006 and the tenth overall.  Often the scorn of coaches and fans of other programs, the Sabercats have been shifted to several classifications with the same results. The championships came in four different classifications and a runner-up finish in 1995 came in 5A competition.

A playoff contender every year since 2004, the only “down years” were a semifinal finish in 2004, a first-round appearance in 2005, a semifinal finish in 2009 and a quarterfinal finish in 2012. Take away an unusual 4-6 2003 campaign, and one would find five more good years prior to that.

Jason Mohns is now 72-9 since taking the program over in 2012. The two losses he suffered this year were to teams from Nevada and Utah. His last loss to a team from Arizona came on Sept. 4, 2015 to Pinnacle at home. Since then, he has gone 34-0 against teams from our state.

One of those victories was a 24-3 win over Salpointe in the semifinal round last year.

Let’s take a look at a few of the players leading the vaunted Sabercat attack:

Senior QB Max Massingale has 3,114 yards passing this year with 32 touchdowns. He is sitting at 5,463 career passing yards and 63 TDs. Massingale rushed for 1,012 yards last year with 12 TDs but his totals in that category this year were a bit down with 623 yards and eight TDs. Still, he is the team’s second leading rusher.

Sr. Josiah Bradley leads the team with 740 yards rushing with 11 TDs and Sr. La’Ray Lucas has 439 with 10 TDs. Massingale has two main targets through the air with Sr. Logan Pettijohn pulling down 1,290 yards with 14 TDS and Sr. Zach Wilson has 1,130 with 10 TDS.

On the defensive side, Jr. Clayton Randall has 109 tackles and Jr. Connor Soelle has 100. So. Damian Sellers has 10 sacks and Soelle has five interceptions.

Rocco Bene (L) & Dennis Bene celebrate their 2013 championship. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365.com)

 

Salpointe (12-1) won a Division II state championship in 2013 over Chaparral. It was the first trip to the final since 1991 and the third overall. The Lancers finished 5-5 in 2015, failing to make the playoffs for the first time since 2001. The 2009 (9-1) team was on probation.

Like Saguaro, the Lancers are used to playing in the postseason and leading the way is head coach Dennis Bene. Bene has 161 career victories which puts him fourth in line from Southern Arizona. His one loss this year came against 5A power Cienega.

The loss to Saguaro in the semifinal round last year is the only loss to a team in the same division dating back to an overtime loss to Cienega in the final game of the 2015 season when the Bobcats and Lancers were both in Division II. It was that loss that prevented the Lancers from earning a postseason berth. Since then, the Lancers have gone 22-1 against 4A opponents.

Sr. QB Rodrigo Nieto leads the passing attack with 1, 110 yards and 14 TDs with Sr. Andrew Jacobs being his main target with 491 yards receiving and five TDS.

The Lancers have gained 3,597 yards on the ground with So. sensation Bijan Robinson collecting 1,859 of those yards with 26 TDs despite missing a game due to injury. Jr. Mario Padilla has 758 yards rushing with 13 TDs. Padilla missed four games, otherwise he would also be over 1,000 on the year.

Sr. Chris Aguirre has 139 tackles to lead the defense and Sr. Christian Vasquez and Sr. Joshua Pasos have 84 tackles each. Sr. Gabe Madril has 13 sacks, Sr. Brian Corrales has eight and Aguirre has five. The Lancers also feature Sr. lineman Matteo Mele. Mele committed to Washington.