Wilmington, CA – It was open season for the Banning Pilots (8-1) in their quarterfinal matchup against the Garfield Bulldogs (8-3) on Friday night resulting in Banning taking home the 37-6 win and advancing to the LA City Section Division I playoff semi-finals.
Banning’s receivers delivered in the endzone, and Garfield failed to have an answer.
“Nothing but hard work and dedication,” said Banning head coach Raymond Grajeda. “The boys executed their assignment today. They’ve been waiting two weeks to play a game. We had a big break and I felt like they did a good job.”
On the defensive end, Banning shut down Garfield at the halftime break 21-0.
“It just comes down to dominance. I felt like we were the stronger team and I think our game plan was better than theirs. They kind of ran into our game plan and we executed exactly what we wanted to do,” said Coach Grajeda.
Garfield’s receivers just couldn’t hold on to the ball resulting in some stagnation in their offense.
The Bulldogs were simply outmatched.
Banning put an exclamation point on their lead with a 40-yard touchdown reception with 3:42 remaining in the fourth quarter to finish 37-6.
Coach Grajeda is looking forward to his team’s rematch against Birmingham in next week’s semi-final.
“The semi-final game is going to be a rematch of the 2019 championships. It’s going to be Banning vs Birmingham. Birmingham beat us by seven points, and they beat us in the ship. So now it’s a chance for us to redeem ourselves and go to work and play somebody that we wanted to beat. The semi-finals for all four teams is going to be a championship game, and whoever gets to the ship is going to have to earn it.”
The semi-finals matchup between Banning and Birmingham is scheduled to kick off next Friday, November 19th at 4 pm.
