Locals left out of title picture

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE — None of the three area football programs participating in the St. Francis High Passing League Tournament on Friday got a chance to compete for the tournament championship.

In fact, St. Francis, Crescenta Valley and Glendale were all knocked out of the running in the first round of the playoffs and finished the day with just two wins between them. Not that it bothered any of the teams’ respective coaches all that much — for the Golden Knights, Falcons and Nitros, the passing leagues of summer are part of a learning process rather than a testing ground for the finished product.

“What we say at the beginning of the summer is that our goal is not to be summer passing league champions, we want to be Mission League champions and CIF champions,” said St. Francis Coach Jim Bonds, whose team fell, 19-4, to Valencia in the first round of the playoffs. “Sometimes it’s frustrating when you come out to these tournaments and teams are doing things that you know they don’t do in the fall, they’re running an offense tailor-made to win a passing tournament.

“So, we try not to get frustrated and try to continue to do what we do, because we’re using this as a tool to get better for fall football.”

St. Francis started the day with a 33-25 win over Glendale, but finished third in Pool A with a 1-2 record after a 30-22 loss to Royal and a 28-10 loss to Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.

St. Francis’ offense couldn’t find the end zone against Valencia, completing only six passes and tossing up three picks. More than a few incompletions were balls dropped or off the fingertips of receivers.

“We saw a lot of good things but we saw more dropped balls today on our part than we have all summer,” said Bonds, who gave a majority of the snaps to anointed starter Justin Posthuma, with the remaining reps divided between James Bonds, Jr., Paul Perugini and Loyola transfer Brett Nelson, who just joined the Golden Knights’ summer program on Thursday. “Our quarterbacks made some decisions that weren’t always great and we were out of position on defense a few times, so there’s definitely room to grow.”

Crescenta Valley fared better offensively in its playoff matchup with Royal, but still wound up losing, 31-24.