From “The Daily Bulletin” – Article by Pete Marshall

CHINO — Chino’s flag football team was able to play the field position perfectly in the first half Tuesday en route to a seven-point halftime lead.

In the second half, South Torrance turned the tables.

South scored on touchdown drives of 7, 12, 30, and 19 yards to rally for a 26-13 victory over the host Cowboys in a CIF Southern Section Division 3 quarterfinal game.

Top-seeded South (16-3) advances to play at Quartz Hill in the semifinals Saturday.

“We had a couple of penalties early in the third quarter that hurt us,” said Chino coach John Monger, who led Don Lugo and Chino’s tackle teams to five CIF-SS championship game appearances, winning two. ”When you play a great team (and) you make mistakes, it kills you. Tough loss.”

Chino led 7-0 at halftime on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Alyssa Alvarez to Rylee Valenzuela early in the second quarter, but South’s defense stepped up in the second half.

First, on Chino’s opening drive of the second half, Avery Meek intercepted Alvarez, giving the Spartans the ball at the Chino 7.

Two plays later, Kylie Winata’s 3-yard touchdown run pulled South to within 7-6.

After the Cowboys punted on their next drive, South was turned away from a go-ahead score. On fourth down at the Chino 7, Jon’Nae Shavers caught a pass from Brynn Stallings, but her flag was pulled at the 3.

The reprieve for Chino didn’t last long. On the next play, Brooke Strosnider intercepted Alvarez, giving the Spartans the ball at the Chino 12.

Two plays later, Winata scored on a 10-yard run and South led for the first time 14-7, with 11:11 to play.

Things continued to snowball for Chino (19-5). A punt and another interception, this one by Winata, set up a pair of touchdown passes from Stallings to Callie Dempster that put the game out of reach at 26-7.

“Our team stayed disciplined,” South coach Kevin Mitchell said. “We’ve had some experience lately in close games (and) had confidence that even being down at halftime, we could come out and still execute our plays. It worked out really well.”

Calise Gibson scored the game’s final touchdown for Chino on a 6-yard pass from Alvarez with 1:09 to play.

The loss snapped a 13-game winning streak for the Cowboys and ended their longest playoff run. Chino lost in the first round each of the last two years, the first two years of the program.

What does Monger hope his team takes away from the playoff run?

“Anything can happen in life,” said Monger, who took over as head coach this year after serving as an assistant last year. “We always tell our players, ‘heart is the most important thing. It doesn’t matter how big you are. Heart is the key.’ They were very confident. It just didn’t work out for us.”