MISSION VIEJO – Acalanes, an East Bay school that opened its doors in 1969 and had never won a section football title until last month, completed the championship trifecta on Saturday.
The Dons overcame a two-touchdown deficit to capture their first state title, beating Birmingham of Lake Balboa 35-23 in the CIF Division 3-AA championship game at Saddleback College.
Acalanes scored on the final snap of the first half to cut the deficit to seven and took the lead on the first play of the fourth quarter.
The Dons put the game away on a 10-yard fourth-down pass from quarterback Sully Bailey to Paul Kuhner with 31 seconds left, adding a state championship trophy to the section and regional titles the Lafayette school has won the past two weekends.
It was Bailey’s fourth TD pass of the game. He finished 23 of 36 for 290 yards.
Acalanes (11-4) ended the season on a five-game winning streak and became the first Northern California team to celebrate a title at Saddleback since the CIF started playing championship games there in 2021.
The North had been 0-12 after De La Salle and Grant-Sacramento lost Friday.
Acalanes trailed 21-7 when Peyton Waters caught his second touchdown of the game, a 3-yard strike from Kingston Tisdell with 1:15 left before halftime.
The Dons were teetering. Momentum was on the Southern California team’s side.
But this Acalanes team is resilient, no matter the situation.
The Dons had three timeouts. They had 57 yards to cover. They knew that they were getting the ball again to start the second half.
Acalanes went on the longest 69-second drive maybe of its season, a 12-play journey that took all the time off the clock.
It ended with Jack Giorgianni crashing across the goal line from the 1 to pull the Bay Area team to within 21-14 at the halftime break.
Acalanes then opened the third quarter with a 10-play drive to pull even 21-21. Henry Souza accounted for the touchdown, making a dazzling one-handed catch in the end zone on an 8-yard fastball from Bailey.
The Acalanes defense bent but didn’t break on Birmingham’s first series of the second half, holding on downs inside the 15.
But a high snap on an Acalanes punt from its 32 ended with a safety, giving Birmingham a 23-21 lead with 3:34 left in the third quarter.
It seemed to get worse for Acalanes later in the quarter when Bailey, while trying to run for a first down, took a big-time hit on his knee. The senior stayed down for a while, eventually hobbling to the sideline.
But when Acalanes got the ball back at its 6, Bailey trotted onto the field.
Good thing, too.
Bailey threw a 59-yard bomb down the left sideline to Trevor Rogers. Two plays later, on the first snap of the fourth quarter, Rogers caught a 34-yard touchdown pass from the quarterback while being tightly defended to give Acalanes its first lead of the game, 28-23.