Daunting playoff task ahead for the Lightning

sh football advance vs. campbell hallOne week after making history by winning its first postseason game, the Sage Hill School football team looks to add to its success tonight.

But the task becomes a little more daunting.

The Lightning (9-1) visit Campbell Hall (8-3) of North Hollywood in the quarterfinals at 7:30 p.m. at Birmingham High in Van Nuys.

“Campbell Hall has a dominant team,” Sage Hill Coach Tom Monarch said. “They’re very physical and have a dominating squad.”

The Vikings -- 35-0 winners over second-seeded Riverside California School for the Deaf in the first round -- were ranked No. 1 in Division XIII earlier in the season before being upset by Whittier Christian, 20-19, on Oct. 14.

The Lightning started the season with seven straight wins, mostly over considerably lesser opponents, before falling to St. Margaret’s, 56-8, on Nov. 4 in an Academy League contest. The Tartans were ranked No. 1 in Division XIII during the meeting and are the top seeds in the playoff draw.

But after the Lightning’s big loss, they recovered to win two straight, including a 28-27 first-round win over visiting Pasadena Poly on Friday night.

Junior linebacker Don Ayres and junior cornerback Braden Ross converged to stuff Poly’s quarterback at the 1-yard line on a last-second two-point conversion play that would have given the Panthers the win.

Sage Hill earned its first postseason victory in the history of the program, now in its fourth varsity season.

But Campbell Hall is arguably a lot stronger of a team.

“We’re going to have to have a balanced offense against them,” Monarch said. “We’ll have to have some big pass plays and we have to establish our running game. We have to play pretty much flawlessly, have no penalties and no dropped passes.

“Defensively, we’re just going to need to slow them down. They will score their points, but we have to keep them in check.”

Vikings running back Brandon Scott has 1,101 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns on the year, while quarterback Zachary Kaplan has thrown for 1,088 yards and six touchdowns with eight interceptions.

Lightning senior tailback Keya Manshadi has a team-high 22 touchdowns this season, and fullback Ayres has 13 scores. Sophomore quarterback Jamie McGee has thrown for 18 touchdowns and run for two more.

“They have a running back over 1,000 yards and a quarterback over 1,000 yards, so they have a balanced attack,” Monarch said. “We’d like to try and make them beat us through the air. We’re going to focus once again on our linebackers and corners keying the run, creating a wall from hash to hash.”20051125BC1LAATUNo Caption20051125iq6swpknMARK DUSTIN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Sage Hill’s Don Ayres, left, has been a two-way standout for the Lightning.