Steele Canyon passes up San Diego to reach D2 title game

SPRING VALLEY — Jacob Henton convinced his parents to let him play football for the first time as a senior, and now he and the rest of the Steele Canyon Cougars are going to the CIF San Diego Section Division 2 championship game for the first time since their school won it in 2017.

Henton caught touchdown passes of 23 and 32 yards from Gavin Caha and the Cougars beat the San Diego Cavers 21-7 in a semifinal Friday night.

The second-seeded Cougars (9-3) move into the championship game next Friday night against top-seeded Santa Fe Christian, which beat Scripps Ranch 34-20.

Henton suffered a knee injury playing basketball as a freshman and didn’t turn out for football until this season.

“My parents didn’t let me play football because of all the injury stuff, but I convinced them to play this year. It worked out,” Henton said.

“It feels amazing. I didn’t even know I was going to be able to do this. During the summer when we were playing seven-on-sevens I felt pretty good, like I was pretty good,” he said.

Henton and Caha “have got a nice little connection going right now,” coach Scott Longerbone said. “This is Jacob’s first year playing football. He tore his ACL his freshman year so he’s been a basketball guy for a couple of years and he decided to come out and play. So it’s taken time to develop that relationship that a quarterback and a receiver need and they’ve found it in the last couple of games.”

Caha said Henton’s first year of football “is going amazing for him. He’s a great ballplayer. No one ever expected it out of him. He’s got great speed, he’s got great ball awareness. He’s just a great receiver in total.”

The Cougars haven’t been to the CIF championship game since 2017.

“To be here with my team and to experience this, this school hasn’t been to CIF in a while, man. This feels great,” Henton said.

“It feels amazing,” Caha said. “It’s history in the making. It feels good to do it with my brothers.”

The Cougars led 14-7 at halftime on Caha’s 23-yard scoring pass to Henton and a 2-yard run by Abel Lopez.

The teams traded interceptions in the first quarter, with San Diego’s Kye Cooper picking off Caha on the game’s third play from scrimmage before Noah Ramirez picked off Jayden Harris to end a Cavers drive that was kept alive on a roughing the kicker call on a punt. That set up Caha’s first scoring pass to Henton.

The Cougars then blocked a 35-yard field goal attempt by Emilio Morales and Luke Rode returned it to the 50. Lopez scored on his short run eight plays later for a 14-0 lead.

San Diego (7-6), the 11th seed, pulled to 14-7 on Cooper’s 1-yard run with 1:23 before halftime. Jayden Johnson carried 20 yards to the 1, where it took the Cavers three tries to score.

The Cavers were buried on fourth-and-25 on their 23-yard line midway through the fourth quarter when they ran a fake punt that was stuffed after gaining just six yards.

Two plays later, Caha found Henton on a 32-yard touchdown pass that gave the Cougars some breathing room at 21-7.