Lutheran

Taking your peers into battle every week requires leadership that inspires respect and admiration. Orange Lutheran High’s star offensive lineman Lucas Rhoa has figured out the perfect formula to achieve that.

The senior Texas commit is easily noticeable before, during and after a game. He leads the team in warmups, conducting their every move. If he jumps up, so does every other player. If he waves his arms this way and that, you bet his teammates follow.

It’s the perfect hype up to get Orange Lutheran in the mood to win.

Rhoa has earned that respect partly because he reminds opponents on a weekly basis that they need to hit the weight room. Sometimes Orange Lutheran will put Rhoa in motion after the snap, blocking multiple players to create a hole for the run game. On passing plays he’ll face off one on one against the outside defensive lineman, and he stops them in their tracks.

During the game, if he isn’t on the field, Rhoa can be seen giving encouragement to every player. In a recent win against Chandler (Ariz.) Basha there were two moments that exemplified this.

First, when Orange Lutheran’s punter pinned Basha inside its own three-yard line, Rhoa was the first to come off the sidelines and get excited for his teammate. On the flip side, when a teammate’s holding penalty negated a 20-yard run, the big man was sympathetic. Rhoa gave a head pat and some words of encouragement and ran back to the line for the next play.

“There’s no room to get caught up on anything,” Rhoa said. “If you’re getting caught up on a play then you’re three steps behind. You just gotta forget.”

To Rhoa, his star quality and mentality are non-negotiables of the job. His offensive line coach, Chris Ward, is less humble when talking about his best player.

“He’s been extremely dominant individually and he’s really grown as a leader,” Ward said. “We have some young guys in there, it’s their first time playing varsity football. He’s kept his composure and really let those guys grow.”

Rhoa has shown his skill level and leadership against a bevy of highly ranked opponents so far this season, but his toughest task may come against a player who has seen his best traits firsthand.

Orange Lutheran, which is 3-1 after shutting out Gardena Serra 35-0, is next playing Sierra Canyon, where former teammate and senior defensive lineman Marcus Fakatou now plies his trade.

Sierra Canyon has started the season 3-0, with a big 41-21 opening-weekend win against JSerra, which has won three straight since. Rhoa spoke on the potential matchup against Fakatou.

“I’ve seen him the most out of anybody,” Rhoa said. “We used to go against each other every day at practice. But it’s just another game for me.”

Fakatou is committed to Ohio State and, given its recent rivalry with Texas, this isn’t likely to be the last time he and Rhoa meet.

Fakatou is listed at 6 feet 7, 285 pounds while Rhoa is 6-5, 295. When they hit each other, the collision might create the force of an atomic bomb or at least a high speed car crash.

Richard Wesley and Trey Brown of Sierra Canyon combine for one of seven sacks against Orange Lutheran last season, when the Trailblazers won 41-9.

(Craig Weston)

The key to victory for either Orange Lutheran or Sierra Canyon may come down to this matchup. There could be more joy for Fakatou lining up against the other side of the offensive line, but Rhoa is as mobile as they come and will certainly try to find a way to put his former teammate on the ground.

Ward said that both players are likely to make great plays, and that his offensive line can’t be frustrated if Fakatou hits somebody for a loss. Like Rhoa said, they have to move on to the next play right when the whistle blows. “There’s never a thought of ‘oh, I got beat!’ It’s out of the mind,” he said. Head coach Ray Fenton said that his team goes as Rhoa does, and that his leadership will be the key to a great season beyond just the Sierra Canyon matchup.

“One of the best [leaders] I’ve been around in my many years of coaching,” he said. “He says it with his words but most importantly he says it with his own actions …It makes life easier as a coach.

The Times has Sierra Canyon ranked as the fourth best team in the Southern Section and Orange Lutheran ranked as No. 5. But Rhoa doesn’t care who lines up across from him, the goal is always the same: to dominate.

“At the end of the day [the opponents] are just humans,” Rhoa said. “However many stars they have, it’s just football.”

Orange Lutheran High does not have an easy game on its schedule. MaxPreps ranked the school’s schedule as the toughest in the nation, as it faces off against five opponents in the website’s preseason national top 25 rankings.

The first three weeks have been a true gauntlet.

It started with an away game in Florida against Miami Central High, the seventh-best team in the state, according to MaxPreps. Orange Lutheran only lost by one point.

After beating the 15th-best team in California, San Diego Cathedral, last week 38-24, the Lancers faced its biggest test yet: Chandler (Ariz.) Basha, the No. 1 team in Arizona, and ranked 12th nationally. Orange Lutheran is the eighth-ranked team in California and 61st nationally.

A 30-24 loss to Basha last season still hung in the air around Orange Coast College on Friday night, and it looked like Orange Lutheran would be in for another one after Basha senior quarterback and Princeton commit Jake Rogers threw a 62-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Jaden Baldwin on the third play of their first drive.

However, because they didn’t make this season about themselves, Orange Lutheran has a prime directive to make things as hard as possible on opponents. A 23-17 win Friday suggested they followed through on that goal.

After the first quarter, Basha was not able to do anything effective on offense.

Every possession in the third quarter was a three-and-out, with one resulting in a punt out of the end zone. Basha had a bad snap, giving Orange Lutheran two points.

Beyond that, twin brothers and juniors Anhor The Great Johnson and King Rich Johnson swarmed everything that Basha tried to do.

It started with a 75-yard pick-six from King Rich on a snaking sideline return that gave Orange Lutheran a lead they never conceded.

Anhor The Great had so many pass breakups that counting would’ve been a fool’s errand.

Defensive line bat downs and sacks haunted Rogers, who finished the game with 192 yards passing and two touchdowns with two interceptions as well as a less than 50% completion on passes and two interceptions.

Senior lineman Lucas Rhoa got to watch this all unfold from the sidelines, and he was truly in awe after the game.

“One of the best defensive games I’ve seen,” he said. “Really, two big plays and three other points [is all Basha got]. We couldn’t do it without them, because we only put up 23 points.”

The only score given up in the second half was a 30-yard pass from Rogers to senior running back Noah Roberts. It gave the Bears life for the first time since the half. It was also Roberts only big play on a night where he averaged less than two yards per carry.

It was senior night for Orange Lutheran, with emotions flowing around Orange Coast College stadium all night, but it was a sophomore running back who had the most explosive performance.

Ryan Christianson finished with 151 yards rushing and one touchdown on 31 rushes. He was buoyed by Rhoa and a strong offensive line performance.

“Our running back is amazing, he did amazing things,” he said. “I’m proud of the way we played tonight, but there’s so much more we could clean up. So many points were left on the board. If we clean it up we’re going to be very good.”

First year head coach Ray Fenton inherited this insane schedule, but he probably would’ve booked the same battles. Many of his players will be playing Division I football on Saturdays, so why not test them now?

Plus, Orange Lutheran plays in the Trinity League. With highly ranked schools such as St. John Bosco, Mater Dei and Santa Margarita on the schedule, playing weak schools in nonleague games does nothing but harm Orange Lutheran’s talented roster.

“We can’t hide from our league, it’s like the SEC of high school football,” Fenton said.