Inside The Huskies

Future Huskies Beierly, Harris Lead Mater Dei to Title, Perfect Season

The quarterback and wide receiver were at their best in the Monarchs' 37-15 win.

Dan Raley

Mater Dei High completed a perfect 13-0 season.
Mater Dei High completed a perfect 13-0 season. / Mater Dei

On the first play of the CIF Open championship game on the fringe of Los Angeles, Dash Beierly clapped his hands once, accepted the snap in shotgun formation, backpedaled three steps and confidently lofted a 25-yard pass to a leaping Marcus Harris, and the Saturday night rout was on for Mater Dei High School.

At Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, it was future Husky to future Husky.

For three hours in Southern California, it was way too easy.

The Monarchs, ranked No. 1 in everyone's national high school polls, took a 37-15 victory over De La Salle High -- Tuli Letuligasenoa's alma mater in the Bay Area -- to wrap up a perfect 13-0 season and have University of Washington football followers greatly encouraged about the future.

On Dec. 4, Beierly, formal name Ashton, and Harris signed financial agreements as part of Jedd Fisch's first full UW recruiting class.

Ten days later, they could claim just about any high school football title that's out there -- league-wide, state and national.

"Jus getn started my boi," Beierly posted on social media with purple rain cloud emojis.

"facts!" Harris responded.

The 6-foot-1, 215-pound Beierly, who transferred to the Mater Dei powerhouse for his senior season, was at his best in his final prep outing, completing 18 of 27 passes for 355 and 3 touchdowns -- sending his first scoring delivery 90 yards to sophomore Gavin Honore for a 14-0 lead in the second quarter.

“We came out strong offensively and defensively,” Beierly told OC Sports Zone. “It’s amazing to be state champions. I’m so happy with my teammates.”

Harris was his usual top target self, leading the Monarchs in receiving with 6 catches for 92 yards.

Mater Dei, offering an amazing talent pool with 29 players on this team holding Division 1 scholarship offers, was hardly pressed all season as everyone did what was asked of them, not just those two bound for Montlake.

Eric Sondheimer, who's covered SoCal high school sports for the Los Angeles Times for decades, made the following postgame observation: "I have never seen a high school football team go through an entire season without ever looking like they [sic] might lose. Mater Dei is that team. St. John Bosco came closest at 31-24 but I never thought Mater Dei was in jeopardy of losing that game either."

Beierly, who played his first three seasons for Chapparal High in Temecula some 65 miles southeast of L.A., finished his high school career by completing 520 of 835 passes for 6,957 yards and 67 touchdowns, with 18 interceptions.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Harris completed three seasons at Mater Dei with 104 receptions for 1,827 yards and 21 TDs.

Both players should be in Seattle early next year to enroll and begin their UW football careers and maybe show everyone their championship rings.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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