High School

Vanderbilt-bound Mike Mitchell helps Archbishop Riordan turn tables in emotional WCAL win over Serra

Three touchdown passes from Mitchell, big 4th-quarter TD run by Jeremiah Jones helps turnaround 46-point loss to Padres in 2023

Mitch Stephens

Riordan 2026 QB Michael Mitchell is a Vanderbilt commit who has thrown for nearly 6,000 yards and more than 60 touchdowns in his first 26 starts. Saturday he threw for three more touchdowns in a 27-21 win over Serra. This photo was from last year's 53-7 loss at Serra. | Photo: Eric Taylor
Riordan 2026 QB Michael Mitchell is a Vanderbilt commit who has thrown for nearly 6,000 yards and more than 60 touchdowns in his first 26 starts. Saturday he threw for three more touchdowns in a 27-21 win over Serra. This photo was from last year's 53-7 loss at Serra. | Photo: Eric Taylor / Photo: Eric Taylor

One nightmarish afternoon in 2023 was largely wiped away with one gratifying victory for the Archbishop Riordan football team Saturday in San Francisco.

Vanderbilt-bound quarterback Mike Mitchell threw three touchdown passes and rugged senior running back Jeremiah Jones rushed for a key fourth-quarter TD leading the host Crusaders to a 27-21 West Catholic Athletic League win over Serra.

Serra dominated Riordan 53-7 last season. This was just the fourth win for Riordan over Serra since 2004 and it broke a streak of eight straight Serra wins, with the Crusaders last beating the Padres 66-45 in 2015.

Riordan improved to 5-4 and 4-2 in WCAL play, while Serra, the three-time defending Northern California Open Division representative at State, dropped to 4-5 and 3-3. Both teams have one more WCAL game and will be scary opponents in the Central Coast Section playoffs.

Two key Mitchell scrambles, one going for 26 yards, set up a 3-yard touchdown pass to Wesley Winn with 10 seconds left in the half to tie the game at 7-7 and apparently give the Crusaders huge momentum in the second half.

Touchdown passes of 16 yards to Jacob Dubriwny and 45 yards to Cynai Thomas gave Riordan a 21-7 edge entering the fourth quarter.

Nano Latu, who opened the scoring with a 15-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, closed the gap to 21-14 with 10:14 left in the fourth quarter when he took a screen from senior quarterback Andrew Heneghan and raced 80 yards for a touchdown.

Jones answered with a 21-yard touchdown with 7:26 remaining, but the extra point missed, making it 27-14.

Once again, the Padres closed the gap to a single score game when Heneghan found tight end Clay Hinsdale on a 22-yard touchdown with 5:10 remaining.

Football photo; high school football; San Mateo, Californi
Serra senior tight end Clay Hinsdale had a 60-yard catch setting up a touchdown in the St. John Bosco's 56-17 win at Tom Brady Stadium on 9/14/2024. On Saturday, Hinsdale caught a 22-yard TD pass to close the gap to 27-21 before Riordan ran out the clock. / Photo: Dennis Lee

But the Crusaders were able to run out the clock from there.

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Mitch Stephens
MITCH STEPHENS

Mitch Stephens is a senior editor at SBLive Sports for California, a state he's covered high school sports since 1984. He won multiple CNPA and CPSWA writing awards with the Contra Costa Times, San Francisco Chronicle and MaxPreps.com before joining the SBLive staff in 2022. He's covered the beat nationally since 2007, profiling such athletes as Derrick Henry, Paige Bueckers, Patrick Mahomes, Sabrina Ionescu, Jayson Tatum, Chiney Ogwumike, Jeremy Lin and Najee Harris as preps. You can reach him at mitch@scorebooklive.com.

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