By Aaron Coloma

Antrell Harris accounted for three of the Birmingham Patriots’ six touchdowns, including two kickoff returns, on their way to a commanding 42-19 victory over the Gardena Panthers in the CIF LA City Section quarterfinal Friday evening.

“We have a dynasty to keep up,” said Harris. “The past four years we’ve won the championship. So to come out here on our home field, our last game [here], it means a lot.”

Harris scored his first touchdown of the night on the opening kickoff, and was soon followed by running back Dredon Fowles who ran the Patriots’ first offensive play of the night 88 yards to the end zone.

“We didn’t think we’d come out that fast and score on the opening kickoff, but hey, there was a way to start a ballgame,” said Patriots head coach Jim Rose. “He had a great night tonight. Fowles had a pretty good game. We can make big plays, puts a lot of pressure on the other team.”

Fowles didn’t stop there, scoring a 32-yard touchdown rush on the next drive just before the end of the first quarter to extend the Patriots’ lead to 21-0.

“He’s had a great season,” said Rose. “I mean, he went over 1000 yards tonight in his tenth game, so he’s averaging over 100 yards per game. We had a lot of yards rushing. These guys, they can boogie.”

Gardena’s Xavier Grant put the Panthers on the board with the first play of the second quarter, making several Patriots miss on a 65-yard touchdown rush. The two-score gap wouldn’t last long, however, as Birmingham quarterback Kevin Hawkins fooled the defense and walked in a 2-yard rush for a touchdown to make the score 28-7 going into halftime.

The Panthers received the ball on their own 20 yard line to start the second half and scored on a drive lasting 8:03 through a 15-yard reception by Kyree Ballou, but their score was quickly canceled out by Harris, who found the end zone from kickoff for a second time.

“They really couldn’t get back into it,” said Rose. “They made some plays, that one long run they had, y’know we busted a little bit on that. But besides that I thought we played pretty good.”

Harris capped off his night with a touchdown when Hawkins dropped a 46-yard pass into his hands, giving Birmingham a 42-13 advantage with 6 minutes remaining in the game. Ballou scored a second touchdown with just seconds left on the clock, and a kneel from Hawkins would close the game.

“It starts tomorrow morning in film, we’ve just got to keep it up throughout the whole week and we’ll be ready for that Friday night,” said Fowles. “It’s just one step to completing our goal, and we’re gonna keep doing that next week.”

Birmingham will meet Narbonne, the last team other than themselves to claim the open division title, next Friday, Nov. 22 at 7:00 p.m.