CORONA — Centennial and Mater Dei faced off exactly three months ago to begin the 2024 season. The latter won 42-25, but the former was missing its five-star quarterback Husan Longstreet.

“Honestly, we were afraid of him coming in,” Mater Dei coach Raul Lara said. “We thought their offense was tremendously improved because of him, from the first game. We needed to contain him and bottle him up.”

But even with Longstreet present for Friday’s rematch, the Huskies couldn’t take down the nation’s No. 1 team.

Centennial ended its season with a 36-7 loss at home in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 semifinals.

Mater Dei’s success was largely derived from its ability to capitalize on mistakes, as the Monarchs recorded 14 points off Huskies turnovers while adding another six after a bungled punt.

“You got to play almost perfect against them to execute just a play,” Centennial coach Matt Logan said. “One guy makes a mistake, then the play doesn’t function. It’s rough. Probably one of the best defenses we’ve ever played.”

Mater Dei’s defense stuffed Centennial early, forcing a trio of three-and-outs and recording an interception across the Huskies’ first four drives. Yet the Monarchs offense similarly struggled to build consistent drives, recording just a field goal across the first quarter-plus of play while quarterback Dash Beierly threw an interception of his own.

Then came the fateful punt.

Pinned deep in its own territory — a common theme for Centennial’s offense — a blown up punt handed Mater Dei the ball at the 1-yard line. Beierly promptly scored on second-and-goal to extend his team’s lead to 9-0.

The Huskies’ only TD of the game came on the following drive. Running back Dean Gibson propelled his team into Monarchs territory with an explosive 52-yard run before scoring from the 16.

Down 9-7, the wheels had yet to come off. That wouldn’t be the case for long.

Mater Dei scored on a short-field, 42-yard drive, but failed the two-point conversion to keep the game within one score. Just a few plays later, though, Longstreet was sacked by linebacker Nasir Wyatt and fumbled the ball, which was recovered by the Monarchs at the 4. An easy touchdown in hand, Mater Dei led 22-7 at half.

“Even when it got to 22-7, I thought we were fine,” Logan said.

“Fine” turned into a need to score shortly after the start of the second half.

Now led by Furian Inferrera after an injury to Beierly, the Monarchs drove 79 yards and scored to open the third quarter and pull ahead 29-7.

“You get to the point where, ‘Hey, we got to generate something here, right? Pretty much everything we tried didn’t work,” Logan said. “We moved the ball a little bit, but not effective enough. Didn’t put it in the end zone.”

Centennial finished with 22 more total yards than Mater Dei, but two more interceptions — one of which was returned for a touchdown — and a fumble extinguished any chances of a Huskies comeback.