By Joe Snyder
After recent Gardena High head football coach Monty Gilbreth stepped down last spring, his top assistant, Terrence Williams replaced him as the new Panther mentor.
Williams, who was the defensive line coach and defensive coordinator, is already spending summer workouts with his squad. Gardena managed to play in a few passing games and other football fundamental competition including a few weeks ago at St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy in Downey. He is also attempting to get the Panthers to vie at Compton High’s new field this week.
Williams has been an assistant at Gardena since the 2019 season. Gardena, under head coach Jim McElroy, won the CIF-Los Angeles City Division III championship with a 14-8 win over Huntington Park Marquez, the Southern California Regional Division VIIA title by topping San Diego Francis Parker before falling to host San Francisco Lincoln 35-26 in the CIF-State Division VII championship. Gilbreth replaced McElroy in 2021.
After that crown six years ago, the Panthers, like other prep football and other sports teams throughout the United States, were hit with the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) Pandemic and did not play its 2020 season and even ended up not playing some of the games during spring 2021. In the following fall, Gardena finished 3-6 overall but improved as it went on. Williams helped Gilbreth’s Panthers win their first Marine League crown since 1974 and their first league championship since 1990 (Gardena won the Southern League when the Marine and Southern each had four-team leagues in a conference.) The Mohicans were head coached by long-time football and baseball mentor Mike Sakarai, now retired.
Williams played on the defensive line for Gardena (which was then called the Mohicans) where he graduated in 1991. He took a few years off before playing for the late head coach John Featherstone (1949-2021) at El Camino College where he was all-conference in 1994. He transferred to Portland State University but left to NCAA Division III University of La Verne of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (considered by many as Southern California’s Ivy League that include premiere academic colleges as Occidental, Whittier, Pomona-Pitzer, Claremont Mudd and Claremont McKenna). He graduated from La Verne in 1999 where he was the conference’s Honorable Mention Defensive Player of the Year.
He had workouts with National Football League teams New York Giants and Chicago Bears but never played pro.
Gone for Gardena are key running backs Xavier Grant and Myles Mason but the Panthers should have good experience with a mostly-senior team. Gardena could have a very good size line behind 6-foot-10, 365-pound senior offensive tackle Gabriel Gutierrez and 6-foot-3, 320-pound senior Valentino Jones. The Panthers also have experience at wide receiver that feature seniors Braylin Williams and Akai Brown, along with tight end Caleb Morris.
“Williams and Brown are good route runners,” Sullivan said. “We have a slew of receivers.”
Gone is quarterback Isaiah Kim and Gardena will have a young one in freshman Cecil James but Williams feels good about him. “He’s really good,” Williams says about James. “He can make all the throws for his age. He has a good football IQ.”
Under Gilbreth last season, the Panthers finished 7-4 overall after winning their first seven games but the always rigorous Marine proved too tough for them as they settled for just a fourth-place finish at 1-3, defeating only Wilmington Banning. Gardena had a forfeit loss to Narbonne, which later turned into a double forfeit as the Gauchos, which originally won the CIF-L.A. City Section Open Division title by routing Marine foe San Pedro 75-31, forfeited all seven wins including the City title due to a rash of ineligible players who were involved in bizarre recruiting. Narbonne will not be eligible for postseason play over the next three seasons. Gardena was one of four Marine teams to make the prestigious Open Division but it lost in the quarterfinals to Lake Balboa Birmingham 42-19.
In 2023, Gardena won the Marine title. It advanced by defeating Palisades in the quarterfinals before falling to host East L.A. Garfield in the semis.
Gilbreth stepped down to spend more time seeing his son, Chaz, play his senior season at Mayfair High in Lakewood.
“We want to keep the excellence we built under Gilbreth,” Williams said. “We want to keep winning going. We spent a lot of time building the program and we want to keep it going.”
The Panthers begin their 2025 season at home against Crespi High from Encino on Aug. 22, beginning at 4 p.m.
______________________________
Making basketball history highlights CSUDH sports
The 2024-25 school year was a big one for the Cal State Dominguez Hills men’s and women’s basketball teams.
Both swept the California Collegiate Athletic Association, the NCAA Division II Western Regionals and advanced to the championship finals over last winter.
The Lady Toros particularly had a great season, finishing at 36-2 overall after falling to Grand Valley University from Michigan 70-58.
CSDH rolled to the CCAA crown, finishing 21-1 but defeating Cal State San Marcos for the crown. In March, the Toros won the Western Regionals over Central Washington 70-47.
Cal State Dominguez had very good depth behind all-Americans Christina Jones and Asia Jordan.
For the men, the Toros won the CCAA title, also over Cal State San Marcos, and the regionals. They fell just one point short of Nova Southeastern from Florida 74-73. Former Serra High star in junior Jeremy Dent-Smith was a big spark to CSDH, averaging 22 points per game. He scored a team-high 27 in the Toros’ loss to Nova Southeastern. Alex Garcia, a former standout at Rolling Hills Prep, finished his four-year career as he and Dent-Smith were both all-NCAA Division II,
Cal State Dominguez Hills also had an outstanding year in men’s soccer where they won the CCAA crown with a 7-0-5 record and was 11-5-5 overall.
The Toros won the crown by shutting out rival and second-place Cal State Los Angeles 3-0, then met the Golden Eagles in the second round of the NCAA Division II Western Regionals. Cal State L.A. avenged that defeat with a 4-1 victory.
Cal State Dominguez also had a good season in baseball last spring, going 29-22 overall and finished third in the CCAA at 25-15. The Toros, though, lost were eliminated in two games of the CCAA tournament including a 5-4 loss to Cal State Chico.
The Toros were led by junior pitcher Justin Aberoro who was first-team all-NCAA Division II Western Region. He was 8-2 with a 2.83 earned run average including 69 strikeouts. He allowed just one home run.
Last Monday, recently graduated Serra High shortstop C.J. Hughes was drafted in the 11th round by the Milwaukee Brewers. He was the 335th overall pick.
Hughes helped the Cavaliers to a 19-9 overall record including 15-0 in non-league games. Serra finished only fourth at 4-8 in the always highly-competitive Del Rey League.
