Football, 7-3, has advanced to the CIF Finals and will take on the 8-4 Canoga Park Hunters today. 

The Gondoliers have never made the city finals in the last 18 years. The game will take place at 7:00 P.M. at Birmingham Charter High School. 

The team is coming off a 28-20 semi-finals win over the Reseda Regents last Friday. 

The Venice stands were packed with cheering fans. The atmosphere remained thunderous throughout the entire game as the Gondoliers had a strong 28-7 first half. 

“We got off to a hot start offensively and our defense was resilient and tough,” coach Angelo Gasca said. 

Venice didn’t score a point in the second half and Reseda made a push to cut the lead to eight—but Venice was able to hold on and win the match. 

“Things got wacky with the kicks at the end but we felt confident up by eight,” Gasca said. “Everyone was contributing and we’re happy we won.” 

Reseda Regents head coach Alonso Arreola thought his team made too many mistakes early on and Venice capitalized off of them. 

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” Arreola said. “Venice is a good team and we couldn’t afford to make too many mistakes early on.”

In spite of the loss, Arreola was proud of his team’s comeback attempt in the second half and is confident they will bounce back. 

“The fight in our kids after going down speaks to their character even when things aren’t going their way,” Arreola said. “We’ll take some time off and start working on our game.”