Mr. December

Central Catholic quarterback Hunter Petlansky would love to play in an offense like the one utilized by San Marino High School, the Raiders’ opponent in Saturday’s CIF Open Division Small School state championship football game.

“That would be very, very nice,” said the 6-foot-3, 225-pound senior. “And very, very fun.”

Titans quarterback Carson Glazier has taken full advantage of coach Mike Hobbie’s spread offense to become one of the top quarterbacks in California.

At 6-feet and 165 pounds, Glazier does not fit the prototypical quarterback mold. But there’s nothing undersized about his numbers.

The left-handed senior has thrown for 4,119 yards this season, completing 78 percent of his passes with 47 touchdowns and just three interceptions.

Over his three-year varsity career, Petlanksy has thrown for 4,166 yards and 41 TDs. But statistics aren’t Petlansky’s major concern.

Winning is.

Since the start of the 2013 season, no quarterback in the state has more playoff victories or more state titles than Petlansky, who held the clipboard his sophomore season before taking over for Week 10 and leading the Raiders down the stretch to their second consecutive state crown.

Just call him “Mr. December.”

A year later, with the team fully in his hands, Petlansky passed for more than 2,000 yards, with 20 TDs and just six interceptions, as Central Catholic won its third consecutive state championship.

This season, there’s even more at stake for Petlanksy.

Not only can he close out his career with a 17-0 postseason record, but he can become just the fifth quarterback in state history to lead a team through a perfect 16-0 campaign.

“The thing that makes this season special is the possibility of 16-0,” said Petlansky, whose Raiders were 12-3 last year and 15-1 the previous season. “Not many guys can say they were on an undefeated team.

“That’s awesome.”

Not only would his Raiders get to 16-0 with a win Saturday, but Petlansky would become the first quarterback in the modern bowl system, which started in 2006, to guide a team to three straight state championships.

“If you watch Hunter, he can throw and run,” said Central Catholic head coach Roger Canepa, whose teams have won 22 consecutive postseason games dating back to 2012. “He has a big arm, he’s very athletic, he gives you two dimensions. And he’s made some big plays when the pocket has broken down. He makes big plays in big games.”

Big games. With with 37 varsity starts and 16 playoff games under his belt, nobody in the state is as battle tested as Petlansky. That was most evident this year in the Sac-Joaquin Section final against Oakdale, a rematch of the teams’ Week 10 matchup at David Patton Field.

On a key third-quarter drive on which the Raiders took a 14-7 lead over the Mustangs, Petlansky completed 4 of 5 passes for 66 yards, including a 23-yard completion to younger brother Cole, a junior receiver, on fourth-and-8. He then bulled his way in from the 5 for the go-ahead score.

“(The pass) is something we’ve been able to do, but it’s not really our style,” Petlansky told The Bee that night at Lincoln High’s Alex G. Spanos Stadium. “We’re a run-first kind of team, but we had to exhaust all of our options tonight.”

Petlansky has attempted 20 passes in a game twice, and both of those were before the team “discovered” tailback Justin Rice.

When Montell Bland injured an ankle in Week 3 of the 2014 season, Rice was inserted as the starting tailback and the rest is history. Two 2,000-yard and 30-touchdown seasons later, Rice is among the greatest ever to play in Navy blue and Vegas gold.

But it’s not like Rice’s emergence changed anything for Canepa, a long-time devotee of the power running game. This is the fourth consecutive season Central Catholic has produced a 2,000-yard rusher, a feat that’s been done just 17 times in the history of the Stanislaus District.

But if San Marino sells out and puts all its focus on stopping Rice, the Raiders can always rely on Petlansky’s strong right arm.

“Our game plan consists of whatever’s working,” said Canepa. “If we have to throw it 30 times, we will. If we have to throw it 50 times, we will. But I have all the confidence in the world in Hunter to make a play with his legs or his arm.

“If I didn’t, I never would’ve thrown down there (vs. Oakdale) on fourth and 8.”

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Mr. December."