Morning After Blog
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Oaks Christian beats Muir 36-20. Close game. Not. The Mustangs fell behind 36-0 with two minutes remianing in the first half.
It doesn’t matter, Stangs. I have the ‘Turkey Bowl Tussle’ circled on my calendar already. See you there.
On to Three-and-Out.
First down: South Hills may have lost the game, but the Huskies played better than Trabuco Hills last night...that’s what SGVT Staff Writer Eric Terrazas wrote, at least.
‘The Huskies (0-1) committed two key turnovers in the red zone and also had two Dorian Wells rushing touchdowns nullified by holding penalties,’ Terrazas wrote. ‘The two turnovers were especially damaging.’
With the scored tied ,6-6, the Huskies came out in the second half and manuvered their way to the Mustangs 15-yard line in 16 plays. On the 17th play, however, Trabuco’s Gabe Lemon picked off Brandon Parham’s pass and returned it to the 48. Trabuco went on to score the go-ahead touchdown.
South Hills had another chance, but a Dorian Wells fumble into the end zone on a first-and-goal from the one with four minutes left.
In coachspeak, the two turnovers and the two touchdown runs by Wells that were nullified mean the Huskies gave away 28 points. The true final score could have been 34-6.
Second down: Charter Oak getting blanked by Upland, 14-0. Where were the running backs? The quarterback? What happened? ‘We had our chances in the first half, and we ran out of gas in the second,’ Chargers Coach Lou Farrar told the SGVT. ‘But if we can’t score from a half-yard out, well ...’
Like South Hills, Charter Oak had its share of missed opportunities. In the first half alone, the Chargers ventured into Uplands redzone four times only to be turned away each time. The Chargers had 140 yards in the first half, but only finished with 153. Quarterback Chris Allen completed 11 of 24 for 119 yards, but was picked off by Darren Scales twice, the last one setting up a short 18-yard scoring drive, according to the SGVT.
All in all, the missed chances included a botched FG attempt, a missed FG, a sack on fourth down and a ‘JaMarcus Russell-like QB’ getting stopped on a run from the one at the end of the game.
In coachspeak, that’s at least 16 points Charter Oak left off the board.
Third down: From the SGVT’s recap of the Mater Dei-West Covina game by correspondent Scott French: ‘There were positives to be gleaned from West Covina High’s opener Friday night: a decent running attack, particularly Isaac Tucker; impressive kickoff returns, averaging more than 28 yards; and debuting punter Robert Rodriguez, who got off a 40-yard effort. Oh, and the Bulldogs scored a touchdown, too. That was about it.’
Yep, that was about it. The touchdown came on the last play of the game as time expired. It was a pass from Vince Strickland to Thomas Flores.
The Register’s Dan Albano has a great breakdown of the game. Albano had a couple of gems, but the best one was writing that USC Offensive Coordinator Steve Sarkisian was at the game (I had heard people from USC were at the game, but didn’t find out who).
Punt: ‘People will [ask whether] it’s smart to play Mater Dei,’ West Covina Coach Mike Maggiore told the SGVT after the game. ‘I think we’ll be able to tell at the end of the season. What we get from this, how this affects us ... hopefully, we learned some things and keep our heads up.’
- Jaime Cárdenas