Alemany Rolls to 6th Straight, Dumps Crespi

Crespi’s Peter Zenobi missed fourth-quarter field goal attempts from 48 and 52 yards, enabling Alemany to hang on for a 10-7 Del Rey League victory over the Celts Friday night at Alemany.

Both attempts fell short as Alemany improved its record to 6-0 by winning the league opener.

Zenobi, who has made 60-yard attempts in practice, said afterward through his tears that his kicks “just weren’t right,” before waving a reporter away.

“No more,” he said, putting his hands over his face and walking away.

Alemany Coach Enrique Lopez was probably saying the same thing in the fourth quarter.

His team, which had shut out four of its previous five opponents and had not been scored upon in 12 quarters, seemed intent on squandering the 10-0 lead it had built in the second quarter on a 21-yard field goal by Fernando Avila and a 48-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Sean Casey to Scoop Augustus.

Casey was intercepted twice in the fourth quarter and the Crespi offense, which had produced only five first downs in seven quarters and scored only one touchdown in 12, suddenly came alive.

An interception by Joe Barnes on the first play of the fourth quarter led to a 55-yard scoring drive that was built around a 20-yard screen pass from quarterback Randy Redell to running back Jon Budge, and a 29-yard shovel pass from Redell to Budge.

The shovel pass put the ball within inches of the goal line. An illegal-procedure penalty moved the ball back to the six-yard line, but three runs by Jeff Kellogg, the last from two yards out, got the ball into the end zone.

Three plays later, Casey was intercepted again, his pass bouncing off tight end David Casillas and into the hands of Crespi defender Raul Lamas, who returned it seven yards to Alemany’s 29-yard line.

Four plays, including another illegal-procedure penalty, lost two yards and Zenobi’s 48-yard attempt fell just short with 5:03 remaining.

“Mental mistakes killed us,” said Crespi Coach Bill Redell, whose team has lost two straight games after winning its first four. “If we wouldn’t have had the illegal-procedure penalty in that situation, we would have been kicking from five yards closer and his kick would have been good.”

Still, Crespi got the ball back with 1:47 left. The Celts drove to the Alemany 34, where Redell’s third-down pass to Tom Conway was batted away from Conway on a disputed play by defensive back Troy Vigil. Redell and his assistants thought Vigil interfered with Conway.

That set up Zenobi’s 52-yard attempt, which fell more than 10 yards short of the crossbar.

That was close enough for Lopez, who described his team’s second-half performance as “terrible.”

“We didn’t play both halves,” said Lopez, whose team had limited Crespi to 36 total yards and two first downs in the first half. Crespi finished with 147 total yards--Redell completed 10 of 23 passes for 109 yards--and seven first downs, which doesn’t exactly qualify as an offensive explosion.

“Our defense saved our ass,” Lopez said.

Alemany’s offense, which rolled up 145 total yards before halftime, produced only 75 in the second half. On their first possession of the half, the Indians drove to the Crespi 21, where Avila’s 38-yard field goal attempt was wide to the left.

After that, Alemany all but lied down offensively as Crespi came storming back.

“That’s a tough one to lose,” Redell said. “We could have won it, or at least tied it. I said, ‘could have,’ not should have.”

Either way, they didn’t.

And Alemany remained unbeaten.