PREP FOOTBALL : Sunset League : Marina, in Upset, Beats No. 5 Edison for the First Time

For Marina High School football fans, the old miracle on 34th Street can’t hold a candle to the one that took place on Golden West Street Thursday night.

Marina, which had not won a game in five outings in 1986, defeated rival Edison, ranked No. 5 in Orange County, 17-7, in the Sunset League opener at Westminster High School.

The Vikings (1-5) had never beaten Edison (4-2). They had lost 12 times and tied, 0-0, in 1983.

The Marina defensive unit deserved an ovation after Thursday’s upset. It appeared undersized and outmanned at most every position against Edison’s talented offense, but the speedy Vikings seized three Charger fumbles and intercepted two passes by quarterback Mike Henderson, who had thrown only two in five previous games.

Marina safety Bruce Schmidt played an unforgettable game. He sacked Henderson twice, recovered a fumble, joined the offense long enough to catch a 27-yard pass and set up the first Viking touchdown--and returned to defense to immediately intercept a pass and set up the other touchdown.

“This was the toughest game I’ve played in my life,” Schmidt said. “Edison is a great football team. We were 0-5 and we came together like the perfect football team tonight.”

Schmidt and other Vikings remembered how their undefeated sophomore season was spoiled by the Chargers when Edison came back from a 21-0 deficit to win, 22-21.

“We wanted revenge for that,” Schmidt said.

So the Viking Class of ’87 laid low and bided its time. It finally rolled around on an unlikely Thursday night two years later.

The other major factor in the Viking victory was the return of running back Sean Magula, an all-Sunset League player who had missed the last four games with an ankle injury. Despite playing behind an inexperienced offensive line, Magula emerged with flying colors Thursday. He carried the ball 22 times for 117 yards and scored both touchdowns on runs of 3 and 57 yards.

All pregame signs seemed to point toward a rout by Edison. The Chargers were coming off a 21-7 upset by Santa Monica last Friday and the Vikings appeared to be the ideal victim for working off those frustrations.

But the same problems that dogged the Chargers against Santa Monica again reared their ugly heads in the Marina game--fumbles, untimely penalties and dropped passes. Not to mention that new bedevilment, interceptions.

Those errors erased any advantage the Chargers’ superior offensive statistics might have lent them. Edison had 260 yards of total offense to Marina’s 175 and 14 first downs to the Vikings’ 9.

The story was the same at halftime. Edison had 121 yards of offense to Marina’s paltry 24 yards, but the Chargers trailed 3-0 after Ben LeFrancois kicked a 24-yard field goal to give Marina its first halftime lead of 1986.

The Vikings committed a rare mistake to open the second half as Tyler Aldous, who otherwise played a fine game, fumbled the kickoff return and Edison recovered at the Viking 23-yard line. Kaleaph Carter, who carried the ball 21 times for 126 yards, scored on a 19-yard run a play later.

But Magula scored on two successive carries the next two times Marina got the ball and, with LeFrancois’ kicks, the Vikings had the margin of victory. The Viking defense harried Henderson unmercifully in the fourth quarter, making it appear that the Charger offensive line had abandoned its quarterback to the wolves.

Henderson’s last play of the game was a desperate deep pass that was picked off near the end zone by Aldous.

Viking receiver Brian Sterzer said: “This is the biggest victory of my life by far. We could go 1-9 and, having beaten Edison, I’d be happy.”

Another Marina student, senior Tony Preall, just stood in the middle of the field and stared at the scoreboard like an artist admiring a breathtaking landscape.

“I hope they leave it up there forever,” he said. “This day will live forever.”