ORANGE COUNTY PREP FOOTBALL : Century League : El Modena Misses Playoffs Despite Victory Over Foothill

Meet El Modena High School’s Brian Hoey.

He with the 3-wood for a right leg. The same Brian Hoey who was recruited from that hotbed of prep football talent--the junior varsity tennis team.

Hoey kicked a 33-yard field goal as time ran out Friday night on Northrup Field to beat Foothill, 10-7, in a Century League game, and for a second saved a season for El Modena.

Hoey’s kick came after a chaotic 11-play drive that included a halfback option and three penalties in the last 30 seconds.

“I just took my time and went through my steps,” Hoey said.

Those steps are a mix of Arthur Murray and Arnold Palmer. Three steps back, two over, head down, aim for the middle of the ball and follow through.

“I try to do the same thing every time,” Hoey said. “It helps me block out everything else.”

Hoey’s field goal came after Foothill had finally overcome its game-night demons--poor execution, poorly thrown passes, untimely penalties--and tied the score, 7-7, on a two-yard touchdown run by running back John Fischbeck and Scott Ball’s conversion.

It came with the prospect that if Hoey missed, the game would end in a tie, and El Modena would be eliminated from the playoffs.

El Modena, Foothill and Canyon--which beat Villa Park, 24-7--finished the regular season with 3-2 league records. A coin toss was then held with the three schools’ principals participating to determine which two teams would go to the Southern Conference Playoffs. Foothill won the right to be the Century League’s No. 2 team and Canyon No. 3. It meant El Modena would miss the playoffs for the first time since 1973.

“This is a big emotional swing for us,” El Modena coach Bill Backstrom said. “Nothing has come easy this season.”

El Modena lost three of its first four games by a combined score of 116-17. More than a few people were snickering about the once-proud El Modena program, now in shambles, that Backstrom had inherited from retired Coach Bob Lester.

Everyone seemed to forget that those losses came to teams with the names of Edison, Esperanza and El Toro. And Backstrom’s explanation that his team was inexperienced and would improve as the season wore on pretty much fell on deaf ears.

“No one believed me, but I kept telling them this team was going to get better,” Backstrom said. “They matured tonight. This was a typical Foothill-El Modena ball game.”

One of those young players who did a lot of growing up Friday night was sophomore quarterback Trey Frank.

Frank was called up in the fourth game of the season, given the unenviable task of making his first varsity appearance against El Toro. Things didn’t go well then, but against Foothill, Frank was 8 of 13 for 82 yards.

He also scrambled for 11 yards and a first down on El Modena’s only touchdown drive.

The drive, coming on the Vanguards’ first possession, was capped by Ross Bauer’s 18-yard touchdown run. Bauer rushed for 103 yards in 27 carries.

Foothill’s Fischbeck ran for 115 yards in 25 carries.