Orange County Prep Football : Murray’s Run Is Margin for Huntington Beach

Skip Murray’s seven-yard touchdown run with 1:36 left gave Huntington Beach High School a 16-13 nonleague victory at Long Beach Wilson Friday night.

Murray’s run ended a 66-yard, 5-play drive during which Murray rushed 3 times for 51 yards.

“It was a counter play,” said Oiler Coach George Pascoe. “We’ve used that play before.”

Long Beach Wilson (0-3), which led, 13-9, before Murray’s touchdown, got as far as its own 41 trying to come back. But an interception by Barry Borst with 45 seconds remaining ended any last-second Bruin hopes.

“We played really hard in those final minutes,” Pascoe said. “Skip ran particularly hard during that time and Jason (McGehee, who ran for 118 yards and a touchdown) also ran very hard for us. And our defense came through with a lot of big plays when we needed them.”

Huntington Beach (3-1), which fell behind late in the first quarter on an 18-yard touchdown pass from Wilson quarterback Scott Long to Brad Nasser, tied the score with 4:46 left in the second quarter.

Five plays after the Oilers took a Wilson punt at the Bruin 26, fullback McGehee scored on a one-yard run.

Patrick Scott started the second half for Wilson with an 89-yard kickoff return that brought the ball to the Oiler one.

Two plays later, Monteo Demery scored on a one-yard run for a 13-6 lead.

Huntington Beach cut the lead to 13-9 with three minutes left in the quarter on a 27-yard field goal by Casey Satterthwaite. His kick came six plays after Oiler linebacker Jon Ludwick recovered a fumble at the Wilson 20.

Although pleased with the victory, Pascoe was unhappy with the Oilers’ 130 yards in penalties.

One of them, a delay of game penalty which came on fourth-and-goal at the Wilson five, forced Huntington Beach to settle for Satterthwaite’s field goal.

“That’s a lot of yards to be penalized” Pascoe said. “We can’t afford to do that to score victories.”