Desert-Mountain : Woodbridge Rallies as Schweer Weathers Last-Minute Drive, 13-10

The mist at Irvine High School was so thick Friday for the Desert-Mountain Conference football championship that if you were in the Woodbridge stands you could hear but barely see the Chaminade fans across the field.

And if you were Woodbridge quarterback Fred Schweer, back to pass from the Chaminade 32-yard line, the end zone was merely a distant blur.

But with 50 seconds left in the game, and Woodbridge trailing by four points, Schweer threw the ball toward the general direction of the one-yard line. And receiver Dax Jordan rose out of the fog to catch it, falling into the corner of the end zone for the winning touchdown.

Woodbridge (13-1) beat Chaminade, 13-10, for its first Desert-Mountain championship.

“Yeah, I could see him,” Schweer said. “No, no, I couldn’t see him. Oh my God.”

Schweer was understandably emotional. The junior quarterback had overcome adversity all season but never this dramatically.

Thrown into the starting role in the third game of the season when senior Eric Brougher was injured, Schweer led his team to six straight victories and a playoff berth. In the playoffs, Schweer missed one game because of a bruised kidney, but came back last week against Atascadero to pass his team into the championship game.

But in the second half of Friday’s game, Woodbridge’s narrow 6-0 halftime lead, gained on two Keith Boothroyd field goals, slipped away to a rejuvenated Chaminade offense and the Eagles’ pummeling defense.

Schweer completed 5 of 14 passes for 51 yards in the first half but overthrew a number of receivers. With three minutes left in the first half, Schweer was hit hard by Chaminade’s Felix Goodson and left the game. He came back in the second half, but Chaminade’s defense, led by linebacker Tim Lavin and defensive end Scott Chandler, sacked Schweer four times for a loss of 24 yards.

Chaminade also managed to score, after being shut out in the first half, first on a 37-yard field goal by Chris Noonan in the third quarter. The Eagles took the lead with 6:30 left on a one-yard run by Joseph Norton. Tailback Lavin, who gained 28 yards in the first half, rushed for 37 yards in the second half and senior quarterback David Morrison replaced junior Greg Baumgartner and completed four passes for 62 yards to set up Chaminade’s go-ahead touchdown.

But on Woodbridge’s desperation drive, after being sacked on second down for a loss of eight yards, Schweer hit running back John Rios for a 25-yard gain, then threw to Jordan for the winning touchdown.

“Fred made an excellent decision,” Coach Gene Noji said. “Rios was the best matchup on a linebacker. He was open.”

Rios, who provided most of Woodbridge’s offense in the game with 72 rushing yards on 21 carries, felt the pressure of his new role as a receiver.

“I jumped up as far as I could,” Rios said. “It seemed like I was up there a long time. I had a lot to think about. I thought, ‘God, don’t let me drip this ball.’ ”

Schweer completed 10 of 20 passes for 123 yards.

All season long Noji warned that Woodbridge, which was undefeated until the 10th game of the season when it lost the Pacific Coast League Championship to Laguna Beach, was much smaller than most of its opponents. And the Warriors were outsized by Chaminade, whose offensive line averaged more than 205 pounds. But Woodbridge’s swarming defense was able to shut down 205-pound Lavin, who had gained more than 1,300 rushing yards this season.

The loss was Chaminade’s first since dropping its first two games of the season. The Santa Fe League champion, seeded second in the Desert-Mountain playoffs, finishes 11-3.