Southern Section Football Championships : Paramount Batters Los Alamitos

Quarterback Jack Manu made one big play after another to key Paramount High School’s 30-20 victory over Los Alamitos in the Division III championship game Saturday night.

A crowd of 8,000 at Orange Coast College watched Manu run circles around the Los Alamitos defense. He gained 84 yards and 2 touchdowns in 20 carries, mostly on option rollouts.

His fakes kept the defenders off-balance and when they caught up to him, he was strong enough to carry them along for a few extra yards.

Manu also completed 9 of 10 passes for 159 yards and 1 touchdown. And while he didn’t always look smooth when he dropped back, he certainly was efficient.

And whenever Paramount (12-1) needed a big play, Manu came up with one to keep the Pirates’ momentum going.

“He runs, he throws--it just didn’t matter,” Paramount Coach Ken Sutch said. “It looks like he’s All-CIF to me. He did a hell of a job and so did his teammates.”

Paramount did not punt once, had just 1 turnover and scored on every drive but three. Twice, Los Alamitos (12-1-1) stopped the Pirates on fourth down--once inside the 10-yard line, and the other time only 1:28 remained in the game.

“If you can’t stop them, you can’t win,” Los Alamitos Coach John Barnes said. “It’s a funny deal. I was pretty confident coming here.”

Manu and Co. dented Los Alamitos’ confidence and bruised a few egos in the first half as the Pirates controlled the ball and the line of scrimmage. Eventually, they also bruised the Griffins, with defensive end Robert Miller knocking Los Alamitos quarterback Todd Gragnano out of the game with a second-half sack.

And with Gragnano sidelined with an injured shoulder, any hopes of a Griffin rally were dashed.

Paramount opened a 14-0 first-half lead when Manu scored on runs of 1 and 2 yards. And it could have been worse. Paramount was stopped twice inside the Griffin 10--once turning the ball over on downs and the other time on a fumbled pitch.

Instead, when Gragnano drove the Griffins 80 yards in 43 seconds for a touchdown, the score was 14-7.

Gragnano looked shaky early on, but warmed up on the scoring drive. He used sideline patterns and got a couple of great catches by receivers Ron Monninger and Phil DeMatteo.

With 6 seconds left before halftime, Gragnano had the Griffins on the Pirate 21-yard line. Instead of trying a field goal, Barnes elected to go for the touchdown and Gragnano hit Monninger for the score.

The Griffins carried their momentum into the second half, taking the ball and driving 74 yards for another touchdown. Gragnano, who completed 12 of 19 passes for 1 touchdown and 1 interception, dove over from a yard out for the score.

But, then, Manu started to warm up again.

A 10-yard scoring pass to Laauli Toomalatai gave Paramount a 21-14 lead. A 19-play drive on the next series produced a 23-yard field goal by Ignacio Villasenor and a 24-14 lead.

And though it managed just the 3 points, Paramount kept the ball away from Los Alamitos for a whopping 9 minutes and 34 seconds.

On its next series, Los Alamitos suffered a big blow when Gragnano got sacked by Miller and had to leave the game with an injured shoulder.

His replacement, Jon Whitney, was pressured into throwing an interception 2 plays later. Paramount’s Floyd Caine hauled the pass in at the Griffin 27-yard line.

On the next play, Manu ran to his left and into the clear. When defenders caught up with him at the 16, he lateraled to Daniel Godfrey, who took it the rest of the way for a touchdown and it was 30-14.

Winston Wolf came on in relief of Whitney and led Los Alamitos on a wild, 81-yard scoring drive that brought the Griffins to within 30-20 with 3:30 left. Wolf completed a 5-yard pass to Monninger for the score.