Villa Park Prevails in ‘Punch Bowl’

For three quarters Friday night, it was downright brutal. Villa Park and El Modena high schools traded body slams, insults and, for a brief time, punches.

The Century League game, played in front of 3,800 at El Modena, took on the tone of a street fight. And the teams seemed bent on establishing the machismo game.

Most of the game was a test of bravado and little else. Neither team had scored in the first three quarters and neither looked particularly interested in scoring, not when it was more fun to knock each other to the turf.

Then the fourth quarter started, and the teams realized there was a football game at stake. It wasn’t exactly a clean knockout, but Villa Park rallied for an 8-7 decision.

This was a game both teams needed to win to stay in contention for the league championship. With two games left in the regular season, Villa Park is 5-3 overall and 2-1 in league play. El Modena fell to 2-5-1, 1-2.

For a long time, it appeared the game would end in a scoreless tie. Neither team could move the ball as the defenses dominated.

The only scoring opportunities were three missed field goals--two by El Modena. The vicious hitting was primarily responsible for the lack of offense.

A brief second-quarter fight featured tamer blows than some of the legal hits.

Finally, with 10:29 left, El Modena scored on a seven-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Adam Garcia to Yuri Shallan.

Villa Park still struggled and, after its second series of the fourth quarter ended in a fumble at the El Modena 33, was facing a 7-0 deficit with 6:11 left.

But El Modena couldn’t do anything with the ball and punted it back to Villa Park with 3:42 left.

Villa Park started at its own 33, but a 38-yard gain on a pass from quarterback Jason Martian to Eric Helms moved the Spartans to the El Modena 29. Five plays later, Villa Park was at the three with 1:53 left.

Gary Bladow scored on a three-yard burst up the middle on the next play. Villa Park Coach Pat Mahoney then opted to try for a two-point conversion.

Martian took the snap, rolled to his right then threw back to the left toward the back of the end zone. There, waiting behind El Modena defenders Garcia and Kevin Giordano, was running back Shawn Potter, who outjumped the two and came down with the reception.

“We threw two touchdowns last week (in a 21-14 victory over Santa Ana) with that same little sprint, flood pass,” Mahoney said, explaining the game-winning conversion pass.

“It’s our goal-line pass play. We tried a different wrinkle, sneaking Potter out of the backfield.”