Manning Gets Trabuco Hills a Title

Tim Manning, Mr. Everything for Trabuco Hills High School, found new and more interesting ways to score touchdowns Thursday night.

He improvised a little and followed his instincts a lot. He played defense, offense and returned kicks, all with confidence and a certain swagger.

And, as a reward for his determination, Manning and the Mustangs are once again Pacific Coast League champions.

Trabuco Hills, the defending Southern Section Division VIII champions (9-1 and 5-0), made plenty of mistakes, but in the end it had enough from Manning for a 20-7 victory over Orange in front of 2,000 at Mission Viejo High School.

With the victory, the Mustangs became the first team to go undefeated in four years of Pacific Coast League play. But, it wasn’t easy.

Trabuco Hills had one touchdown called back because of a holding call and wasted another scoring opportunity when Manning was intercepted deep in Orange territory. The Mustangs also had the ball inside the Panther 10-yard line twice and came away with no points.

“Power football is just not our style,” Coach Jim Barnett said. “We work hard hard at being a wide-open football team. We had trouble down on the goal line. I guess you can’t do everything.”

Unless you happen to be Tim Manning.

All three Mustang touchdowns were a direct result of Manning’s abilities. He scrambled 66 yards for Trabuco Hills’ first touchdown and threw a nine-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter, as the Mustangs led, 14-7, at halftime.

Manning then clinched the game with a 66-yard punt return in the fourth quarter.

In all, he accounted for 222 of his team’s 265 total yards. Manning completed 12 of 22 passes for 144 yards and rushed for 78 yards in three carries.

On defense, he broke up four passes.

“It’s hard sometimes having your quarterback in the game all the time,” Barnett said. “You’d like to have a chance to talk things over with him. But Tim is just too valuable to keep on the sidelines.”

The game was barely a minute old when Manning dropped back to pass and, seeing no one open, decided to get creative. He took off up the middle, running through the grasp of two defenders, then cut to the sideline for a 66-yard touchdown run.

“I really didn’t see any daylight until I ran past a couple players,” Manning said. “Then there was plenty of daylight. It was a foot race and no one was going to catch me.”

Orange (7-2-1, 4-1) scored on its first possession, driving 50 yards for the touchdown. On a second down play from the four, Brian Rommel fumbled on the one, but Scott Strini recovered the ball in the end zone for the touchdown.

After wasting three chances, Manning flipped a nine-yard touchdown pass to running back Peter Burke late in the second quarter to give the Mustangs the lead.

Orange dominated the second half with its ball control offense. Rommel gained 79 of his game-high 105 yards in the second half.

However, the Panthers were held scoreless by their own mistakes. Quarterback Chris Thompson was intercepted three times.