COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOOTBALL ROUNDUP : Rancho Santiago Rallies, Then Holds On to Edge Saddleback

Rancho Santiago football Coach Dave Ogas was almost speechless after his team’s 31-28 victory over Saddleback in a Mission Conference football game in front of about 750 Saturday at Saddleback.

The Dons had opened a 24-14 lead in the third quarter only to fall behind, 28-24, with 2:10 left in the game.

Rancho Santiago then drove to the Saddleback four, only to face a fourth down. The drive appeared to fail when a pass intended for Paul Peters fell incomplete. But a late pass interference call in the end zone gave the Dons a first and goal on the two, and Paul Maund ran it in for the winning score on the next play.

Saddleback still had 59 seconds left. Quarterback Jeff Bailey completed three passes in five tries for 55 yards to get Saddleback to the Rancho Santiago eight with 13 seconds left.

But Saddleback had no timeouts and the clock was running. The coaches called for a pass to be thrown out of bounds, but there was a miscommunication and Bailey called a draw play to John Burns that was stopped for no gain as time ran out.

It was the first time in 10 tries that Rancho Santiago had beaten Saddleback. It was especially gratifying to Ogas and his staff because of last year’s 9-7 loss in which Rancho Santiago missed three short field-goal attempts .

“I really don’t know what to say,” Ogas said. “We just wanted to beat them so bad because we never have. The whole thing is a blur right now.”

Rancho Santiago (8-1 overall and 7-1 in conference play) reamains a game behind Riverside in the Central Division race with one game left. Riverside (9-0, 8-0) defeated Fullerton, 21-9, Saturday to improve to 4-0 in divisional play. Rancho Santiago is 3-1. Saddleback is 1-8, 1-7, 0-4.

Wood completed 28 of 37 for a season-high 328 yards. He also rushed for a nine-yard touchdown in the first half.

Saddleback rallied behind sophomore running back Burns. He scored on runs of one and 30 yards in the fourth quarter, and also had a one-yard touchdown run .

The 30-yard touchdown run came on a third and 10 at the Rancho Santiago 30 with 2:10 left. Burns finished with a game-high 175 yards in 30 carries. Burns had 935 yards this season.

In another Mission Conference game:

Golden West 17, Orange Coast 16--Orange Coast dominated statistically but had four passes intercepted, including two that led directly to touchdowns.

Despite the turnovers, Orange Coast scored on Jason McGehe’s two yard run to close to 17-16 with 1:40 remaining. But Orange Coast’s pass attempt for a two-point conversion failed.

Golden West improved to 5-4 overall, 4-4 in Mission Conference and 2-2 in the Central Division. Orange Coast is 5-4, 4-4, 1-3.