Edison Is Outscored by Fontana : Prep Football: Chargers click on offense but lose Division I semifinal game, 48-35.

Where can a football team gain 521 yards, get 28 first downs, score 35 points and still finish empty handed? Where else but at Fontana.

Edison High School looked virtually unbeatable, played one of its best offensive games in years and still lost to Fontana, 48-35, Saturday night in the Division I semifinals before 10,000.

Quarterback Donnie Smith passed for 294 yards and scored two touchdowns, running back Shane Sherman rushed for 146 yards and two more touchdowns but it wasn’t enough to beat Fontana, the state’s top-ranked football team.

Fontana (13-0) scored 34 points in the second half to advance to the Southern Section’s championship game against league-rival San Gorgonio Saturday at Anaheim Stadium.

“We beat most teams with our effort tonight,” said Dave White, Edison’s coach. “But they had just a little too much offense for us. I felt the momentum change in the fourth quarter. Their offense was a little too tough.”

Fontana’s bruising fullback, Samita Vaoifi, was the difference, gaining 212 yards in only 11 carries and scoring on runs of 55, 48, 17 and 13 yards. Vaoifi’s 13-yard run with 50 seconds remaining gave Fontana its first lead, 42-35.

It was an uphill struggle for Fontana all evening against Edison (10-3), which lost to Fontana in the playoffs for the second consecutive year on the same field. Edison had an eight-game winning streak stopped.

“We were lucky tonight,” said Fontana Coach Dick Bruich, who will lead his team into the title game for the second time in three years. “They kicked our tails.”

Well, almost. Edison held a 28-14 halftime lead but Fontana scored touchdowns in 2 minutes 15 seconds in the third quarter. Vaoifi got the Steelers rolling with a 17-yard run that trimmed Edison’s lead to 28-21. He added a 48-yard run for a score that changed the complexion of the game.

“You could feel it coming, you could feel the momentum starting to shift when they scored those two touchdowns,” White said. “We hit that guy (Vaoifi) pretty good, but he’s strong and fast. He made us look bad on some plays.”

Edison made Fontana look bad in the first half, totaling 337 yards and scoring more points (28) in the first half than any team had previously scored in an entire game against Fontana. The Chargers rolled up some impressive numbers along the way, earning 20 first downs by effectively mixing a controlled passing game with Sherman’s rushing.

Smith, who was benched in favor of Greg Angelovic in a 21-16 loss to Fontana last year, was nearly perfect in the half. He completed 14 of 21 passes for 201 yards and added 29 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

Sherman gained 107 yards in 15 carries, but Fontana’s defense limited him to only 39 yards in the second half after he repeatedly burned the Steelers with long gains off draw plays.

Edison’s first two touchdowns were exercises in the two-minute drill. The Chargers opened with a no-huddle offense and took only 2:01 to lead, 7-0.

Edison scored on its next possession but needed seven more seconds to reach the end zone. The Chargers totaled 205 yards in offense in only 12 minutes of play but were just getting warmed up.