SUNSET LEAGUE : Marina Gets on the Ball, Beats Santa Ana

You can call it good defense. Or you can call it inept offense. But what you can’t call it is nail-biting football.

For the better part of 3 1/2 quarters, neither visiting Santa Ana nor Marina high schools could put together enough offense to score.

So the Marina defense decided to pick up the slack and, combined with an ill-timed pitchout by Santa Ana quarterback Albert Perez, finally scored with 3 minutes 14 seconds left in the game for a 7-0 victory Friday night in the Sunset League opening game for both teams in front of 1,500 at Westminster High School.

The play that buried Santa Ana (0-4, 0-1) came on a second-and-nine from the Saints’ 28-yard line when Perez, under heavy pressure from the Viking defense, tried to pitch the ball to fullback Kevin Pola. The ball sailed past Pola and was kicked, pushed and generally manhandled by a host of players from both sides, until senior defensive end Frank Marvitz fell on it in the end zone.

“I can’t say enough about our defense,” Marina Coach John Seeley said. “They bailed us out quarter after quarter.”

Marina (3-1, 1-0) stayed mostly on the ground by rushing senior fullback Shawn Fulford 22 times for 92 yards, including nine times for 41 yards in a 12-play drive midway through the second period.

For Santa Ana, it was a bitter return to the Sunset League and Division I play after 16 years in the Century League, where they won the championship last season.

The deepest the Saints could move the ball was to the Viking 25-yard line midway through the third quarter. The drive stalled, however, and a 42-yard field goal attempt by Gustavo Plasencia was partially blocked by a Marina defender.

Seeley wasn’t pleased with his team’s offensive output.

“We had out chances in the ballgame to put it away and just didn’t do it,” he said.