THE BIG GAME : Patriots’ Defense Makes a Difference

There was a promise to Friday night’s Palomar League matchup between two of the county’s highest-scoring offenses.

It came from Fallbrook Coach Tom Pack, who guaranteed this wasn’t going to be a 14-7 contest.

He was right.

Would you believe 16-6?

On a night when footballs should have been going into the end zone as often as the Dow Jones has been going down, No. 10 Orange Glen, with San Diego’s third-best offense (29.3 points per game), scored just two touchdowns--one in the first quarter, one in the closing seconds -- and a field goal.

Fallbrook, with the county’s ninth-best offense (23.8 ppg), managed just one touchdown, and that came on the first play of the game, a 66-yard run by Tony Burton. Burton took the kickoff 34 yards to set up the score.

“We kept telling the defense in practice that there was going to be a game where you’re going to have to win the game for us,” Orange Glen Coach Rob Gilster said. “We didn’t know if it would be this week or some other week.”

It was this week.

The Patriots took advantage of three interceptions and a pair of fumbles as the Warriors shot themselves in the foot all night in their run-and-shoot offense.

The Patriots’ biggest defensive play came in the final two minutes of the first half. Fallbrook quarterback Robbie Cosner (11 of 24 for 122 yards), ranked fourth in the county, had completed three of four passes for 36 yards, and the Warriors had moved from their own 34 to the Orange Glen nine. But James Parker intercepted the next pass at the seven, ran it to the 15, and the Patriots were able to take a 7-6 lead into the intermission.

“He did the same thing last week against San Dieguito,” Gilster said of Parker’s interception deep in Patriot territory. “Fallbrook could’ve went up on us right there, and it could have been a different ballgame.”

But it wasn’t. In addition to the five turnovers, Fallbrook also had an apparent 27-yard scoring run in the third quarter by Craig Person nullified by a holding penalty.

Orange Glen held a tenuous 10-6 lead with 53 seconds remaining in the game. With the ball at the 23--the Patriots took over at the 27 on four downs--Omar Navarro completed a short pass to Gavin McQueen, who battled the defender for the ball, then broke another tackler for the score.

Navarro finished 12 of 23 for 137 yards.

McQueen scored in the first quarter as well, taking a pass from Navarro 22 yards. David Napier’s kick made it 7-6.

Navarro completed all three of his passes on the 45-yard drive, which was set up when Ryan Gustine picked up a fumble.

Napier added a 37-yard field goal in the third quarter to make it 10-6.