CENTURY LEAGUE FOOTBALL : Orange, Santa Ana Valley Coaches Tongue-Tied in 7-7 Game

Dan Castanon, Santa Ana Valley High School football coach, called his team fortunate. Tom Meiss, Orange coach, shook Castanon’s hand and said, “Nobody should have to do this for a living.”

The coaches stood at midfield, trying to explain a 7-7 tie in the teams’ Century League opener Thursday night at El Modena High.

“It had to be the craziest first league game I’ve ever coached,” Castanon said.

The game ended with Orange frantically lining up for a 38-yard field-goal try that would have won the game. But time ran out before the Panthers could snap the ball.

Ten seconds earlier, Santa Ana Valley’s Mike Castleberry and Bernie Enriquez burst through the line to block Micah Knorr’s 33-yard attempt on third down.

But Orange recovered at the Santa Ana Valley 21, bringing up fourth down. For a moment, that wasn’t clear, and Orange had half its defensive unit and half its field-goal team on the field at once.

Finally, the Panthers got it together, but it was too late.

Santa Ana Valley (3-1-2 overall, 0-0-1 in league) trailed, 7-0, after allowing Orange (3-2-1, 0-0-1) a 13-yard touchdown run by Acen Chiles on the game’s first series.

Nothing much happened--unless you’re into punts, interceptions, fumbles, penalties and a fair amount of good defense--until Santa Ana Valley took possession at its own 38 with 5 minutes 24 seconds left in the game.

The Falcons drove, thanks in part to a 10-yard holding penalty on Orange, to the Panther 31. On second and seven, quarterback Gary Graves dropped to pass.

“It was a sprint-out pass,” Castanon would say later.

Graves was nearly sacked, but slipped through the onrushing linemen, cut to his left and ran 31 yards for a touchdown with 2:33 left.

After two timeouts, Santa Ana Valley lined up for a two-point conversion try. Again, Graves dropped to pass. As he did, penalty flags fell. He scrambled to his left and threw on the run into the end zone. An Orange defender tipped the pass away, but the officials threw another flag.

The calls were illegal procedure against Santa Ana Valley and a roughing the passer penalty against Orange--offsetting penalties, replay the down.

“Things just didn’t go right for us,” Castanon said later. “Even the two-point conversion try didn’t go right. I figured we better go for the tie.”

Armando Cueva, the Falcons’ holder, handled a high snap well, and Isan Najera’s kick went through the uprights as Orange defenders crashed into him.