Canyon’s Defense Stymies Foothill for a 12-3 Victory

Canyon’s Darren Lish threw a pair of second-half touchdown passes to George Garcia to lead the Comanches to a 12-3 victory over Foothill in the Century League opener for both teams Friday at Tustin High School.

Canyon’s offense sputtered in the first half, gaining only three first downs and committing three turnovers. But the Comanche defense held Foothill scoreless until it surrendered a 26-yard field goal by Keo Powell with 33 seconds left in the half.

“I told our kids that everything that could have gone wrong for us in the first half did go wrong and we were only down three,” Canyon Coach Loren Shumer said.

And the offense did get it together. Canyon (3-3 overall, 1-0 in league), after forcing Foothill (1-5, 0-1) to punt, took the ball at the Knights’ 37. Lish hit Jeff Brunswig for a 54-yard completion that set up a Canyon first-and-goal at the nine. A holding play pushed the ball back to the 19, but two plays later Lish threw 16 yards to Garcia for the score. Greg Lawrence’s extra-point attempt hit the crossbar and bounced back, making the score 6-3.

The Canyon defense forced another Foothill punt, giving the Comanches the ball at their own 41. Brunswig did most of the work for Canyon as he carried four times for 39 yards on the nine-play drive. Garcia capped it when he caught a 21-yard pass from Lish.