Los Alamitos Bumbles Its Way to Victory

Los Alamitos High School bumbled and fumbled its way through Thursday night’s game, doing just about everything wrong.

Except for one thing: The Griffins won.

Whether it was a tribute to their tenacity or the quality of the competition is debatable.

George Sagan’s interception finally clinched the ordeal, giving the Griffins a 10-7 nonleague victory over Fountain Valley at Gahr High School. But it was not one to savor.

Los Alamitos quarterback Tim Carey, smooth and accurate in the season opener, was quite the opposite Thursday.

Coach John Barnes had been pleased with the Griffins’ no-huddle, run-and-shoot offense in the 22-6 victory over Marina. However, he wanted to play at a faster tempo this week.

Instead, the Griffins looked out of sync and Carey fired mostly blanks out of the run and shoot.

Oh, Carey did complete 20 passes. But he threw 45.

He did throw for 256 yards and a touchdown, but he also fumbled twice and was intercepted once.

Many of Carey’s passes flew well off course, partly due to the Fountain Valley pass rush.

Linebacker Mike Gillis spent a great deal of time in the Griffin backfield. On one play, he forced and recovered one of Carey’s fumbles.

He also had three sacks, two of which stopped Los Alamitos drives. However, the Griffins did plenty of that on their own.

On its second possession, Los Alamitos (2-0) got a 36-yard field goal from Bryan Kolasa to take a 3-0 lead. But the Griffins made one mistake after another the next three times they had the ball.

First, Carey fumbled. On the next possession, they got to the Fountain Valley 29, but Carey overthrew Sagan on fourth down. Then, the Griffins got to the 19, but Carey again threw incomplete on fourth down.

Los Alamitos overcame its mistakes late in the first half. After a short punt, Carey completed a 31-yard pass to Sagan (eight receptions for 110 yards) to the four-yard line.

On the next play, Carey gave a good play-action fake and flipped a pass to wide-open Scott Cronin in the end zone.

However, those well-executed moments were few and far between.