Patton Overcomes His Past, Then Beats Edison With Pass : Football: Capistrano Valley quarterback throws two fourth-quarter touchdown strikes to rally Cougars to 20-14 victory over Chargers.

Maybe now Scott Patton can put that 16-for-30, four-interception performance last week behind him for good. There still seems to be a little detail called the first half to overcome, but other than that, everything appears fine for Capistrano Valley’s senior quarterback.

Friday night, Patton rallied Capistrano Valley to a 20-14 nonleague victory over Edison in front of 5,000 at Capistrano Valley. Two fourth-quarter touchdown passes by Patton bailed out the Cougars, who struggled in the first half for the second consecutive game.

Patton completed seven of 15 passes for 103 yards and three touchdowns and zero interceptions, and impressed his father, Eric, the Capistrano Valley coach.

“It was a great coaching ploy,” Eric Patton said, tongue in cheek. “I told the quarterback, ‘Don’t throw so many interceptions this time.’ ”

The big difference between this week and last was that Capistrano Valley’s first half wasn’t a total loss. Last week, the Cougars trailed Mater Dei, 27-0, at halftime and lost, 27-21, despite a furious comeback.

This time, the Cougars trailed, 7-6, though they could have led by a touchdown just as easily.

However, Edison (1-1) blocked an extra-point attempt and a field-goal attempt to stay ahead. Capistrano Valley made a mess of a promising drive just before halftime, and that set up the blocked field goal.

Capistrano Valley got as far as the Edison one-yard line, but a delay of game penalty on second down and an intentional grounding penalty on the next play forced a 27-yard field goal attempt by Patton with 32 seconds left in the half.

Bad coaching, Eric Patton said later.

“The end of the first half left a bad taste in my mouth,” he said. “The kids felt real bad about the way the first half ended.”

Edison (1-1) came out with a masterful opening drive, covering 82 yards in 16 plays, capped by quarterback John Khamis’ two-yard touchdown run. Capistrano Valley (1-1) countered with an 80-yard scoring drive, with Patton throwing a 13-yard touchdown pass to Shawn Boland. But Patton’s kick was blocked and Edison led, 7-6.

The Chargers added a 15-yard touchdown run by Khamis with 5:20 left in the third quarter to take a 14-6 lead.

Then Patton rallied Capistrano Valley. He threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Jack Conners on the first play of the fourth quarter, then added a 15-yard scoring pass to Blake Spence with 8:52 left.