Brea’s Hernandez Does Enough to Defeat Troy

The Brea-Olinda football team made more than enough mistakes to lose Friday night. But plenty of things went right for the Wildcats, who defeated Troy, 28-14, in a nonleague game at Fullerton High School.

Marco Hernandez kicked field goals of 38 and 41 yards and rushed for 85 yards and two touchdowns for Brea-Olinda. Hernandez, who also kicked two extra points, accounted for 20 points.

Those 20 points and a first-half touchdown pass from Jason Luevanos to Gilbert Arriola proved to be all the Wildcats (3-0) needed to defeat Troy (0-2-1). But without the mistakes and some occasionally perplexing plays, Brea could have had a rout.

Instead, when Robert Ruzzi scored on a 39-yard touchdown run with 5 minutes 40 seconds remaining in the game, Troy moved to within seven points of the Wildcats.

However, Brea, finally looking like the seventh-ranked team in Orange County, drove 73 yards for a touchdown that gave it a 28-14 lead. After Hernandez scored on a one-yard run, there was only 1:07 remaining, time enough for a few desperate plays by Troy.

On the first drive of the game, Brea appeared ready to dominate. Luevanos, who completed 11 of 14 passes for 201 yards, was passing crisply to wide-open receivers, the running backs hit large holes and the Wildcats were moving easily up the field. But Jaime Baraglia, who had made a nice one-handed catch over the middle, fumbled at the Troy 30 and the Warriors recovered.

That turnover and another fumble in the fourth quarter didn’t help Troy substantially, however. The Warriors’ offense couldn’t move consistently against Brea and trailed, 13-0, at the half.

Brea was assessed 14 penalties for 130 yards.

A strange series of penalties in the final minute of the first half both helped and hurt Troy. On fourth-and-12 from the Brea 47, Troy punted, but after an illegal-fair-catch penalty on the Wildcats, Troy opted to punt again. On the next punt, Gilbert Arriola returned the ball 65 yards to the Troy 24, but a personal-foul call on the runback pushed them back 15 yards.

Then from the 39, Brea was called for illegal motion, moving the ball back to the 45. With 12 seconds left in the half, Luevanos completed a pass to Arriola, who eluded two tackles and reached the two-yard line just before the halftime gun sounded.

But the officials ruled that a timeout had been called before the gun. After offsides and personal-foul penalties on moved the ball back to the 21, Brea finally got the final play of the half off--a 38-yard field by Hernandez.