Penalty Helps Los Alamitos Stop Katella

A fourth-quarter drive that appeared over turned into the winning touchdown as Los Alamitos beat Katella, 9-3, in an Empire League game Thursday night at Glover Stadium.

The winning score came on a third-down-and-a-foot play. Los Alamitos quarterback Tim Carey faked into the middle, pulled up and threw a pass to a wide-open George Sagen for a 39-yard touchdown with 4 minutes 14 seconds left in the game.

“Even if we didn’t get the pass,” Los Alamitos Coach John Barnes said. “It was only a foot and I knew we could get that on fourth down.”

From Katella’s point of view, though, the scoring play should never have happened. On the play before the touchdown, Los Alamitos (6-2, 1-2 in league) had faced a third and 11 at the Katella 49 and tried a screen pass into the flat. The ball fell incomplete and the Knights (3-5, 1-2) started to celebrate. But the back-side official threw a late flag, and Katella was called for holding.

The penalty left the ball a foot short of the first-down marker and left Los Alamitos in position to score the winning touchdown.

“I sure wish the game would have been decided on the field and not by a yellow handkerchief,” Katella Coach Larry Anderson said. “I thought we outplayed them and did the things we wanted to do.”

One of those things was controlling the ball on the ground. Katella outgained Los Alamitos, 159-104, but the Griffins held the edge in passing, 128-17.

“We just played well enough to win,” Barnes said. “But our defense was there when they had to be. I’m proud we won.”

Katella had tied the score at 3-3 on a 42-yard field goal by Mike Rubio with 7:54 left in the game.

Los Alamitos scored with 1:31 left in the first half on a 22-yard field goal by Bryan Kolasa.

Los Alamitos’ Marchant Wright had scored on a seven-yard run earlier in the drive, but the play was called back for clipping before the Griffins settled for three points.

Wright finished the game with 124 yards rushing in 26 attempts.