Garden Grove Sacks Rancho Alamitos

Tim Humphreys will see the play in his dreams for many nights.

Humphreys, a junior defensive back, made the biggest tackle of the season for Garden Grove when he sacked Rancho Alamitos’ Marshall Brown on a desperation fourth-and-eight rollout with 1 minute 42 seconds remaining to preserve a 17-15 victory in the Garden Grove League title game Friday at Garden Grove High.

It was the first Garden Grove League championship for the Argonauts (10-0, 7-0) since 1980 and the first time they defeated Rancho Alamitos in five years. Rancho Alamitos dropped to 8-1-1 and 6-1 to finish second in the league for the second consecutive year. Both teams are headed for the Southern Section Division VI playoffs that start next week.

There were many key performances for Garden Grove, including another sparkling effort by running back Jim Sebreros, who rushed for a touchdown and 117 yards in 20 carries. But Humphreys’ tackle of Brown at the Rancho Alamitos 33-yard line was a fitting conclusion to a superb defensive struggle between the teams.

“I thought he was going to get around the corner,” Humphreys said. “I came through cleanly. I didn’t get blocked.”

Trying to keep Brown boxed in the Vaquero backfield was the primary scheme designed by the Garden Grove defensive coordinators. The Argonauts also wanted to contain Rancho Alamitos’ tailback Jeff Byrd and they accomplished both tasks. They limited Byrd, who came into the game with 1,394 rushing yards, to 98 yards in 26 carries. He gained only 30 yards in the second half. Brown gained one yard in five carries.

“We’ve been trying all week to control the outside and not let them run around the end,” Garden Grove Coach Jeff Buenafe said. “We made up our minds we were going to stop their quarterback, first of all. We didn’t want him to get outside on us. Fortunately, we did it.”

Garden Grove opened the scoring on a four-yard run over left tackle by Brian Rall with 9:46 left in the second quarter, but Rancho Alamitos answered quickly.

The Vaqueros scored on the ensuing possession when junior fullback Leon Vickers broke several tackles at the line and ran 58 yards for a touchdown. The snap was bad on the extra-point attempt, so Garden Grove had a 7-6 lead.

On its next possession, Rancho Alamitos marched 67 yards to take a 12-7 lead on a one-yard dive by Byrd with 55 seconds left in the first half. Byrd carried 11 times on the 13-play drive, including eight in a row in one stretch.

But then the Vaquero ground game broke down at the onset of the third quarter. Byrd fumbled on a bad pitch from Brown and Garden Grove defensive back Raul Gonzalez recovered it and returned it to the Rancho Alamitos’ one-yard line, setting up the touchdown by Sebreros on the next play. Byrd then fumbled at his 36-yard line on Rancho Alamitos’ first play from scrimmage on its next possession. Linebacker John Woodman recovered and Adrian Ioja kicked a 20-yard field goal two minutes later to put the Argonauts ahead, 17-12. In all, Rancho Alamitos lost three fumbles.

Carl Foss kicked a 28-yard field goal for Rancho Alamitos with 9:25 to play for the final points of the game.