Despite the Mud, Minici’s Passes Find Their Mark

Irvine High School quarterback Jason Minici started plotting his team’s victory celebration with about a minute remaining in the Southern Section Division II championship game Saturday night.

Minici walked over to teammate Eddie McRoberts and pointed to three water coolers behind the Irvine bench. He whispered something to McRoberts as they searched for the cooler that held the most water.

Then, Minici demonstrated that he’s as accurate drenching a coach with a water cooler as he is throwing to a receiver when he soaked assistant coach Rick Curtis. The prank was the signal to let the party begin as Irvine won its football championship by defeating Dana Hills, 22-11, at Orange Coast College.

Minici had reason to celebrate. He passed for 216 yards and two touchdowns on a muddy field and, more importantly, managed to keep his composure during Irvine’s first scoring drive in the first quarter.

Minici drove Irvine 79 yards for its first touchdown, but the Vaqueros had to overcome four penalties before reaching the end zone. The prospects of scoring didn’t look good as Irvine faced a fourth and 28 on Dana Hills’ 32-yard line when Minici came up with the play of the game.

Rolling to his right, Minici found wide receiver Danny Kang all alone on Dana Hills’ six-yard line and threw a perfect pass for a 32-yard touchdown. Afterward, Minici credited his offensive line for providing him protection in a desperate situation.

“We have a saying, ‘Never get penalties in the red zone’ (inside the 10-yard line) and we got three of them after getting to their four-yard line,” Minici said. “It was a real bad situation.

“Basically, all I wanted to do was get a first down. Danny ran a great route, I got the ball to him and the rest was history. Once we scored, we settled down and got back into our game plan.”

Minici was deadly in the second half. He completed six of nine attempts for 106 yards, including a 19-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jon Peck that gave Irvine a 15-3 lead in the third quarter.