Davis, Moreno Lead Castle Park to Win

North County football was put on notice Friday night: The long-overlooked South Bay has at least one team to reckon with.

Castle Park bused up to Torrey Pines for a rematch of last year’s San Diego Section playoff game, and like last year, the Trojans staged a second-half comeback to win, 16-14.

Castle Park players broke out in a spontaneous celebration as the clock wound down and mustered a roar loud enough to qualify for a playoff victory.

“Oh yeah, this was a big one,” Trojan Coach Gil Warren said. “We know all the people up here. My son graduated from here in 1983.”

It’s a rivalry that actually started last year in the section playoffs. Castle Park quarterback Moses Moreno had to engineer a 7 1/2-minute closing drive to pull out a 22-21 victory in that one. Friday’s game followed a similar story line, but Castle Park didn’t wait to the final seconds to pull out the victory.

Anthony Davis put the Trojans ahead for the first time and provided the margin of victory with a 22-yard sweep with 7:11 remaining. Torrey Pines linebacker Brian Batson (6 feet 3, 214 pounds) had squelched the play on earlier tries.

“That big No. 66,” Warren said of Batson, “he was hard to block.”

But Davis went to school on Batson’s techniques in the first half and revised his strategy in the final two quarters. Davis finished with 144 yards on 22 carries.

“He was coming outside and forcing me inside,” Davis said of Batson. “So in the second half, I faked inside, drew him in, then bounced outside.”

Castle Park’s passing game had similar success in the second half, as Moreno threw for 113 yards, completing six of eight passes. He connected on nine of 13 for 148 yards overall.

“There’s not much to say,” Moreno said. “We just started slow and then came back just like last year.”

The comeback, Moreno said, actually started in the second quarter when Davis ran for the first of his two touchdowns of the night on a 10-yard jaunt to close a three-play, 45-yard drive.

“Before that,” Moreno said. “I started to think that we couldn’t move the ball. But on that drive, the line started pushing, and everything started working for us.”

On the game’s opening drive, quarterback Ryan Lynch faded back on a third-and-nine at his own 35 and completed a screen to running back Joel Brown. Brown scurried down the left sideline 65 yards into the end zone.

Bret Marshall took a reverse 24 yards to make it 14-0, capping a drive that was helped by a Castle Park pass interference penalty.