Santa Ana Valley Does the Trick to Beat Kennedy

Kennedy used a trick play to take an early lead, but Santa Ana Valley used one to score a key touchdown and went on to a 19-13 victory in a nonleague football game Thursday at Western High.

Santa Ana Valley scored with no time left in the half to open a 13-6 lead and neither team scored in the third quarter.

But on the first play of the fourth quarter, the Falcons lined up in punt formation at their 41. The ball was snapped to B.J. Wallace, who was playing the up-back position.

He moved into the middle of the Kennedy line and appeared wrapped up, but he broke loose and dashed to the left sideline and raced to the end zone.

The touchdown put Santa Ana Valley ahead, 19-6. Wallace had also scored on runs of eight and two yards.

The two-yard score completed a drive in which the Falcons went 66 yards in 1 minute 22 seconds to close out the first half. He had 169 yards in 22 carries.

Kennedy scored on its first possession of the game but didn’t get into the end zone again until there was 1:10 to play when quarterback Tom Haas completed a five-yard screen pass to running back Darin Martineau to cut the lead to 19-13.

The drive was helped by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the Santa Ana Valley sidelines.

Kennedy tried an on-side kick but the ball went out of bounds untouched. Santa Ana Valley was able to run out the clock and improve to 2-0. Kennedy is 1-1.

“It was an ugly game,” Santa Ana Valley Coach Scott Orloff said. “We had a bad week of practice and it showed. When we used to play poorly at Valley we got thumped, now we played badly but we still won.”

Kennedy scored on its first possession thanks to a fake field goal and the talents of brothers Garrett and Brad Sabol. The Fighting Irish lined eight players to the far right of the field while the other three milled around near the ball.

Once the official blew his whistle, Brad Sabol got the ball and threw it to Garrett, who caught it in the end zone for a 20-yard touchdown pass.

Haas had an up-and-down game, completing 20 of 36 passes for 239 yard but he also had four interceptions.

Santa Ana Valley’s Jason Parrott had two of the interceptions and Larry Page had the other two.

Santa Ana Valley plays Saddleback at Santa Ana Stadium on Thursday and Kennedy and is host to Corona del Mar Sept. 22 at Western High.