ORANGE COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PREP EXTRA : University Helps Back Up Sonora Coach’s Evaluation : Football: Takkinen said the Trojans, who won, 14-7, would give his Raiders a tough game.

Sonora Coach Mark Takkinen said it earlier this week--that University had not gotten the credit it deserved.

Tough team, Takkinen had said.

And Friday at La Habra High, Takkinen proved the prophet, as University beat the eighth-ranked Raiders, 14-7, before about 1,200.

It was only a nonleague game, and University Coach Mark Cunningham was quick to point that out. It meant nothing, he said. The Sea View League, still two weeks away, means everything. But his team is learning how to win in ways the Trojans haven’t won in 20 years. The last time University won its first four games was during the 1974-75 season.

The last time the Trojans even approached beating one of Orange County’s top 10 teams was 1991--a first-round playoff victory over Garden Grove--and Cunningham said he isn’t even sure if the Argonauts were a top 10 team at the time.

But Sonora (3-1) was definitely top 10, and it was Bryant Geary and a stingy defense that administered the deep six.

Geary blocked a punt that set up the first University touchdown--a one-yard drive--and then threw a 21-yard touchdown pass on a flea flicker. Geary, it seemed, was in the middle of everything--he also had an interception, but he also got beat a couple of times on Sonora’s only scoring drive.

“At the beginning of the game,” Geary said, “I don’t know what was going on with me.”

The blocked punt came with two minutes left in the first half; Sonora, snapping from the 12, offered no resistance to Geary’s outside rush, and the ball off the foot of punter Eric Garlichs was an easy target. Mike Deleon recovered at the one-yard line.

“Coach told me, ‘If no one’s on you, block the punt,’ ” Geary said.

It was that easy, but the one-yard drive to tie the score, 7-7, wasn’t. After two failed quarterback sneaks and an errant pass, Jarrett Mahoney scored on a dive with 25 seconds left in the half. Brett Lockwood added the extra point.

But the play that had everyone talking after the game was the touchdown pass Geary threw on second-and-20 from the 21. It was the climax to the first series (12 plays, 80 yards) of the second half. Geary, a wide receiver, lined up outside. Quarterback Damian Defeo lateraled across the field, and the left-handed Geary flung away--”the guy was in my face,” he said--into the arms of Robbie Gostanian in the end zone. Lockwood’s kick made it 14-7.

Although Sonora’s Kevin Rodriguez threw for 163 yards, including an 18-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter, he was intercepted four times in the final 12:47 by Geary, Gostanian and Lockwood twice--the last at the four-yard line with 52 seconds left.