Fired-Up Aliso Niguel Routs Neighborhood Rival Dana Hills

Aliso Niguel didn’t need any extra incentive against neighborhood rival Dana Hills, but the Wolverines got it anyway when they woke up Friday morning to find a big ‘DH’ inscribed in the middle of their field.

“Our team is pretty mature, but I know it [angered] them a little bit,” Aliso Niguel Coach Joe Wood said. “That’s a cowardly act to come in and desecrate somebody else’s field like that. That’s a sad statement.”

The sadder statement was the mismatch on the field.

Aliso Niguel defeated Dana Hills, 52-14, Friday night, and it could have been much worse. The Wolverines led at halftime, 42-7, but Wood called them off midway through the third quarter.

The Scott Orloff era at Dana Hills actually got off to a decent start as the Dolphins took a 7-0 lead on a Julio Peraza 15-yard run that capped a three-play, 99-yard drive. The big play was Aaron Kaufman’s 71-yard pass to tight end Matt Deter.

But from there, Aliso Niguel’s special teams and defense took over the game.

Aliso Niguel’s John Hefty answered Peraza’s touchdown with a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. He almost scored again minutes later when he returned a punt 46 yards to the Dana Hills four, setting up quarterback Scott Nemeth’s four-yard run.

The Aliso Niguel defense handed their offense the next touchdown. Defensive end Jeremy Miller scooped up a fumble caused by David Seale’s sack of Kaufman and ran 58 yards to the Dana Hills 17. Running back Trent Perley (68 yards on 12 rushes) scored three plays later from the one. Nemeth scored again from six yards away after a short Dana Hills punt to make it 28-7 with seven minutes left until half.

The Wolverines could have eased up before halftime, but they had those big letters ‘DH’ on their minds and called enough timeouts to score two more times, lastly on a 55-yard bomb from Nemeth to Wes Thomas.

“We don’t even know if it was Dana Hills that did it to the field,” Wood said. “It could have been one of our students trying to fire us up.”

Aliso Niguel improves to 2-0, but this one was much easier than last week’s 8-7 victory over Hilliard of Columbus, Ohio.

“The Ohio competition was stiff, major stiff,” Wood said. “That’s a different atmosphere altogether than this here. But I’m proud of our fans. They showed a lot of enthusiasm too.”

They certainly had enough opportunities to show it with Aliso Niguel scoring what was believed to be a school record.

“The offense wanted to make a statement tonight,” Wood said. “We moved the ball last week, but we couldn’t put it in the end zone.”