Sloppy Rancho Alamitos Has Enough to Beat Santiago

No one could seem to explain Rancho Alamitos’ sloppy, uninspired performance in Thursday night’s 27-14 victory over Santiago. The Vaqueros were playing their Garden Grove League opener, league favorite Pacifica was still two weeks away and an undefeated season was on the line.

Whatever the reason, Leo Kosi knew the consequences.

“We’re going to be doing a lot of running this week,” Kosi said. “We run 200 yards for every penalty. I hope we run hard because I’m sick of penalties.”

After 14 Rancho Alamitos penalties, including six for holding, the Vaqueros had better be prepared for a marathon this week. And they better hope turnovers are not thrown in the mix because they lost three fumbles and had a pass intercepted.

“We did do what got us to 3-0,” Rancho Alamitos Coach Doug Case said. “We didn’t have any intensity, we made mistakes. It seemed like every time we had a running play, there was a flag. And every time we threw a pass, there was a flag.”

Case wasn’t far off. If not for the early play of its special teams, Rancho Alamitos might have ruined its perfect record.

Kosi returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown as he weaved through the middle of the field and went untouched down the sideline. The Vaqueros’ third touchdown of the first quarter--a three-yard run by Kosi--was set up by David Vickers’ 65-yard punt return to the Santiago six.

“The special teams get the game ball tonight,” Case said.

Vickers said Kosi’s kickoff return might have actually put his teammate to sleep instead of fired them up.

“We just thought it was going to be a romp,” Vickers said. “But we found out they were a pretty good football team. We came out unprepared. We came out too big-headed.”

Santiago fell behind 20-0 but scored with a minute left in the first quarter on a 18-yard Octavio Villa run on a draw play. Santiago got within 20-14 midway through the third quarter on a four-yard run by Carlos Carbajal. The Cavaliers only had to drive 30 yards after Kosi dropped a pitchout and fumbled for the second time.

Rancho Alamitos put the game away two plays later when quarterback Taylor Yandell found wide receiver Frank Ortiz alone in the middle for a 77-yard touchdown pass. It was Yandell’s only completion in six attempts.

“If we could have completed some passes early, we could have moved them off the line of scrimmage,” Case said. “But that made it tough on our running game.”

Kosi rushed for 136 yards but it took him 33 carries and a lot of grinding to reach that total. By the end of the game, he was limping slightly.

Rancho Alamitos (4-0, 1-0) plays Bolsa Grande next week before meeting undefeated Pacifica. Vickers said Pacifica will probably get a chuckle or two after watching Thursday night’s game films.

“They’ll probably be looking at us as an easy victory after watching this,” Vickers said. “But we’ll just have to go out and play a lot better than we did tonight. This was a big wake-up call.”