Blazek’s Big First Half Enough for Los Alamitos

Thursday’s Sunset League showdown between eighth-ranked Los Alamitos and sixth-ranked Fountain Valley was a tale of two distinctly different halves.

Los Alamitos quarterback Zach Blazek threw 34 first-half passes for 261 yards and the Griffins hung on for a 23-21 victory in front of about 6,000 spectators at Gahr High.

Blazek, who successfully mixed a series of short passes, inside screens and an occasional bomb that kept Fountain Valley defenders off guard in the first half, finished with a game-high total of 337 yards that included a six-for-nine, 75-yard performance in the final 24 minutes.

The Barons (5-2, 1-1), meanwhile, got an 89-yard kickoff return for a touchdown from running back John Sanders the first time they touched the ball to take a 7-3 lead. In the first two quarters, Fountain Valley averaged seven yards a play.

A 21-yard scoring pass from Blazek to Keenan Howry and a two-yard plunge by reserve running back Bernard Riley gave Los Alamitos (6-1, 1-1) a 16-7 lead before the first quarter had ended. The teams traded touchdowns to open the second half, then a one-yard run by Sanders pulled the Barons within two.

And that’s the way it stayed. Both teams appeared warn out offensively after the dizzying pace of the first half.

“I thought they were a better team than us going in,” said Los Alamitos Coach John Barnes, who was celebrating his 49th birthday, “but we played a great second half of defense and we haven’t done that all year.”

Fountain Valley’s chances were hurt when it lost Sanders--who had 100 yards in kick returns and 72 yards in 14 carries--to a calf strain in the third quarter.

That put additional pressure on quarterback Jason Morris to carry the offense. Morris, who passed sparingly in the first half as Los Alamitos ran off 44 plays to Fountain Valley’s 25, was blitzed often after Sanders left. He finished the game completing 10 of 25 passes for 175 yards, but he was intercepted three times.

Los Alamitos running back Adolph Keyes, a defensive back who also picked off a Morris pass, ground out some tough yardage in the second half and finished with 101 yards in eight carries.

Morris gamely tried to rally the Barons in the waning seconds. After a short Los Alamitos punt with 23 seconds left, Morris scrambled for 12 yards. Two plays later, with 10 seconds remaining, he passed to Jason Perez to the Griffin 33. But time ran out before the Barons could assemble their field-goal unit.