Pacifica Puts End to La Quinta’s Streak

Pacifica convincingly ended La Quinta’s undefeated season with a 45-0 victory over the Aztecs Friday night at Bolsa Grande High. Pacifica manhandled the undersized Aztecs (5-1, 2-1) all night and showed why it was the preseason favorite in the Garden Grove League.

“This was just horrible,” La Quinta Coach Jeff Veeder said. “That’s a physical football team. We’re more of a finesse team. They got us tonight.”

By the middle of third quarter, the biggest question wasn’t whether La Quinta’s unbeaten season would come to an end, but whether the Aztecs would survive the game. La Quinta quarterback Thi Huyhn was blitzed hard all night and he was pounded into the turf nearly every time he dropped back to pass. Running back Duyen Hai Nguyen was often hammered as he took Huyhn’s handoffs.

Huyhn was sacked six times and was forced into throwing three interceptions. He completed nine passes in 25 attempts, but most of his completions came on quick dump-offs over the middle. Nguyen rushed for 81 yards in 16 carries, but he had six rushes that resulted in negative yards.

“We had two guys out on our offensive line and we were trying to hide them, but they beat us up,” Veeder said. “They stuffed Thi pretty good.”

Pacifica Coach Bill Craven denied his team was trying to make a statement by keeping many of his starters in the game into the fourth quarter. But he made one anyway.

“I think they were trying to make a statement,” Veeder said. “I don’t think Bill had anything against us. It just happened to be us out there.”

Pacifica (4-2, 2-0) had faced much tougher competition than La Quinta and it showed. The Mariners led, 9-0, after the first quarter and just 17-0 at half, but it could have easily been much worse. Pacifica blocked a La Quinta punt in the first quarter, but it had too many men on the field. The Mariners returned a second-quarter punt for a touchdown, but they roughed the kicker.

“We made some real stupid mistakes,” Craven said. “We have to eliminate those if we’re going to be a good team.”

The Mariners scored a safety in the first quarter when La Quinta snapped the ball over the punter’s head. They scored minutes later when Pacifica’s Jason Simpson out-jumped La Quinta cornerback Huy Huyhn for a Matt Reis 16-yard pass in the end zone.

In other Garden Grove League news:

No mark for Niumata--Los Amigos coaches, upon review of videotape from Thursday’s 71-46 victory over Bolsa Grande, determined that running back Andrew Niumata rushed for 416 yards, not the 425 previously reported.

Rather than breaking the county record of 422 yards set last year by Heritage Christian’s Paul Caffrey, Niumata wound up with the third-best total in county history.