Nordhoff Fumbles Away Upset of St. Bonaventure

Snap, crackle, pop?

Until a bad snap on a Nordhoff High punt attempt, the air crackled in anticipation of an upset with less than two minutes to play.

But St. Bonaventure recovered the errant snap deep in Nordhoff territory and the Seraphs rallied for a 22-15 victory to burst the Rangers’ bubble in the Southern Section Division XI championship football game Saturday night at Ventura High.

St. Bonaventure’s David Garza scored the winning touchdown on a one-yard run on fourth down with 11 seconds to play as the Seraphs trailed, 15-14.

It was Garza’s first carry of the season.

The Seraphs (14-0) closed out their perfect season only after Isaiah Bridges recovered the ball at the Nordhoff 16-yard line following a high, fumbled snap on a punt attempt by the Rangers’ Scott Jones with just over two minutes to play.

Garza plunged into the end zone five plays later after the Seraphs eschewed what would have been an 18-yard field goal with 13 seconds left.

Lorenzo Booker moved the ball to the one-yard line with three runs for 11 yards and threw a halfback option pass for four yards before Garza’s score. Adam Gray-Hayward caught a two-point conversion pass for the final points.

“If you can’t score from the one, you can’t win a championship,” St. Bonaventure Coach Jon Mack said.

“We were nervous all week. All the credit goes to Nordhoff. This was a great game.”

And a close one.

“Oh my god, I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” said Booker, who entered the game with 2,361 yards rushing and 34 touchdowns, but was limited to just 79 yards in 18 carries.

Booker struggled, gaining just 39 yards in the first half, and he fumbled the ball away to Nordhoff’s Scott Drew with 7:52 to play.

Booker’s fumble came six plays after Nordhoff (11-3) had taken its only lead, at 15-14, with 10:06 to go.

Jessie Hawkins, who gained 103 yards rushing, put the Rangers ahead with a 21-yard pass reception from John Hill that capped a 60-yard drive.

It held up until Garza’s touchdown.

“We’ve been practicing that all season, and I promised him we’d run it sometime,” Mack said of the game-winning play.

St. Bonaventurebeat Nordhoff, 25-7, in an earlier meeting this year and had outscored opponents by an average of nearly 43-8.

“Oh, I never want that to happen again,” said St. Bonaventure quarterback Michael Spargo.

If Nordhoff didn’t get quite the ending it was looking for, the Rangers got off to just the kind of start they could have hoped for.

Nordhoff limited the Seraphs to a 24-yard field goal by Mike Barrow in the first quarter after a strong defensive stand at the end of a 13-play, 63-yard opening drive by St. Bonaventure.

The Seraphs got to the two-yard line, but a St. Bonaventure penalty pushed them back five yards and Scott Drew deflected a third-down pass attempt from Spargo to Gray-Hayward with 7:33 left in the period.

St. Bonaventure took an 11-0 lead with 6:03 left in the first half on a one-yard run by Booker and a two-point conversion run by David Garza.