Pacifica Beats Rancho Alamitos, Focuses on Race for Title

Pacifica Coach Bill Craven seemed more relieved than happy about his team’s 42-14 rout of Rancho Alamitos Thursday night at Bolsa Grande High.

“We got out of here without any major injuries and that’s the main thing,” Craven said as he scratched his head. “At least I think we did.”

Craven already was looking ahead to next week’s showdown with Garden Grove for the league title. The way his players performed in the first quarter, they might have been too.

Rancho Alamitos (2-7, 1-4) led, 7-0, with three minutes left in the first quarter when Cory Barnes stepped in front of a lazy Joey Fuske pass and went 35 yards into the end zone. Pacifica (6-3, 4-1) came back with three consecutive touchdowns, one by Jeremy Lovelace on a 65-yard catch from Fuske and two by Jared Kemp on runs of one and three yards.

Rancho Alamitos closed to 21-14 on a Daniel Green-to-Matt Hildreth eight-yard pass play, but Pacifica took the halftime momentum when Fuske hit Jeff Weber on a 10-yard touchdown pass as time expired.

Pacifica put the game out of reach early in the second half by driving 63 yards in eight plays. Fuske capped the drive with an eight-yard run on a naked bootleg. Fuske finished with 247 passing yards. Lovelace accounted for 189 of them with a school-record 10 catches.

Rancho Alamitos Coach Doug Case said his team didn’t have much of a chance against Lovelace.

“We put eight guys in the box trying to stop the run,” Case said. “And when you don’t get much of a pass rush, that puts the cornerbacks out there on an island.”

Lovelace credited his receiver coach Mark Flatten, whose record he broke by one.

“We didn’t look down at their corners,” said Lovelace, who also intercepted his fifth pass. “We’ve just been practicing hard.”

Jared Kemp, hampered by a sore left ankle that he injured in Craven’s physical education class, bulled his way for 87 yards in 21 carries. Kemp will have to go the rest of the season with his blocking back, fullback Javon Smith, who will have season-ending shoulder surgery.

“We’re pretty banged up,” Craven said. “We’re put together with barbed wire and shoestrings right now.”

Meanwhile, Case is looking forward to next season when his young team matures.

“The mistakes we make are compounded because we’re young,” he said.