Kennedy Comes Close, but Los Alamitos Wins

Don’t ask Los Alamitos Coach John Barnes how his second-ranked Griffins managed to escape with a 21-19 victory over Kennedy Thursday night at Western High. He can’t explain it.

“I thought they outplayed us in about every facet of the game, but somehow we won,” Barnes said. “I’m not going to complain about winning, but this was not our finest night.”

Kennedy, which lost a six-point game to Los Alamitos last year, led 13-0, held Los Alamitos (5-0) to 214 yards of offense and spent almost the entire fourth quarter in Griffin territory. But the Fighting Irish (4-1) missed an extra point and a field goal and quarterback Geoff Etherson was intercepted three times, once for a touchdown.

Kennedy Coach Mitch Olson, who was surprisingly calm after the heartbreaking loss, said his team didn’t take any pleasure in giving Los Alamitos another tough game.

“I’m proud that they’re upset,” Olson, a Los Alamitos graduate, said of his team. “They’re mad. They’re not satisfied with going away from this with a two-point loss to the second-ranked team.”

For a while, it didn’t look like the second-ranked team was going to make a game of it. Kennedy stunned Los Alamitos with two long punt returns to take a 13-0 second-quarter lead. The first return was a reverse from Rhema McKnight to Kelvin Beatty that went for 61 yards to the Los Alamitos 19. On the next play, Etherson hit McKnight on a slant. McKnight broke three tackles and walked into the end zone.

McKnight set up the Fighting Irish’s second score with a 30-yard return of a low punt by Steve Shinen. Kelvin Beatty capped the ensuing 15-yard drive with a two-yard run. Alex Vasquez pulled the extra point wide.

Los Alamitos killed Kennedy’s first-half momentum with a 72-yard, 13-play drive that ended 52 seconds before halftime with Adam Nauta’s five-yard run. Los Alamitos kept the momentum by scoring twice in third quarter, on Mike Catalano’s 10-yard pass to Tony Holder, and a 40-yard interception return by Joe Garcia, who stepped in front of a tipped pass in the flat and ran untouched into the end zone to make it 21-13, Los Alamitos.

Kennedy drove into Griffin territory four times in the fourth quarter but scored only six points. Kennedy scored with three minutes left when McKnight broke free on a slant pass and went 49 yards down the right side. The two-point conversion that would have tied it was stopped by linebacker Jason Crissman, who stuffed a screen pass to Vasquez.