Poston Provides Punch for Edison in 35-33 Win
Just a friendly reminder: Darryl Poston can still run the football.
The Edison running back, who had seemingly gone from being Orange County’s best rusher to an afterthought over the season’s first four games, carried the No. 4 Chargers to a 35-33 victory over No. 8 Servite Saturday night before 5,500 at Cal State Fullerton.
Poston ran for 251 yards and three touchdowns in 34 carries as Edison (4-1) held off the error-prone Friars (4-1).
Poston’s final touchdown, on a two-yard run, gave the Chargers a nine-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.
Servite quickly rebounded with a 66-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Adam Ernst to Lamar Mason that pulled the Friars to within two points with 5 minutes 48 seconds to play. But Poston carried seven times on a clock-draining drive that left Servite only 31 seconds to work with on its final possession.
Ernst’s first pass of the last drive was intercepted by Edison defensive back Stephen Webber, preserving the victory.
“We needed [a victory] really bad,” said Edison Coach Dave White, whose team rebounded from last week’s crushing 42-10 loss to Mater Dei. “We’ll take a win over a classy program like Servite.”
Poston, a senior who said he plans to commit to USC this week, was driven to pump up his level of play by comments he overheard from Mater Dei players after last week’s defeat.
“At the end of the game, Mater Dei players were saying, ‘I thought Darryl Poston was better than that,’ ” said Poston, who finished that game with 63 yards rushing. “That really pushed me.”
Poston hit the weight room hard this week as he continued to rehabilitate a lower-back injury that has hindered him all season. He said he feels like he’s running at about 90%.
For the most part, Servite was its own worst enemy. The Friars committed two second-quarter turnovers that led to 14 Edison points. They gave backup running back Joel Rubalcaba the ball on a crucial fourth-and-one in the fourth quarter, and he was stuffed. And they committed an illegal procedure penalty that wiped out a 75-yard touchdown pass from Joe Kurz to John Morris in the fourth quarter.
Afterward, Servite Coach Larry Toner said he didn’t think mistakes cost his team. “I don’t care about that,” he said. “The defense played well. It’s my fault.”
Toner and Ernst defended the Friars’ decision to rush Rubalcaba on fourth down with 8:32 left in the game, even though Ernst had already scored three touchdowns on one-yard sneaks and seemed the logical choice to carry the ball on the big play.
“There was a man up on [Ernst],” Toner said, “so that wasn’t a good call.”
Said Ernst: “We wanted to see if we could sneak one by them. Things like that just happen.”
Servite took its only lead after marching 47 yards on its first possession. Ernst, who completed eight of 17 passes for 254 yards, scored on his first sneak to give the Friars a 7-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
But Edison rallied with three consecutive touchdowns, on a 62-yard run by Poston, a 17-yard pass from quarterback Richard Schwartz to Denny Flanagan and a 15-yard run by Poston. The second touchdown was made possible when Servite turned the ball over on downs, the third when the Friars fumbled.
Mason rushed for 135 yards in 19 carries for Servite, but the night belonged to Poston.
