Everything Goes Wrong for Los Amigos in 45-8 Loss

It was the kind of game a football coach dreads. The quarterback goes down with an injury on the opening drive and the team goes down with the quarterback.

Los Amigos Coach David Olson can now say he has experienced such a game. The final score--Valencia 45, Los Amigos 8--could have been a lot worse, but Valencia Coach Mike Marrujo cleared his bench early in the third quarter. By the fourth quarter, most of the 500 fans at Garden Grove High Thursday night were long gone.

“I’ve seen games like this before,” Olson said. “If you coach long enough, you’ll see them yourself.

“It’s just one of those games. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”

Things started to go wrong for Los Amigos on the game’s fifth play when quarterback Richard Dinh was hit on his left knee while being sacked. Dinh, a first-team All-Garden Grove League defensive back who rushed for 148 yards in the Lobos’ opening-game victory over Orange, had to be helped off the field.

He did not return and his injury was diagnosed as a sprained knee.

“I heard a pop,” Dinh said. “I tried to come back, but it felt kind of loose. This is my senior year. I want to be healthy. So I didn’t want to rush it.”

The worst part for Dinh was watching the rest of the game from the sideline. Valencia scored four plays later on a 13-yard pass from George Hernandez to Sonny Lopez. The Tigers scored again when linebacker Brad Bartczak scooped up Sam Islas’ fumble and ran 60 yards for a touchdown. Keith Allen’s 41-yard field goal, set up by a Los Amigos fumble on the ensuing kick, made it 17-0.

Another fumble and two interceptions helped Valencia score three more second-quarter touchdowns. One came on a 34-yard Hernandez-to-Lopez pass, another on a seven-yard Hernandez-to-Bartczak pass and the last on Scott Parker’s one-yard run.

Marrujo, whose team was coming off a loss to Villa Park, didn’t think Dinh’s injury made much of a difference.

“I know our guys made plays,” he said. “I’m not too concerned about their team. I just wanted to get out of here and not get my guys hurt.”

Marrujo accomplished that. Obviously, Olson did not.