Loyola Spirals to Victory

The winning coach thought the pass was intercepted, but Henry Burge’s spiral darted through the hands of defender Jonathan Dawson and into the grasp of receiver Brian Clark.

The play covered 23 yards, and the touchdown pass with 59 seconds left gave Los Angeles Loyola, ranked No. 21 in the Southland by The Times, a 25-18 Serra League victory over No. 16 Santa Margarita on Friday night at Saddleback College.

“I thought it was a pick,” said Jeff Kearin, whose Cubs (5-1, 1-0) trailed going into the fourth quarter, 11-10. “[Burge] does a nice job of throwing touch passes over the defenders, and he did it again.”

The loss was another difficult one for Santa Margarita (3-3, 0-1). It is the second in a row for the Eagles and their third in four games. In all three losses, they held leads in the second half.

Burge completed 15 of 20 passes for 182 yards and three touchdowns. One went for two yards to Taylor Joseph for a 7-0 lead, another 13 yards to Marcus Lawrence for an 18-11 advantage with 8:40 left, and then the big one to Clark. Joe MacMillan had a 37-yard field goal.

Ryan Maxwell caught seven passes for 148 yards for Santa Margarita, including a 34-yard touchdown pass. Jon Daniels completed a school-record 26 of 39 passes for 311 yards and two touchdowns. His six-yard pass to Jacob Gordon tied the score, 18-18, with 5:51 left.

Then came Loyola’s winning drive of 81 yards in 10 plays, including a 22-yard pass to Joseph on third-and-13 play from the Cub 37.

-- Martin Henderson

Rancho Cucamonga Los Osos 52, Rancho Cucamonga 21 -- It would have been easy for Coach Tom Martinez to survey the field at Chaffey College and assume his Los Osos team was playing an intrasquad game.

After all, two-way players Anthony Sutton, Deon Ford and Quasand Lewis had each played for Los Osos before transferring to No. 24 Rancho Cucamonga (4-2, 0-1).

“We didn’t try to play it up, to be honest,” Martinez said of the transfers. “We just played hard.”

Quarterback Mike Anderson threw for three touchdowns and rushed for another, and running backs Austin Bell and Mark Chase each had rushing touchdowns of more than 40 yards for Los Osos (5-1, 1-0) in a Baseline League opener.

Devin Ross, another Los Osos transfer and considered one of the top defensive backs in the Southland, did not play for Rancho Cucamonga. Cougar Coach Chris Van Duin would only say that Ross wasn’t injured but was “unavailable.”

-- Jonathan Abrams

Riverside La Sierra 43, Riverside Arlington 15 -- Quarterback Sean Sudol directed a second-half surge that gave La Sierra early control of its Ivy League opener at Riverside Norte Vista.

Sudol completed 19 of 28 passes for 226 yards and five touchdowns and ran for another for La Sierra (6-0, 1-0), which pulled away after being tied, 8-8, with less than a minute left in the first half. Sudol connected with Travis Garza on a 42-yard touchdown play with 35 seconds left before halftime that gave La Sierra a 16-8 lead.

“It took us a while to get our gears going, but with this offense we knew it was just a matter of time,” said Sudol, who was 10 of 12 for 87 yards and three touchdowns in the second half.

Sudol is the main reason La Sierra, 11-89 in the 10 years before his arrival, has gone 14-3 since the start of 2004. The Eagles won the league title last year and with a victory over Arlington (4-2, 0-1), considered their chief rival, have the inside track on another.

-- Peter Yoon

San Gabriel 36, Alhambra 21 -- The return of Coach Keith Jones after a one-year absence has produced big changes at San Gabriel (5-1, 1-0), which handed Alhambra (5-1, 0-1) its first defeat in an Almont League opener.

Saile Ramirez passed for three touchdowns and Alfred Varela caught touchdown passes of 24 and 50 yards and returned a fumble 35 yards for a touchdown.

Varela also had an interception and had punts of 40, 44 and 45 yards, with two dropping inside the 10-yard line.

-- Eric Sondheimer