Estancia girls’ flag football bounced from playoffs by Alemany
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Estancia stiffened defensively, cut out the turnovers and, through one special play twice utilized, erased a two-touchdown deficit to pull even in the closing minutes of its CIF Southern Section girls’ flag football quarterfinal clash.
The joy lasted only a minute or two, not quite that long on the clock. Visiting Mission Hills Bishop Alemany answered the Eagles’ big play with a bigger one Tuesday night, pulling out a 19-13 victory to head to the Division 6 final four.
Two pitch-and-pass plays, with quarterback Kim Muñoz on the receiving end, led Estancia’s rally from a 13-point halftime deficit. But electric Alemany receiver Lexie Acquah Adubah, with her third touchdown, turned a 12-yard Sienna Valadez pass into a 64-yard score. Valadez’s third interception of the game four plays later finished it off.
“We all believed,” Giselle Ruiz Ramos, the Eagles’ defensive instigator, said later. “We had faith [after the tying touchdown] that it was going to work out and everything. Obviously, it didn’t.”
Paloma Vallejo-Silva threw both long passes to Muñoz — the first for a third-quarter touchdown, the second to set up Ashley Cortez’s tying reception with 2:53 to play — and teamed with fellow junior Ruiz Ramos and sophomore Jordyn Johnson to lead a defensive effort that had Estancia (10-9) in charge from the break.
Alemany (9-11), which advances to Saturday’s semifinal at second-seeded Hillcrest (7-13-1) in Riverside, took advantage of short fields to build its lead, both touchdowns on Valadez-to-Acquah Adubah completions. The Warriors took advantage of Valadez’s pick on the game’s third play for a 16-yard score barely two minutes in, then doubled their lead on a 14-yard reception four minutes before halftime. The extra-point pass made it 13-0.
The Eagles’ defense was otherwise mostly stern — Valadez threw for 167 yards, with 11 of her 19 completions to Acquah Adubah for 131 of those yards. Estancia made four stops in the second half, three of them without conceding a first down, before the winning touchdown.
“Our defense carried us all year,” Estancia head coach Darius Otero said. “They practice really hard. They play really hard. Our rushers rush really hard. We usually get the other coaches telling us how their girls get scared from our rushers, which is flattery, right? That our girls are scary?”
Aisleen Avalos was pivotal in the Eagles’ attack, with 69 yards (31 rushing, 38 receiving) on 15 touches. She started the sequences on the vital plays. Both came from a wildcat formation, with Avalos sweeping right as Muñoz crept behind the Alemany secondary and then pitched the ball to Vallejo-Silva, running off her right shoulder.
Muñoz was wide open on both, the first a 23-yard pass to the right edge of the end zone (followed by Jaydin Rodriguez’s PAT catch), the second a 33-yard, penalty-amplified completion to reach the Warriors 6. Cortez’s 3-yard TD was on fourth down, and Muñoz’s extra-point pass fell incomplete.
Otero called the pitch-and-pass after Alemany responded to an Estancia adjustment and became more aggressive defending the flanks.
“I actually called it the second time not to be a pass,” Otero said. “But then they decided they were just going to pass it anyway, and it worked.”
Warriors head coach Zabriean Miller was impressed.
“[They] got us twice with that trick play, and they make it look different,” Miller said. “It’s very diverse. I wish I could steal it.”
Two plays after the Eagles caught up, off went Acquah Adubah, and it was Alemany’s game.
“It is what it is,” Paloma Vallejo-Silva said of the loss. “It really hurts at the end, but you gotta face the match, you know? Hopefully, we have it next year, we come back stronger.”
In other girls’ flag football CIF playoff quarterfinal games:
Huntington Beach 20, Camarillo 6: The Oilers won on the road Monday night in a Division 1 quarterfinal game.
No. 3-seeded Sunset League co-champion Huntington Beach (25-1) will play at No. 2 Orange Lutheran (23-2) in the semifinals on Saturday. Orange Lutheran is the defending Division 1 champion.
Dos Pueblos 12, Edison 6: The Chargers finished their season 18-10 after Monday’s home loss in the Division 1 quarterfinals.
Maddy Phung had a short touchdown run for Edison, the third-place team from the Sunset League.
Corona del Mar 27, Ventura 20: Addi Stern had more than 100 yards rushing for the Sea Kings in Tuesday’s Division 2 quarterfinal game at Corona del Mar High.
Stern also had a touchdown pass to AnnaSofia Dickens for CdM (16-14). Mia Balabanian and Brynn Boyle led the defensive effort with interceptions.
CdM will play at Newbury Park in the Division 2 semifinals on Saturday.
— Reporter Matt Szabo contributed to this article.
