Edison football scores in final minute to get by Inglewood

INGLEWOOD — INGLEWOOD - Edison found its passing game when it became imperative to do so, and so the defending champion is headed back to the CIF Southern Section’s Division 3 football semifinals.

The Chargers pulled out a last-minute, rain-drenched 9-7 victory at South Bay powerhouse Inglewood, scoring the decisive points on a clock-running, no-timeouts-left, fourth-down screen pass that provided Maddox Thomas an open path to the end zone.

Sam Thomson led the unexpected comeback, its foundation a Sentinels giveaway at midfield and its currency a passing game that hadn’t done much in conditions that favored running the ball.

The junior quarterback led Edison (7-5), which will play at fellow reigning state bowl champion Palos Verdes (9-3) on Friday, on a 48-yard march over a little more than three minutes. He accounted for all but one of those yards by completing five of seven passing attempts for 41 yards — three big completions to Thomas, Matthew Auau and Teo Hampton to set up the 4-yard touchdown — and a couple of runs for another 6 yards.

“I’m confident in myself in these situations,” said Thomson, a left-hander who, to that point, had completed just four of 11 passes for 17 yards with an interception that killed a promising fourth-quarter drive that had just passed midfield. “I feel like I’ve proven myself as a clutch player, and that’s my favorite situation to be in, when the team’s relying on me and I can get back for some of the mistakes I made earlier in the game.

“I just did all I could. We practiced with the wet ball all week, so credit to the coaches for putting me in a situation that was familiar. I felt like I was ready for it, built for that moment.”

Inglewood (6-6) appeared in charge, looking to add to a first-quarter touchdown or run out the last 4:51 after Iroc Cordova picked off a deep Thomson throw at the Sentinels’ 29-yard line.

Three runs followed, the last a 22-yard Allen Wilson reverse to reach Edison territory. A fumbled handoff two plays later was scooped up by Blaise Burwell, Thomson ran for 5 yards, then hit an open Thomas 5 yards downfield for a 14-yard gain and Auau on the left sideline for 10 yards to reach the red zone with 2:32 to go. An incompletion and screen pass to Thomas for a loss followed, but Thomson connected over the middle with Hampton for 14 yards to the Inglewood 6 on third-and-11.

Thomas ran for a yard. Thomson threw incomplete into the end zone, then plunged up the middle to the 4. The clock showed 27 seconds and counting. No big deal.

“We do some intense moments like that in practice, so we weren’t worried about it,” said Maddox, a defensive standout who has run for 203 yards and a touchdown and caught seven passes for 33 yards and three touchdowns since star running back Sam Edmisten went down with a high-ankle sprain three weeks ago. “ [Thomson is] very poised. He’s making those great decisions, so we knew when we got down there we were going to score.”

“It wasn’t a very extreme moment,” he said, then paused, then laughed. “It was an extreme moment, but yeah.”

Edison head coach Jeff Grady and offensive line coach Sonny Kaesbauer quickly signaled a play to Thomson. A screen pass in a “mesh concept,” in which receivers drag defenders away to open space.

“We got up to the line and snapped it fast, and that didn’t really give them an opportunity to get properly aligned. They left the running back uncovered ....,” Thomson said. “My only real worry was getting it over the [defensive end’s] hands, because that’s a big kid.”

Thomas knew he was “getting in that end zone. No doubt.”

Hampton finished it off, intercepting a Lincoln Jahn bomb on the first play after kickoff with 8.7 seconds remaining.

“That was awesome,” said Grady, who has guided Edison to seven successive postseason wins, including last year’s CIF State Division 1-A bowl triumph. “The turnover was huge. Defense was lights out all night. ... We just found a way. This team’s gritty, and we just found a way to get it done in the end.”

It had been a slog much of the way. Both teams found some success on the ground — Inglewood rushed for 214 yards (Austyn Tillman for 73 yards, Semaj Welch for 71 yards to reach 1,346 yards for the year), most of that in the first and fourth quarters, and Thomas (83 yards) and Anthony Godinez (42 yards) had most of Edison’s rushing production . The Sentinels didn’t try to throw.

Jahn, who had passed for nearly 2,800 yards and for 25 touchdowns this season, threw just five times, the lone completion was a forward-angled pitch to Welch that lost 2 yards.

The semifinal is a rematch of a Sept. 12 meeting at Palos Verdes, in which Edison rallied from a 13-point, fourth-quarter deficit for a 21-20 win clinched when Auau blocked a 33-yard field-goal attempt with 10 seconds to go. The No. 11 Sea Kings, who also won a CIF State bowl title last year, beat visiting Dana Hills, the third seed, 14-13.

The other semifinal pits No. 8 Oxnard Pacifica (12-0) at fourth-seeded Chino Hills (9-3).

CIF Southern Section Division 3 playoffs

Edison 9, Inglewood 7

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Edison 0 - 3 - 0 - 6 — 9

Inglewood 7 - 0 - 0 - 0 — 7

FIRST QUARTER

I — Welch 1 run (Rivas kick), 0:00.

SECOND QUARTER

E — Bradshaw 28 FG, 4:04.

THIRD QUARTER

None.

FOURTH QUARTER

E — Thomas 4 pass from Thomson (kick failed), 0:17.7.

INDIVIDUAL RUSHING

E — Thomas, 19-83; Godinez, 8-42; Thomson, 3-6.

I — Tillman, 15-73; Welch, 18-71, 1 TD; Watson, 6-39; Wilson, 1-22; Randolph, 1-16; Jahn, 3-8; Team, 1-(-15).

INDIVIDUAL PASSING

E — Thomson, 9-18-1, 58, 1 TD.

I — Jahn, 1-5-1, (-2).

INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING

E — Thomas, 3-17, 1 TD; Auau, 2-14; T. Hampton, 1-14; L. Hampton, 1-6; Puente, 1-6; Lo, 1-1.

I — Tillman, 1-(-2).