Fountain Valley hopes win over Ocean View is the start of something new

Fountain Valley's Raymond Dillon Jr. (13) and Jacob Dorman (1) celebrate after scoring a touchdown against Ocean View.

By Scott FrenchSpecial Contributor

Aug. 24, 2026 3:04 PM PT

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Fountain Valley hasn’t had much success on the football field the past decade, so another victory over Ocean View — the only foe it has beaten, three times, in 27 games — might seem insignificant.

It’s the how of the Barons’ road triumph Friday night, what that says about where this program is headed as Orange County coaching legend Mitch Olson begins his second year at its helm, and the opportunities that finally await them, a benefit of re-leaguing, that carry the most weight.

Junior quarterback Isaac Combs played hero in the 27-21 victory, hooking up twice for scores with senior receiver Raymond Dillon Jr. and with Drake Robinson for another through a back-and-forth fight into the fourth quarter, then sprinting 20 yards for the winning touchdown with four and a half minutes to go to give Fountain Valley its first victory since last year’s opener against Ocean View and second since beating the Seahawks in the first 2024 outing.

(James Carbone)

It required a lot of grit, a few big plays and sublime fortune — a good deal of it in a wild fourth quarter — and offered great promise.

“You play a game like that and you squeak it out, you’re lucky,” said Olson, a former Los Alamitos standout whose more than three decades as a coach includes eight league and one CIF Southern Section title at Kennedy. “We were lucky tonight, but we were lucky because the kids have done things right, they’ve worked hard, and at the end of the game, we gutted it out and made plays. That’s what makes the difference.”

Dillon called it a catalyst for more.

(James Carbone)

“This win feels different,” he said. “It feels like something special is brewing in Fountain Valley.”

The Barons haven’t beaten anyone aside from the Seahawks since mid-September 2023, are 11-47 since the pandemic, and haven’t won a league game since 2018.

That’s largely about competition and changing demographics; they’ve been playing over their heads for some stretch, but this year’s three-tier drop into the Lambda League pits them against reasonable opposition.

Fountain Valley, once a top-tier powerhouse, hasn’t had a winning season or reached the playoffs in nine years, hasn’t been a league champion since the five-way Sunset League split in 2008, and hasn’t won a league title all its own since the late 1980s. Might this be the year that changes?

(James Carbone)

“We have a really good group of kids,” Olson said, “And I think this year is going to be a ... I’m not going to say a breakout year, but it’s going to be a year where the expectation is that we win some ballgames, go to the playoffs and stuff.”

Said Combs: “I think we’re capable of a lot. I think you can see us going a long way. I think we have a chance to make a big run in CIF, maybe even win it all.”

“If we block, if we catch balls, if we run good routes, Isaac makes good throws,” Dillon said, “Sky’s the limit. We’re CIF champions.”

(James Carbone)

Olson’s not looking that far ahead, but he’s building a culture that’s meant to win, says that “this is where we need to be to give us a chance to grow and get better” and that — against league foes Westminster, Valencia, Sonora, Woodbridge and Santa Ana Calvary Chapel — there isn’t a game we don’t have a shot at.”

Ocean View, a rising program a tier or so beneath the Barons, provided a good first test. The Seahawks, coming off their first winning campaign and second postseason appearance since the pandemic, rallied from a two-touchdown deficit to surge ahead just after halftime and might have prevailed but for two fourth-quarter calls, one by referees on a fourth-down play inside the Fountain Valley 30, the other by head coach Daniel Hernandez that gave the Barons an opening they walked through.

(James Carbone)

Fountain Valley took a 14-0 lead on touchdowns near the end of the first quarter and about three minutes into the second, Combs finding Robinson alone at the back of the end zone for a 31-yard, fourth-down score, then dropping a ball in for tightly covered Dillon’s acrobatic grab from 23 yards.

Sophomore Elijah Stokley returned the ensuing kickoff 88 yards to halve the deficit, and Ocean View was in charge into the third quarter, much of it the work of junior Trevor Vaivao, who last year (as Trevor Luapo) ran for 1,148 yards and scored nine touchdowns.

Vaivao, playing primarily as a receiver in the first half and running back in the second, pulled the Seahawks even on a 29-yard reception from Dean Northam just before the break, then put them ahead — after gains of 31, 15 and 10 yards — on a 6-yard sprint to finish the initial second-half drive. Combs and Dillon combined again, a 46-yard arc beyond the secondary, to make it 21-21 two possessions later.

(James Carbone)

Ocean View then marched from its 20 to the Barons’ 27, a plodding 11 plays over nearly eight minutes, and Northam’s fourth-down push appeared enough for a first down, but the ball popped out — the Seahawks thought the play was already dead — and Trenton Farr, outstanding on both sides of the ball but especially on defense, came up with the recovery.

Fountain Valley went nowhere on its first three plays and was set to punt until Hernandez decided to accept a holding penalty on a third-down incompletion, giving the Barons a third-and-17 from their 20. Jacob Dorman took a screen pass from Combs and went 24 yards.

(James Carbone)

Combs, who completed 16 of 27 passes for 254 yards (six for 157 to Dillon) and ran for a team-best 36 yards, hit the end zone nine plays later.

“He’s a great kid, man,” Olson said. “He’s an unbelievable competitor, and he has a full game. He’s a dual threat. He can run, he can throw, very smart. ... He’s the whole package. He can do it all.”