Football: Santa Margarita first-year coach is enjoying Trinity League

Rick Curtis is the only first-year coach in the Trinity League. He took over for Harry Welch at Santa Margarita after coaching for years in public school. So the question is how does he like the weekly grind of a league where every game is almost like a playoff game?

“It’s a beast,” he said. “There’s no rest, but it’s exciting and energizing. It’s everything I dreamed it to be and more.”

Santa Margarita (6-2, 2-1) is very much in the title hunt, but the Eagles are facing quite a test over the next two weeks. First up is a road game against Santa Ana Mater Dei at Santa Ana Stadium on Friday, followed by a road game against St. John Bosco on Nov. 7.

The Eagles’ playoff chances look good even if they lose both games, because they own a tiebreaker edge over Servite and Orange Lutheran and have a win over Mission League power Bishop Amat if it comes to at-large consideration. There’s two at-large berths for the Pac-5, and the Trinity will surely get one, leaving four teams from the league in the playoffs.

The big news for the Eagles is that they showed last week in a win over Servite that they can run the ball if needed. They had two runners surpass 100 yards rushing after quarterback K.J. Costello set a school record for passing at 495 yards the previous week.

“We’re going to need to do both,” Curtis said.

Twitter:@LATSondheimer