Football: Lakewood airs it out

Staff Writer

Sept. 5, 2008 11:57 PM PT

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Lakewood had run aground at halftime of its intersectional game against Crenshaw.

The Lancers were struggling to find a rhythm on offense and had committed four late hits on defense to help the Cougars sustain drives that led to a pair of first-half touchdowns. Crenshaw took a 28-14 lead into intermission and unlike last season, Lakewood couldn’t rely on Alex Fletcher to rally because the star running back had transferred to St. John Bosco.

So the Lancers turned to their passing game and junior quarterback Jesse Scroggins was happy to oblige, throwing for three second-half touchdowns to help Lakewood, ranked No. 21 in the Southland by The Times, pull out a 42-34 victory.

‘He’s really good in pressure situations,’ Lakewood Coach Thadd MacNeal said of Scroggins, who completed 22 of 33 passes for 313 yards and four touchdowns with one interception. ‘He’s been doing this since the fourth grade in Pop Warner. He was made to be a quarterback and he thrives on these moments.’

The Lancers’ special teams and defense pitched in in the final minutes as well. After Scroggins’ 19-yard touchdown pass to Tofi Tiedemann with 4:25 left tied the score at 34-34 and Jesus Orozco’s PAT put Lakewood ahead, the kicker got his foot a little too far under the ball and accidentally pooched the ensuing kickoff.

But it worked out when Crenshaw fumbled the ball and Lakewood defensive back Alley Long recovered.

‘I was just running downfield trying to make a play and saw the ball open, so I jumped on it,’ Long said.

Jerry Stone scored six plays later to give the Lancers an eight-point lead that held up when Dion Bailey intercepted Crenshaw quarterback Marquis Thompson’s final pass deep in Lakewood territory. The Lancers defense held the explosive Cougars to six points in the second half, on a 78-yard catch-and-run touchdown by speedy receiver DeAnthony Thomas.

‘We’re a second-half team,’ Scroggins said.

--Ben Bolch

Varsity Times Insider

Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.