Tustin Wins With Big Help From Foothill

Tustin High School followed a few simple rules of football Friday night and came away with a 17-6 victory over Foothill in front 2,000 at Tustin.

The Tillers did roll up 144 yards in penalties, mostly by the offense. And, yes, they were able to sustain only two drives.

But at least Tustin didn’t turn the ball over. Foothill had the problems in the area.

The Knights gave the ball away five times, which stopped their already sluggish offense.

Foothill fumbled four times, losing three--including one that led to a Tustin touchdown. Quarterback John Shanahan also threw one interception and had two other passes that were nearly intercepted.

Such generosity made things easy for the Tillers.

“We really didn’t execute very well and made a lot of mistakes,” Ancich said. “But we also received a lot of breaks.”

Enough breaks, in fact, that the Tustin offense needed only to make a brief appearance in the third quarter.

On the Tillers’ first play of the second half, tailback Ron Goods burst through a huge hole on the left side, side-stepped safety Greg Clark and went 53 yards for the game’s first score.

Goods and running back Visco Ancich were two of the bright spots for the Tillers’ offense. Goods had 88 yards rushing in 13 carries and Ancich had 55 yards in 14 carries.

The two were a big part of Tustin’s next possession. The Tillers put together three first downs to get close enough for Mat Coo to kick a 28-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead.

That was the extent of the Tustin offense, which amassed 273 yards.

“Our defense was playing well enough to win,” Foothill Coach Marty McWhinney said. “We just seemed to be a step off all night night on offense. We just beat ourselves.”

Tustin had the ball inside Foothill’s 30-yard line three other times, but missed two field goals and turned the ball over on downs once.

Even when Foothill managed to hold onto the ball, it could do little with it. The Knights gained only 115 total yards.

Shanahan accounted for 69 of those yards on a touchdown pass to Clark late in the third quarter. But Shanahan’s only other completion during the game was for minus-one yard.

“Obviously we have some things to work on,” McWhinney said. “But you have to give a lot credit to the Tustin defense. They took a lot of things away from us.”