HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL ROUNDUP : Fourth-Quarter Drive Gives El Capitan the Only Touchdown It Needs

Two championship-caliber teams, one title, no score with six minutes left--perhaps this is what El Capitan had in mind when it concocted the theme “Hollywood: Lights, Camera, Action” for its homecoming theme.

El Capitan’s eventual 7-3 victory over longtime rival Santana couldn’t have been scripted more brilliantly.

Trailing 3-0 after Santana’s Heath Gathercole kicked a 37-yard field goal with 5:29 left, El Capitan completed its only two passes of Friday’s game, drove 72 yards in six plays covering 2:04 and scored the game’s only touchdown to win its second consecutive Grossmont 2-A League title on the season’s final night.

Roughly 6,000 witnessed the game at El Capitan.

It ended with El Capitan’s Greg Ryan intercepting a Doug Schultz last-ditch pass in the end zone.

“This feels great,” said Ryan, who also caught two clutch passes for 50 yards in the final drive and rushed nine times for 60 yards. “I’ve got to say the repeat is something special. I think (winning the second title) was even more special because Santana was a hell of a lot better this year. They made us work for this one.”

Santana (6-4, 3-1) had played 19 consecutive quarters without allowing a touchdown before James Hopkins (11 carries, 31 yards) scored from the two-yard line with 3:25 left to give sixth-ranked El Capitan (9-1, 4-0) its eighth consecutive victory and its second consecutive league championship for the first time in school history. The Vaqueros won their first Grossmont 2-A title last year by beating Santana, 34-13, in the season finale.

“We’re 100% better than we were last year,” Leon Bender, Santana’s standout two-way lineman, said. “They scored four more points than us, that’s all. We played a damn good game against the (sixth-ranked) team in the county.”

After combining for only 184 total yards, each team was fortunate to score in this one.

Santana went up 3-0 after a bizarre 58-yard, 11-play drive stalled at the Vaquero 21-yard line. On the drive, Santana fumbled once and was lucky to recover it, had a 17-yard pass play negated by a motion penalty, a nine-yard rush called back after a blocking penalty and a sack for minus 10 yards on third-and-six from the 11. The Sultans also completed their first pass on the drive, a 47-yarder streak from Schultz to Jerold Anderson down the right sideline.

After Gathercole’s field goal cleared the crossbar by two feet, El Capitan began its winning drive from its 28-yard line and promptly recorded its only two pass completions--14 and 36 yards from Bobby Vickery to Ryan.