Tied up in knots

Barry Faulkner

WESTMINSTER - When Newport Harbor High football coach Jeff Brinkley

said he’d like to see the Sailors clean up some first-game sloppiness,

heading into their second nonleague game Thursday against Marina, he

didn’t exactly have laundry in mind.

But laundry, of the yellow penalty flag variety, is what Brinkley and his

team saw a clock-stopping 17 times to help reward the host Vikings with a

21-21 tie at Westminster High.

Newport Harbor’s charity didn’t stop with its 141 yards in penalties,

however. The Sailors also fumbled the ball out of their own end zone for

a second-quarter safety and surrendered a 61-yard interception return to

its own 1-yard line, which led to a touchdown. The visitors also had a

punt blocked, which set up a four-play 6-yard touchdown “drive” that gave

Marina (1-0-1) its only lead, 21-15, with 2:42 left in the third quarter.

Newport (1-0-1) answered with an impressive seven-play 61-yard procession

to tie the game with 11:33 left. But the ensuing conversion kick just

missed -- wide left -- and both teams stumbled through the rest of the

contest without scoring.

Brinkley made no bones about the fact he considered the tie, his first

in 14 seasons at the school, a loss.

“Absolutely,” he said when posed the question. “(Any Sailor) who feels

good right now, needs to reevaluate what they’re all about.”

Brinkley was not pleased with the officiating, which prosecuted nine

Newport infractions in the first quarter alone, three of which resulted

in Viking first downs. But he went out of his way to steer blame away

from those wearing anything but Newport blue stripes.

“I thought the (line judge) on our side was going for a CIF record (for

penalties called),” Brinkley said. “But the penalties aren’t why we

didn’t win tonight. We threw an interception, had a punt blocked and

fumbled the ball out of our end zone. We set up just about all their

scoring and you can’t win that way.”

The Harbor defense easily did enough to earn the victory, including

limiting muscular Marina fullback Ray Mietkiewicz to 71 yards on 18

carries. Mietkiewicz, a two-time All-Sunset League standout, had averaged

121 yards per game in his distinguished varsity career.

But, with Sailor middle linebacker Alan Saenz keying on the 6-foot-1,

235-pound battering ram and meeting him near the line on most of his veer

option dive attempts, Mietkiewicz picked up more than 5 yards just four

times. His longest run was 13 yards, he was stopped for no gain once, and

pummeled once for a 1-yard loss. The latter was only the second time he

has been stopped behind the line in 40 carries this fall.

Saenz also recovered a Mietkiewicz fumble at the Sailor 25 to halt a

threatening Viking possession with 3:55 left.

“We did what we had to do,” Brinkley said of containing Marina’s No. 1

option. “(Junior quarterback Beau Brown) made a couple of runs, but we

just put the defense in a bad position too often.”

Brown broke free on a 36-yard option keep to key Marina’s first scoring

drive late in the first half and he scored twice after faking to

Mietkiewicz from the 2 and the 1 after intermission. The latter came on

fourth-and-goal to make it 21-15 late in the third period.

Nose guard Andy Kalanz appeared to get a hand on Marina’s ensuing

conversion kick attempt, which went wide left.

It was the second botched PAT for the hosts, who failed to convert after

their first-half TD when Brown fielded an errant snap and was tackled by

Justin Jacobs trying to scramble around right end.

Marina special-teams snafus were a consistent theme, as a muffed punt

reception and a roughing-the-kicker penalty helped Harbor turn two

would-be punts into a six-minute-plus scoring procession capped by Andre

Stewart’s 1-yard sprint around the left side with 3:31 left in the first

quarter.

Chris Bargas toed the PAT.

The Tars then answered the safety and a subsequent Marina punt with an

eight-play, 60-yard drive which junior quarterback Chris Manderino capped

by lofting a 21-yard scoring strike to Billy Clayton.

Andy Rankin ran for the two-point conversion on the Sailors’ trademark

swinging gate and the visitors led, 15-2, with 4:44 left in the half.

Stewart (22 carries for a career-high 147 yards) and fellow senior

tailback Ryan Brill split the seven-play TD drive which finalized the

score. Stewart ran four times for 34 yards, including the 16-yard capper.

Brill carried three times for 27.

Manderino, who played all but three plays of the final three quarters in

relief, threw for 51 yards, including a 14-yard strike to Jacobs (four

catches for 47 yards) to give the Sailors a first down at the Marina 36

with less than 40 seconds remaining.

After three incompletions, Manderino scrambled for 13 yards and what

would have been a first down with five seconds left. But a holding call

brought it back and the subsequent fourth-down desperation pass fell

incomplete inside the Marina 10.

“The only thing we did was battle with them,” said Marina Coach Mark

Rehling, who had lost his four previous meetings with Harbor by an

average 32-11 score. We got just enough big plays to stay in the

ballgame, even though they dominated us physically.”