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.”
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