Prep football: Estancia holds off Northwood

Barry Faulkner

IRVINE - If the other four are anything like this, Estancia High

football coach Dave Perkins will be the happiest, hoarse, gray-haired and

harried head man in the CIF Southern Section.

He was all of those Thursday night, after watching his Eagles survive

a sluggish start and a scary finish to come away with a 41-36 Pacific

Coast League victory over host Northwood at Irvine High.

“We obviously didn’t play very well on defense,” Perkins said. “But,

if we’d won, 41-40, I guess the defense would have done its job. This is

better than the alternative.”

In a game that featured 922 combined yards of offense, 39 first downs

and enough big plays to fill a league season, it was the Eagles’ ability

to grind out yards and eat game clock which helped them prevail.

“Our offense showed up tonight,” Perkins said of a unit which rushed

for 315 yards and threw for 202 more to outgun an explosive performance

by the Timberwolves (2-4). “And it was a good thing.”

The Eagles (4-2) put together second-half touchdown drives of 89 and

74 yards, the latter a 13-play procession which consumed nearly six

minutes, to keep Northwood’s sizzling quarterback-receiver combination of

Dan Tomcheck and Bryan Bentrott on the sideline.

When the Timberwolves aerial tandem was anywhere else, Estancia

defensive backs had their hands full.

Tomcheck threw three of his four TD passes in the final period to keep

things interesting, but ran out of time after Estancia recovered an

onside kickoff on with 33 seconds left, then downed the ball to deny the

hosts the upset in their PCL debut.

The Timberwolves appeared hungry for just that when they got a gift

safety to open the scoring, then cashed in an Estancia fumble for an 8-0

lead with 2:38 left in the first quarter.

Estancia punter Freddy Rodriguez ran down an errant punt snap, which

sailed over his head an into his own end zone, and booted the ball past

the end line to build a 2-0 Estancia deficit.

After Dave Anderson recovered at the Estancia 28 on the first play of

the ensuing possession, Tomcheck hit Bentrott for a 27-yard score.

“Our kids obviously didn’t take Northwood seriously,” Perkins said of

the slow start. “We had to wake up.”

Rodriguez sounded the alarm on the Eagles’ third possession, turning

the corner for runs of 16 and 60 yards, the latter to paydirt, with 1:08

left in the first quarter.

Tight end David Stoddard caught a 20-yard TD pass from Kenny Valbuena

to put the visitors ahead and Rodriguez, who led the winners with 120

rushing yards on seven carries, swept right for a 5-yard TD to cap a

five-play, 65-yard drive that built a 21-8 halftime edge.

Senior fullback Fahad Jahid (118 yards on 14 carries) plowed into the

end zone from 4 yards out to make it 28-8 with 3:40 left in the third

quarter, but things were just warming up.

Tailback Andy Meyer, who rushed for 177 yards on 21 attempts, burst 65

yards around the right side on the next snap to keep the hosts in the

game.

The two teams traded scoring drives from there on out.

Stoddard had three receptions for 102 yards and added three sacks for

the Eagles.

Bentrott finished with 11 catches for 196 yards, while Tomcheck (252

passing yards) and Valbuena (202 passing yards) were also impressive.