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Mike Sciacca

For all of the successes that have blessed the storied football

program at Edison High School, it had been 11 long years since the school

had won a Sunset League football championship.

They have been close to claiming a few trophies in those 11 years -- a

runner-up finish here, another one there -- much like last year, when the

Chargers fell to Esperanza in the final week of the regular season as the

Aztecs held on in a wild finish to claim the title.

But that all changed last Friday night, as nearly 9,000 fans bore

witness.

Playing Fountain Valley High School in the annual Battle for the Bell

in front of a raucous standing-room-only crowd at Orange Coast College,

Edison was finally able to claim Sunset League supremacy by beating the

Fountain Valley Barons, 19-10.

Edison, however, will have to share the 2001 Sunset title with Los

Alamitos High School, as both teams finished 4-0-1 in league play after

tying 14-14 on Oct. 25.

For the Chargers, there is no better way to earn the championship than

by defeating the archrival on the final night of the regular season.

“It’s special to win a Sunset League championship and to beat Fountain

Valley in order to get it, well, it doesn’t get any better than that,”

said two-way Charger starter Marcus McCutcheon.

McCutcheon has played at the varsity level for four years and was used

as an option quarterback in the second half of Friday’s win.

“We’ve had some talented teams here in the past and we have come close

to winning the league a few times. But the difference between this year

and in years past is that this team has learned how to finish the job,”

the Edison High senior said.

It is the 10th Sunset League title for Edison, now in its 30th year of

playing football, and the third title for Dave White, who is in his 16th

year as head coach.

What’s more, for the first time in 20 years, a Charger team concluded

the regular season without a loss.

“The kids have done a fantastic job. They have earned this title,”

White said.

Edison won its first Sunset League title in 1976 under Bill Workman.

Two years later, the Chargers began a dominating run under Workman that

included five consecutive league championships. During that reign, they

went 53-9-1 and finally reached the pinnacle by winning the 1979 CIF

Southern Section Big Five Conference title. For an encore, they went 14-0

in 1980 and twice defeated Fountain Valley during that season, the final

time by a 14-0 score in the Big Five Conference final at Anaheim Stadium.

Workman stepped down as head coach after the 1985 season, but not

before winning another Sunset title and sharing the Big 5 Conference

crown with Long Beach Poly. White took over the following season and

guided Edison to back-to-back Sunset titles in 1989-90.

Eleven years later, Edison has done it again.

The Chargers, now 8-0-1, overcame a 7-6 halftime deficit by wearing

down Fountain Valley in the game’s second half. They did it with a

running game that has managed to find its legs in the final few weeks of

the season and a defense that still has not yielded a touchdown in the

third quarter, and just one overall this year in the second half.

There were several big plays by the Chargers, the first of which was a

17-yard interception return for a touchdown by Bubba Reynolds, which gave

Edison a 6-0 second quarter lead. In the second half, A.J. Martinez

scored on a pair of short runs, center Sean Campregher kept the go-ahead

scoring drive alive with a third quarter fumble recovery, and receiver

Patrick Campbell came up with a great reception inside the Fountain

Valley 10-yard line on a key third down play in the fourth quarter that

netted 35 yards and set up Martinez’s second touchdown run.

The win gives Edison a 21-12-1 edge over Fountain Valley in the

all-time series and the Chargers retained the Bell for a second

consecutive year.

“We came up with a big effort in what annually is our most important

game of the season,” said White, whose team also defeated perennial

powers Mater Dei, Servite and Esperanza during the course of the regular

season. “Our first goal was to win the Sunset League championship, but to

go undefeated against such a challenging schedule says a lot about this

team. We hope to keep that momentum going.”

Edison will get a chance to build on that success Friday night when

the Chargers host St. John Bosco in a CIF Division I playoff game at

Orange Coast College. The Chargers lost a coin flip to Los Alamitos and

head into the playoffs as the Sunset’s No. 2 entry.

St. John Bosco of the Serra League, meanwhile, earned an at-large

berth.

Friday’s victory marked the 10th time in White’s tenure that he has

guided the Chargers into the postseason. Overall, Edison will be making

its 21st playoff appearance and will be looking to win the school’s

fourth CIF championship.

Edison and St. John Bosco will be meeting for the first time in

playoff action.