Sailors gave all they had

Rick Devereux

For Newport Harbor High football Coach Jeff Brinkley, there are no

regrets, there are no doubts, there are no what-ifs.

“Every year we want to get these guys to maximize their

potential,” he said. “[The final record] may be 12-1-1 or 7-4. I think [this year’s players] took this as long as they could and

performed at the best of their abilities.”

The Sailors (12-1-1) suffered their first loss of the season in

the CIF Southern Section Division VI championship game Saturday to

top-seeded Orange Lutheran. The 35-6 setback was the widest margin of

defeat in 92 games for the Sailors, but Brinkley does not want the

players to measure the entire season by the last game.

“I want the seniors to walk away with a positive feeling of what

they have accomplished,” he said. “I don’t want them to have a sour

taste in their mouths. They did some amazing things this year. I want

them to realize they had a great season.”

Brinkley said the seniors are the main reason the team excelled

the way it did.

“I tell the kids at the start of the season that we won’t have a

good year without good senior leadership,” he said.

Three pivotal games stick out in the season.

The Tars scored two touchdowns, a 63-yard punt return by senior

Spencer Link and a 46-yard pass from senior quarterback Kasey Peters

to Link, in the final 3:27 as Newport erased a 17-0 third-quarter

deficit against Back Bay rival Corona del Mar for a 21-17 win in Week 3.

The Newport defense limited Aliso Niguel star quarterback Drew

Westling to 178 passing yards, well under his 245 season average, as

the Sailors handed the previously undefeated Wolverines a 21-7 loss.

A fumble recovery with 12 seconds left set up Peters’ 30-yard

touchdown pass to Alex Orth as Newport stunned Mayfair in the

semifinals.

“We had some big games,” Brinkley said. “Obviously, against Corona

del Mar we had to come from behind to win it in a big rivalry game.

Against Aliso, everything lined up for it to be the league

championship game. And the Mayfair game was very exciting.”

But Brinkley said other games were just as memorable.

“The first game of the season against Fountain Valley was a very

good game,” he said. “We had a lot of players on the sidelines

because of injuries. Charter Oak [in the quarterfinals] was a very

good football team. That was a very tough game.”

Brinkley said he was proud Newport won the Sea View League title,

the fourth league championship in Brinkley’s 19 years with the

Sailors.

He was also proud of how his team responded during the playoffs.

“We used up a lot of emotion in [the Charter Oak and Mayfair]

games,” Brinkley said. “[Orange Lutheran] was handling their

opponents pretty easily in the playoffs [averaging scores of 35-8 in

the first three rounds]. We had gone through a tough run of emotional

games. It’s hard to maintain the emotional high.”

Brinkley compared this year’s playoff run with the 1996 playoffs

when the Sailors pulled out a 23-16 victory over Servite in the

semifinals and then lost to Santa Margarita, 38-0, in the Division V

championship game.

“We had to beat a very big Servite team,” Brinkley said. “And then

we line up the next week and face [future Heisman Trophy winner]

Carson Palmer.”