Ocean View rumbles past Estancia

The Eagles’ inability to stop the run and sustain drives proves to be their undoing in a Golden West League setback on the Seahawks’ field Friday night.Going into Friday night’s game, Coach Brian Barnes felt Ocean View was a team Estancia could compete with and even beat.

So after the Eagles’ 20-12 loss to the Seahawks -- a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicated -- Barnes was disappointed with his team’s effort.

“Well, I don’t know if we came to play football tonight,” Barnes said. “Our kids were a little complacent and Ocean View did a good job -- they kicked our butt.”

The Eagles (1-6 overall, 1-2 in the Golden West League) were given a heavy dose of Seahawks running back Nhan Nguyen, who had 26 carries for 189 yards on the night. Nguyen, quarterback Brandon Price (12 rushes for 44 yards, two touchdowns) and fullback Charlie Pickle (11 rushes for 40 yards) pounded the ball all evening.

The Seahawks almost doubled the Eagles in time of possession, keeping the ball for 30 minutes and 28 seconds compared to 17:32 for Estancia.

The Eagles held the Seahawks to two field goals on their first two drives. Still, it wasn’t until Ocean View (2-4, 1-2) went on a 12-play, 59-yard scoring drive to take a 14-0 lead with 3:16 left in the second quarter that Estancia elevated its play offensively.

Matt Redding took the ensuing kickoff from his 1-yard line and rambled 45 yards. A 16-yard completion on third-and-4 from Ryan Watson to Ezequel Villalvazo set up Watson’s 34-yard touchdown pass to Redding, who caught the ball in stride streaking down the left sideline. Estancia missed the extra point and went into halftime trailing 14-6, despite getting outrushed 171 to 20 in the first half.

“We couldn’t stop their blast,” Barnes said. “They ran all over us. We’ve got a lot of things we have to fix. But we’re trying to build a program here, and it takes time.”

Ocean View came out in the second half and went 65 yards on nine plays, highlighted by Nguyen’s 22-yard run on a sweep and capped off by Price’s 3-yard sneak into the end zone. The Seahawks led 20-6 with 7:34 left in the third quarter.

The Eagles didn’t score again until the last play of the game -- a 10-yard pass from Watson to Redding as time expired, which capped a 19-play, 75 yard drive. Estancia converted twice on fourth down during the drive, including Watson’s 21-yard completion to Edgar Vargas on fourth-and-20 from its own 15-yard line.

Vargas sparked the Eagles offense with 114 all-purpose yards, including a team-high 45 yards rushing on 10 carries.

“He ran the ball well for us tonight,” Barnes said.

When the Eagles were down, 20-6, in third quarter, they gambled on both of their third-quarter drives, but both rolls of the dice failed to pay off.

On Estancia’s first possession of the third quarter, Watson had time to throw and took advantage, hitting Vargas for a 37-yard gain. A 31-yard completion down the right sideline to Villalvazo gave the Eagles a first-down-and-goal on the Seahawks 10-yard line.

Watson took a 1-yard loss on a broken pass play and threw two incomplete passes.

The Eagles were faced with fourth-and-11. With little confidence in their kicking game, the Eagles went for it, but another Watson pass fell incomplete.

Later in the third quarter, Estancia was faced with a fourth-and-5 on the Ocean View 21-yard line, and again, an incomplete pass ended the drive.

Estancia will have to drastically turn things around to have a shot at the CIF Southern Section playoffs.

“We feel bad, now we have to beat Santa Ana and Saddleback to go to CIF,” Vargas said. “We played good, but I feel bad.”

“We really couldn’t get anything going,” Barnes said. “We weren’t executing with any kind of efficiency.”

Watson was 13 of 37 passing for 202 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. The performance helped him surpass the 1,000-yard mark for the season.