Mustangs come up big, 16-7

CERRITOS — The best offense for the Costa Mesa High football team on Friday night was a good defense.

Playing energized football after coming off a bye, the Mustangs scored three times off Cerritos turnovers to beat the Dons, 16-7, at Gahr High.

Coach Jeremy Osso, who has stressed to his team that it was important to play well coming into league, saw his Mustangs (2-5) gain momentum going into next week’s crosstown rivalry game against Estancia.

“It didn’t matter if the score was 2-0; we just wanted to get the win tonight,” Osso said. “What we’ve talked about all year is taking advantage of other teams’ mistakes, and we finally put that together. The players and the coaching staff have been working hard, and this is the outcome of that hard work and discipline.”

It was a gritty effort by the Costa Mesa defensive front four of London Sapolu, Juan Garces, Rudy Hernandez and Jason Schroeder against a Cerritos team determined to establish the run. Cerritos quarterback Phillip Chang attempted just nine passes, while the Dons (3-4) had 27 running plays.

“We knew we had to get it together,” Sapolu said. “Everyone got together as a team and stopped yelling at each other, and everything just came together for us tonight.”

The Mustangs did get burned late in the first quarter, when a high snap caused punter Justin Rodriguez to be tackled on his own seven-yard line.

A play later, Chang ran it in from 12 yards out on a quarterback keeper.

“We spotted them that touchdown,” Osso said. “And whenever they get touchdowns, our guys have a tendency to drop their heads and go ‘Here we go again.’ But we fought through that tonight.”

Steven Nguyen’s interception midway through the second quarter gave Costa Mesa the ball at the Cerritos 28. After three runs by D.J. Lepper, Cody Waldron found Asa Hawks for a 15-yard touchdown strike to tie the score.

On Cerritos’ next play from scrimmage, the Mustangs’ Robbie Gemayel recovered a fumble with 2:08 left in the half.

Rodriguez easily cleared a 37-yard field goal, giving Costa Mesa a 10-7 halftime lead despite having just two first downs.

“We played our football game,” said Gemayel, who recovered two fumbles on defense after missing two games. “We made changes, we made hits, we did everything we could do to keep them in a low-scoring range. We did that, and came away with a victory.”

Cerritos went on a nearly six-minute drive midway through the third quarter, and got the ball as far as the Mustang 14. But on fourth-and-eight, a fake field-goal attempt was well-guarded by Costa Mesa, with Josh Lowe batting away a pass in the end zone.

On their next possession, the Dons started on the Mustangs 33 after Marlon Hawkins’ long punt return. But two plays later, Sapolu stripped the ball from Cerritos back Marcus Faria, and Gemeyel recovered with 5:29 left in the game.

Up by just three points, the Mustangs needed a sustained drive, and got one courtesy of Lepper. He carried the ball eight times on the march, the last being a seven-yard touchdown run that iced the game with under a minute to go.

“We just give it to [Lepper] and trust in him, let him do what he does,” Waldron said. “That’s what he does, running over people.”

A field-goal attempt with just more than two minutes left was short and wide right, but the drive was kept alive on a roughing the kicker penalty.

Despite an offense that struggled at times, Costa Mesa committed no turnovers.

Gemayel said the Mustangs’ confidence is high heading into next week’s Battle for the Bell.

“We were ready this week, and we’re going to be ready next week,” he said.