Monday Morning Quarterback

It was a feat not to be repeated.

Newport Harbor High had already stung Esperanza once last season when the Tars upended the Aztecs, 21-13, ending a five-game winning streak.

Determined not to suffer the same fate two years running, the Aztecs came out particularly inspired.

Maybe too inspired, if you ask Newport Harbor (5-2, 1-1 Sunset League) coach Jeff Brinkley.

“We’re walking out of there and people are spitting on us and calling us names,” Esperanza coach Bill Pendleton told the Orange County Register Friday night, referring to last season’s loss at Davidson Field. “Old ladies in wheelchairs were flipping us off. …The guys have been waiting a year for this game.”

Brinkley took exception to Pendleton’s claims.

“A lot of guys use a lot of different motivational techniques,” Brinkley said. “I haven’t seen too many old ladies in our stadium in wheelchairs flipping guys off. Whatever it was, it seemed to motivate them.

“They were on a mission to beat us. I watched a lot of film on the them and I hadn’t seen them play that inspired as they did against us. I would think it was their best game. It would have taken a great game out of us to compete with them that night.”

The Sailors still don’t have much room to breathe with a game against Los Alamitos coming up, and then they wrap up the regular season facing Marina and Edison.

Last season, Newport Harbor lost at Los Alamitos by a sliver, 9-7. The Griffins have one loss this season, to Orange Lutheran.

Dick Freeman has seen teams go into the doldrums before, and he’s seen teams come out of them.

Right now, the frustration in the Corona del Mar football program is palpable, and it only becomes worse when players try to be heroes, according to Freeman.

“They end up pressing, and trying a little too hard, and then when you do that, you force a little bit here, and you try to do it all yourself,” Freeman said. “They’re 18-year kids. They don’t handle it any better than a coach.”

Freeman was wordless after Friday’s 20-0 loss to Laguna Hills, ranked No. 5 in the CIF Southern Section Southern Division. He thought the teams would match up better than the Sea Kings’ sputtering offense suggested.

“That should have been us going down there at the end and scoring at the end of the ball game, not just trying to get points on the board,” Freeman said, referring to a desperate attempt to move the ball and score with less than two minutes left in regulation. “I still think we’re pretty close to being the same type of football team that they are.”

But there will have to be a turnaround for CdM to survive its next two league games against Irvine and University.

Irvine runs an eight-man front, which is certainly not easy to run against, but size-wise, the teams are nearly the same.

“It’s never too late,” Freeman said. “We’ve got two more games, we win those games, we’re pretty close to second place in league. We get into the playoffs, and we’re good.”

Starting left tackle Max Prescott had a sore knee after the game, but Freeman said he didn’t know how serious it was.

It was like the win just fell into Pete Anderson’s lap.

Not because it was a win, but because of the type of win, and because of the timing.

Especially the timing.

Staring down an Academy League opener this week against St. Margaret’s, a team that Sage Hill has never beaten, Anderson needed the improbable to be probable.

And with a 36-35 last-minute win over Linfield Christian, it was.

After an unremarkable third quarter, the Lightning were down by 15 points, but two fourth-quarter drives put them on top.

“I think that’s what made winning that much more special,” Anderson said. “We were down by 15 points, and we earned all 16 points. We turned on the offense and marched down the field twice. Those weren’t cheap touchdowns, by any means. An 86-yard drive to end a game? That was huge.”

Senior quarterback Jamie McGee kept his cool, firing seven-for-seven on the game-winning drive. The win was the prescription the Lightning needed to maintain some swagger against their biggest rival.

“To actually experience that and know you can do it is just a real confidence booster,” Anderson said. “Especially when you’re a younger athlete, it takes—the younger you are when you experience a comeback win, the better it is for your maturity as an athlete. It can be real easy to throw in the towel when you’re down by that much. This shows there’s still time on the clock. You’re never out of it.”

Estancia and Costa Mesa had byes this week.

SORAYA NADIA McDONALD may be reached at (714) 966-4613 or at soraya.mcdonald@latimes.com.