Chargers end Sailors’ Sunset title quest

NEWPORT BEACH — With six minutes and 24 seconds left in Thursday night’s Sunset League football game, three Newport Harbor High assistant coaches acknowledged the inevitable.

The three men started packing up their sideline headsets, which Edison (7-3, 4-1 in Sunset League) had essentially rendered irrelevant with a 34-0 lead. The lead eventually stretched into a 47-0 Edison win.

The Chargers scored seven touchdowns to capture at least a share of the league title and their largest victory margin since defeating Marina, 62-7, Oct. 19.

It was the largest margin of defeat for the Sailors since Santa Ana routed Newport Harbor, 48-0, in 1967. Since then, the Sailors had allowed an opponent to score more than 38 points only once when Santa Margarita scored 45 against the Newport Harbor in 1997.

“We just wanted to control the clock, control the tempo,” said Edison Coach Dave White. “We felt like we could do some things on them, short passes, conservative runs, because they’ve been playing great [defense] all year. They haven’t given up a lot of big plays. They haven’t turned the ball over much.”

Edison will be the league’s No. 1 playoff representative in the CIF Southern Section Pac-5 division playoffs regardless of whether Esperanza (3-1 in league) wins or loses tonight agaisnt Fountain Valley, since Edison beat Esperanza, 9-7, Oct. 29.

Esperanza plays Fountain Valley tonight.

Newport Harbor (7-3, 3-2) can finish no worse than third place and it has the tiebreaker advantage that secures the league’ third and final guaranteed playfof berth.

Should Los Alamitos defeat Marina tonight, it would also be 3-2, but would be forced to gain an at-large playoff berth.

“These [Chargers] played well tonight, and they were on a mission to win a championship, and we seemed to be happy making the playoffs, so that was the difference in the two groups, probably tonight,” Newport Harbor Coach Jeff Brinkley said after the game, which was also the Sailors’ homecoming.

The Sailors were outmuscled by Edison’s line on both sides of the ball, and Newport Harbor quarterback Andrew McDonald was sacked four times for a loss of 17 yards.

Edison quarterback Nick Crissman seemingly had eons to make his reads and throw the football.

Sailors’ running back Michael Helfrich led the team with 26 yards rushing.

“Nick had a great game, and our line — he had great protection all night,” White said. “The offensive line did a great job.”

By the end of the first half, Crissman had already surpassed his season rushing total (39 yards) leading into Thursday’s game with 47 yards rushing. Crissman finished with 73 yards on the night and was 13 for 18 for 197 passing yards and three touchdowns.

His only foible was a third quarter interception which senior Danny Miller collected in the end zone.

He had a 52-yard return, and Newport drove to Edison’s 29-yard line before losing the ball on a fumble early in the fourth quarter.

“Honestly, it was we win, we’re league champs, we’re No. 1 seed in our league, we lose, we’re probably done,” White said. “I don’t think they would have picked us as the [at-large team] at 6-4, so it was a lot of pressure. Our playoffs started tonight.”

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