Sailors ready for real season

COSTA MESA — Coach Jeff Brinkley said Friday night’s scrimmage against Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks gave his Newport Harbor High football team a chance to get up to speed.

The Sailors saw plenty of speed from Notre Dame, which scored on two 70-yard touchdown passes at Estancia High.

But Brinkley’s team recovered and scored five touchdowns of its own against the Knights, who found the end zone three times.

“Overall, we did a good job,” Brinkley said. “It was good to go out and compete against somebody different, after three weeks of practicing with ourselves. You always want to find a different-colored shirt, and be able to go at it. I thought overall, it was good, and it really gave our kids an idea of the speed of the game. It’s hard to simulate the speed of the game in practice all the time.

“[Notre Dame] is a good football team. They’ll do well in their league, and they’re in our division, so you never know.”

The teams are no strangers, the Sailors having upset Notre Dame, 7-3, in the first round of last year’s CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division playoffs. And both teams proved how ready they were early in the scrimmage. There were plenty of hard hits during the opening kicking and punting drills, many on the Newport Harbor side coming from 5-foot-7 senior dynamo Chris Gute.

“I just get all fired up when I get on the field,” said Gute, who also caught a 16-yard screen pass from senior quarterback Andrew McDonald. “I’m on the two plays in football where you just hit people. It’s what I do.”

McDonald, who was 15 of 25 for 225 yards and four touchdowns, hit senior receiver JB Green early and often. Green had a team-high seven catches, for 90 yards and a score.

But it was Notre Dame that had the first two scores of the scrimmage on the long touchdown passes, each one coming at the start of a series of downs at the Knights 30-yard line.

“It was kind of missed coverage,” said Newport Harbor junior Cecil Whiteside, the 2007 Newport-Mesa Defensive Player of the Year who caught a 25-yard touchdown pass Friday and also blocked a Notre Dame field goal attempt. “But we were playing aggressive, and you can’t really do anything about playing aggressive. Sometimes you’re going to make mistakes.”

McDonald, who played quarterback the whole scrimmage since backup Austin Rios took snaps in the junior varsity scrimmage, would get into a groove later in the game. At one point, he completed three straight passes for over 30 yards, one each to Green, senior receiver Jason Jacobi and senior tight end Ned Lyon.

Lyon also caught a three-yard touchdown pass near the end of the scrimmage, when both teams took possession from the opponents’ three-yard line.

Senior running back Danny Miller, who rushed eight times for a team-high 28 yards, added a three-yard score on the ground.

Notre Dame did not score on four tries in its goal-line offense, ending the scrimmage.

“Our goal-line offense and defense did really well,” Gute said.

Players making big defensive plays included senior defensive end Scott Ward, who sacked the quarterback for a three-yard loss. Senior free safety Michael Helfrich put a big hit on a Notre Dame ball-carrier, and Jacobi recovered a fumble.

Junior kicker Dillan Freiberg successfully booted a pair of 37-yard field goals early in the scrimmage.

One Newport Harbor player who didn’t see action was senior Brandon Kula, a two-way starter at fullback and linebacker. Brinkley said Kula has a lingering hamstring injury, but he was hopeful he would be able to start in the season opener Thursday at home against Aliso Niguel.