Costa Mesa continues to believe

When his football team trailed, 22-0, in its biggest game of the season, Costa Mesa High Coach Jeremy Osso remained confident that the Mustangs would become Orange Coast League champions.

Then at halftime, with Mesa behind, 22-10, Osso relayed a simple message to his squad.

“I just told them, ‘We’re gonna win,’ ” Osso said.

The Mustangs (5-5) rallied for a 38-30 victory against Laguna Beach. They plan to use the same type of fight when they play host to Santiago (8-2) at Estancia tonight at 7:30 in a first-round game of the CIF Southern Section Southern Division playoffs.

Osso also said Costa Mesa’s current five-game winning streak has provided the Mustangs with great confidence. Yet, the win over Laguna Beach has given them reason to believe they can win their first playoff game since 1997.

“To come back from 22 points down and win the league title really has our guys confident right now,” Osso said.

The Mustangs still believe despite being without four key players who were removed from the team because they were academically ineligible.

The defense struggled throughout practices early in the week because of moving in backups to fill in for the lost starters, Osso said. They’ll have quite a challenge in their starting roles when they take on the Cavaliers, who shared the Garden Grove League title with Los Amigos and Garden Grove.

“They’re not one dimensional,” Osso said of the Cavaliers. “They’ll run draws, screen plays and then just run at you. It’s not the easiest team to prepare for. We really shored up the defense the last two days.”

Osso said he liked what he saw out of his team last year in a 26-8 loss to Santiago. Aside from a few big plays by the Cavaliers, the Mustangs were in the game, he said.