Huntington Beach football can’t close out Aliso Niguel

The Huntington Beach High School football team returned to competition Friday, following an offseason that was less than half its normal length.

The Oilers fell to Aliso Niguel 28-20 in their season opener at Huntington Beach High School.

Oilers quarterback AJ Perez completed 16 of 38 passes for 137 yards and three touchdowns but threw two interceptions. AJ Vandermade, Shea Vandergrift and Tyler Moses all caught touchdowns for Huntington Beach.

Aliso Niguel quarterback Shaun McCaghren completed seven of 21 passes for 122 yards and two touchdowns, both to senior receiver Christian Aaberg.

Running back Chase Christner ran for 57 yards and a touchdown. Justin Zeppa added an interception return for a score for the Wolverines.

Huntington Beach struggled to score early and allowed Aliso Niguel to score all 28 of its points in the fourth quarter. Head coach Brett Brown refused to blame the short offseason for the Oilers’ struggles.

“I don’t think that was it,” Brown said. “I think we came out flat offensively. I thought we played really well defensively. Our kids played physical, they played hard. We just had some breakdowns and too many penalties.”

The Huntington Beach offense struggled to get into a rhythm early, failing to score for almost the entire first half, which Perez attributed to strong defensive line play by Aliso Niguel.

“They did a good job,” he said. “They scouted us heavy, and they were bringing a lot of pressure. They knew not to give me a lot of time to pass. We thought they were going to do one thing defensively, and they came out with something else, so we were trying to figure out where their weak spots were and make some adjustments to kind of pick on some of their players.”

Perez broke the scoreless tie to close out the first half. He found Henry Eddy for a 20-yard completion. That set up the next play, a 50-yard touchdown pass to Moses for a 7-0 lead after the extra point.

Then with time winding down in the third quarter, Perez connected with Vandermade to make it 14-0.

It looked like Huntington Beach had built some momentum until it surrendered nearly 50 yards of defensive penalties on a single drive to end the third quarter that allowed Aliso Niguel to score its first touchdown of the game at the start of the fourth.

With just under eight minutes remaining in the game, Zeppa stepped up and intercepted a Perez pass that he took 13 yards into the end zone to tie the score.

“It feels great,” Zeppa said of creating the turnover. “It changed the momentum. It gave us a big boost and we were able to turn things around.”

From there, the Wolverines pulled away, thanks to back-to-back touchdown passes from McCaghren to Aaberg, the second for 50 yards and a 28-14 lead.

For Aaberg, catching two touchdowns meant redemption from a difficult junior season.

“I feel incredible,” Aaberg said. “Last year, it wasn’t a good season. I’ve just been waiting for so long, for so long to come back to show the world what I can do. It’s my dream.”

Perez would bring Huntington Beach within a score late, connecting with Vandergrift from one yard out to make it 28-20, but the Oilers failed to recover the onside kick, sealing the win for Aliso Niguel.

Brown hopes Huntington Beach will add another offensive threat for Thursday’s matchup against Western.

“We are going to get healthy,” he said. “Next week we are going to get our receiver Hideo Ray back. He helps a ton on the offensive side of the ball. In my opinion, he’s one of the best slot receivers around.”

Nonleague

Aliso Niguel 28, Huntington Beach 20

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Aliso Niguel 0 – 0 – 0 – 28 — 28

Huntington Beach 0 – 7 – 7 – 6 — 20

FIRST QUARTER

None.

SECOND QUARTER

HB – Moses 30 pass from Perez (Othman kick), 0:12.

THIRD QUARTER

HB – Vandermade 11 pass from Perez (Othman kick), 3:12.

FOURTH QUARTER

AN – Christner 4 run (Shone kick), 11:54.

AN – Zeppa 13 interception return (Shone kick), 7:53.

AN – Aaberg 12 pass from McCaghren (Shone kick), 5:21.

AN – Aaberg 50 pass from McCaghren (Shone kick), 3:09.

HB – Vandergrift 1 pass from Perez (run failed), 1:34.

INDIVIDUAL RUSHING

AN – Christner, 19-57, 1 TD.

HB – Perez, 7-78.

INDIVIDUAL PASSING

AN – McCaghren, 7-21-0, 122, 2 TDs.

HB – Perez, 16-38-2, 137, 3 TDs.

INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING

AN – Aaberg, 3-94, 2 TDs.

HB – Vandermade 9-63, TD.

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