Newport Harbor football clicks early in rout of Marina
The Newport Harbor High football team opened its season last week with a nonleague game at Farrington High of Honolulu.
Certainly, no one was complaining about the location.
“It was a great experience, good team bonding,” senior quarterback Colton Joseph said. “You can’t go wrong with Hawaii.”
But the trip was also about toughness for fifth-year coach Peter Lofthouse.
“Farrington had a really big offensive and defensive front, big bodies, big Samoan kids that just were really physical,” he said. “In prior seasons, we’ve struggled with some teams in the trenches that were real physical. You saw that with Aquinas last year in the playoff game [a 42-28 loss in the CIF Southern California Regional Division 3-AA championship game]. They had some big physical guys and we had difficulty moving the chains in the trenches.”
Lofthouse liked the way his defense performed last week in a comfortable win. He couldn’t complain this week, either.
Newport Harbor pounced on Marina early on Thursday night at Westminster High, recording a 52-7 victory to move to 2-0 on the season.
Joseph threw five touchdown passes in the first half, two each to senior Kashton Henjum and junior Josiah Lamarque and one to senior Daniel Remsen.
Two plays into the game, Henjum caught a 48-yard touchdown pass. Three plays later, the Sailors turned defense into points.
Senior safety Carson de Avila, a returning captain on defense, broke up a pass by Marina quarterback Nick Kim intended for Payton Ekstedt. Billy Ridley snatched the ball from the air and took it back to the house, and Newport Harbor had a 14-0 lead with 10:38 remaining in the first quarter.
By the time the first quarter ended, Joseph already had 186 yards passing and four touchdowns.
“I love slinging it to them,” said Joseph, a transfer from San Juan Hills, of playing with returning standouts Henjum and Lamarque. “I know I can always trust them.”
Lofthouse said the Sailors played Thursday without three starting offensive linemen due to injury — left tackle Daniel Flores, his brother right tackle David Flores and right guard Carter Gomez. But others stepped up, including seniors Nicholas Sigmund and Jeremy Ost.
“Late in the season, we’re going to need those guys,” Lofthouse said, adding that senior Mission Viejo transfer Josiah Molina has been a leader on the line. “Bumps and bruises are part of football, right? It was nice tonight to see them execute at a high level and play well. Our big thing right now is just that we’ve got to get healthy.”
Sophomore Tommy Oltmans had an interception and recorded a fumble for Newport Harbor, last year’s CIF Southern Section Division 6 champion which also recorded two safeties. Senior back Payton Irving added a rushing touchdown in the second half.
Marina (0-1) got its lone touchdown in the first quarter, when Kim hooked up with senior receiver Luke Lastra on a slant that went all the way for 78 yards and the score.
Lastra also had an interception on defense for the Vikings, who coach Jeff Turley said played fairly well last week in a scrimmage against Long Beach Wilson.
“I was real happy with the way he performed tonight,” Turley said. “He really kept the fire going. We’ve just got to fix some things. We knew going in that this was going to be a really tough game.
“We need to see more live tackling. I mean, that was evident. Being low numbers, we don’t do a lot of live tackling in practice, and it showed. We need to address that next week.”
Marina plays at Wildomar Elsinore next Thursday in continued nonleague action, while Newport Harbor travels to Trinity League opponent JSerra on Friday.
Last year, the Lions blanked the Sailors, 44-0.
“They’re going to represent a huge challenge for us,” Lofthouse said. “There’s no question that what we get from JSerra is going to help prepare us better when we go play in league. There are some great teams in league, with Los Al, Edison, CdM, Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley. You’ve got to be at the top of your game, and we open up with quite the gauntlet, starting out with Los Al and Edison. We’d better be playing our best football when we get to the bye week.”
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Nonleague
Newport Harbor 52, Marina 7
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Newport 36 – 7 – 7 – 2 – 52
Marina 7 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 7
FIRST QUARTER
NH – Henjum 48 pass from Joseph (Richardson kick), 11:39.
NH – Ridley 13 interception return (Richardson kick), 10:38.
NH – Lamarque 30 pass from Joseph (Richardson kick), 7:42.
M – Lastra 78 pass from Kim (Lastra kick), 6:20.
NH – Henjum 55 pass from Joseph (Richardson kick), 5:34.
NH – Safety (punter stepped out of back of end zone), 3:53.
NH – Remsen 12 pass from Joseph (kick blocked), 0:04.
SECOND QUARTER
NH – Lamarque 20 pass from Joseph (Richardson kick), 11:53.
THIRD QUARTER
NH – Irving 5 run (Mancilla kick), 5:45.
FOURTH QUARTER
NH – Safety (ball went out back of end zone), 10:00.
INDIVIDUAL RUSHING
NH – Irving, 5-21, 1 TD.
M – Fabian, 9-17.
INDIVIDUAL PASSING
NH – Joseph, 10-15-1, 211, 5 TDs.
M – Kim, 6-21-2, 97, 1 TD.
INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING
NH – Henjum, 4-122, 2 TDs.
M – Lastra, 2-70, 1 TD.
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