Explosive Los Alamitos football too much for Newport Harbor
A track meet broke out on Friday night, and within moments, the Los Alamitos High football team was off to the races at Boswell Field.
Isaiah Rubin returned an interception on the first series, an early indicator of the quick-strike ability of Newport Harbor’s hosts in the only battle of unbeatens in the Sunset League in its second week of competition on the gridiron.
The seemingly limitless big-play potential of the Griffins proved too much to handle, as Los Alamitos blew out Newport Harbor 62-14 on the campus of Westminster High.
Los Alamitos (5-2, 2-0) produced more than 600 yards of total offense in a statement win, one that left the Griffins and Edison (4-3, 2-0) as the last of the undefeated teams in the Sunset League. The sides meet in the regular season finale on Oct. 27.
Anthony League rushed for 147 yards and two touchdowns, Lenny Ibarra turned 11 carries into 134 yards and another score, and quarterback Alonzo Esparza accounted for three total touchdowns for the Griffins.
“If we’re moving really quick and we’re moving efficient, that means we’re doing good,” said Esparza, who threw his two touchdown passes to Carson Clark and Davon Mitchell.
The defensive touchdown from Rubin was answered on the third drive for Newport Harbor (3-4, 1-1). It ended with a passing touchdown from Jaden O’Neal to Cade Fegel, who tapped his toe down in the left corner of the end zone.
An unrelenting Los Alamitos offense took over from there, scoring touchdowns on five consecutive drives to close out the first half with a 42-14 lead.
Los Alamitos produced six sacks on defense, including 2½ sacks from defensive end Pearson Sapiga. Nose guard Manoah Faupusa, who stands 6-foot-2 and 310 pounds, had a solo sack and was brought in for a goal-line touchdown run in the second quarter.
“We want to take [the] Sunset [League], and we definitely will this year,” Sapiga said.
O’Neal, who transferred from Los Alamitos to Newport Harbor, showed remarkable chemistry with Jordan Anderson, despite the result. The duo connected seven times for 160 yards and a touchdown, including two deep balls that went for 54 and 52 yards.
“He’s a really explosive player, able to get off the ball and make a couple moves, get a defender off of him,” Anderson said. “I feel like with his speed and explosive power, I don’t think that I can really overthrow him.”
Newport Harbor travels to take on Edison on Thursday, before closing out the season against Corona del Mar and Fountain Valley.
“There is a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from this game,” Newport Harbor coach Peter Lofthouse said. “I felt like our kids played hard the entire time. They never really gave up or truly quit. There were good things in the first half we really saw out of our defense, trying to get some stops at times.
“I think offensively, we’re going to see things that we missed that we could have been better at, and we just got to get back to practice next week and fix that because we got Edison. You go Edison and then CdM, and the league’s not forgiving.”
Sunset League
Los Alamitos 62, Newport Harbor 14
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Newport Harbor 7 - 7 - 0 - 0 — 14
Los Alamitos 21 - 21 - 14 - 6 — 62
FIRST QUARTER
LA — Rubin 30 interception return (Gamarnik kick), 11:15.
NH — Fegel 5 pass from O’Neal (Richardson kick), 5:47.
LA — Ibarra 45 run (Gamarnik kick), 4:18.
LA — Clark 47 pass from Esparza (Gamarnik kick), 2:25.
SECOND QUARTER
LA — Faupusa 1 run (Gamarnik kick), 8:29.
LA — League 38 run (Gamarnik kick), 4:57.
NH — Anderson 52 pass from O’Neal (Richardson), 2:58.
LA — Mitchell 30 pass from Esparza (Gamarnik kick), 1:45.
THIRD QUARTER
LA — League 25 run (Gamarnik kick), 7:48.
LA — Esparaza 8 run (Gamarnik kick), 2:34.
FOURTH QUARTER
LA — Celano 1 run (Gamarnik kick failed), 4:25.
INDIVIDUAL RUSHING
NH — Celano, 4-31; O’Neal, 6-27.
LA — League, 13-147, 2 TDs; Ibarra, 11-134, 1 TD.
INDIVIDUAL PASSING
NH — O’Neal, 19-31-1, 221, 2 TDs.
LA — Esparza, 14-18-0, 244, 2 TDs.
INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING
NH — Anderson, 7-160, 1 TD; Lamarque, 4-41; Fegel, 3-13, 1 TD.
LA — Clark, 4-102, 1 TD; Mitchell, 4-76, 1 TD; Eligon, 3-54.
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