Two-Minute Drill: Garbers joins elite club at CdM
Chase Garbers joined two other quarterbacks who have thrown five touchdown passes in a game for Corona del Mar High.
Garbers’ performance came in less than two quarters.
The junior’s five touchdowns came on the Sea Kings’ first five possessions en route to a 52-14 blowout win at Dana Hills on Friday night. He tied the CdM single-game mark Dave Terry set in 1968 and Brent Lawson matched in 2011.
Garbers, who completed 16 of 22 passes for 258 yards, threw a three-yard touchdown to Billy Shaw, a 29-yard touchdown to Reece Perez, a 22-yard touchdown to Peter Bush, a one-yard touchdown to Jack Blower and a 79-yard touchdown to Taeveon Le.
“That was obviously the farthest and most exciting,” Garbers said of the touchdown throw to Le, “but they were all really great.”
— David Carrillo Peñaloza
Newport Harbor High blanked Rialto Eisenhower, 44-0, at Davidson Field on Thursday, recording its second shutout in a season opener in as many years.
Coach Jeff Brinkley, in his 30th year at Newport Harbor has led the Sailors to four shutouts in the first game of the year. His teams usually kick off the season with a win, posting a 23-6-1 record in such games.
The 44-point victory against Eisenhower ranks fourth all-time in season-opening wins in Newport Harbor’s history. The top three also came under Brinkley, his team opened the 1998 season with a 70-6 win against Orange, the ’08 season with a 58-7 win against Aliso Niguel, and the ’99 season with 55-6 win against Orange.
— David Carrillo Peñaloza
It wasn’t pretty, but the Costa Mesa High football team will take it.
That seemed to be the consensus after the Mustangs beat Santiago, 25-14, on Friday night at Garden Grove High. With the win, Costa Mesa improved to 2-0 for the first time since 2000.
Neither team could score points on offense in the second half after the score at halftime was 25-12. Costa Mesa managed no points overall, while Santiago had just a safety on a botched Mustangs punt.
Costa Mesa was coming off a 15-10 win against Northwood, yet appeared flat at times against Santiago, which committed eight turnovers.
“I don’t think it’s an ego thing,” Costa Mesa Coach Glen Fisher said. “I just think they’re a little complacent, they’re happy. You can’t play football happy. It’s great to have that win that first week, but you have to strive to be better every day in practice, in life, right? All those mistakes, I need to do a better job of making sure that they focus more. I think we’ll get that done.
“They had some very successful blitzes, and they got pressure on us. [Santiago] outplayed us in the second half. It’s that simple.”
— Matt Szabo
The Estancia High football team, ranked No. 9 in the CIF Southern Section Southern Division, opened its season with a 37-14 win over Loara on Thursday night at Western High.
Two days later, Coach Mike Bargas took some of his players to the Rose Bowl to see a successful alumnus at the next level.
Offensive tackle Zach Bateman, who also played at Orange Coast College, had his first game with UCLA against Virginia.
— Matt Szabo
First-year Coach Abram Booty is anxious to build something special at Sage Hill School. So, he wasted little time trying to parlay the Lightning’s first win of the season, a 41-14 verdict against visiting Fairmont Prep on Friday, into some early momentum toward that end.
After the postgame handshakes and the Sage Hill players running through a human tunnel formed by the students near the east sideline, Booty invited the fans, students and parents alike, to join in on the postgame address he delivered to the team.
Booty thanks the students and later said the fan support helped create an “electric” atmosphere that he hopes will only improve.
“Our fans showed up in a big way and packed our stadium,” Booty said. “We are excited about the support we are rallying in the community and I still feel like in two or three or four years, with the coaching staff we have and the best education, I believe in Southern California, we are going to have a lot of great players who want to come play here at Sage Hill.”
— Barry Faulkner
On the field, Sage Hill made great progress from its season-opening 40-7 loss to Calvary Chapel.
The Lightning amassed 384 yards of total offense, with eight plays of 17 yards or more, did not punt, and had no penalties in the first half.
Defensively, Sage Hill did surrender 301 yards, including 272 on the ground on 56 running plays. But on 26 of those plays, the Lightning held runs to two or fewer yards, including 11 tackles for losses and one for no gain.
The Sage offense struck on touchdown drives of 21, 17 and 87 seconds. And one measure of Sage’s offensive efficiency was that its final five touchdown drives combined to consume just more than eight minutes on the clock. That total was 95 seconds fewer than Fairmont Prep used to drive 86 yards on 17 plays for its final touchdown.
— Barry Faulkner
CdM has started the year 2-0 for the eighth straight time.
From 2011-14, Dan O’Shea served as CdM’s defensive coordinator. O’Shea is in charge of the Sea Kings now, and he was able to make his head coaching debut with CdM. He missed the Aug. 28 opener against Palos Verdes because of the birth of his first child, Jack Peter O’Shea.
— David Carrillo Peñaloza
A rarity occurred in the first quarter of the Costa Mesa-Santiago game, as the teams combined for three turnovers on three consecutive plays from scrimmage.
Senior linebacker Cameron Curet stripped the ball from the Santiago receiver and recovered it at the Costa Mesa 41-yard line. But the Mustangs fumbled it away on their next play, with Santiago’s Henry Tran recovering it at the Costa Mesa 35.
But Costa Mesa would immediately get the ball back. Junior end Roman Ayala sacked the quarterback, causing a fumble that he recovered at the Costa Mesa 45-yard line.
This time, Mesa was able to sustain possession. It led to a 27-yard field goal by Curet with 3:30 remaining in the first quarter.
— Matt Szabo
Estancia senior quarterback Connor Brown had a big night against Loara. The three-year starter passed for 335 yards and three touchdowns, the yardage easily a career-high and the touchdowns matching his career best he set last year against Saddleback.
Brown’s previous high for passing yards in a game was 275, also set last year against Saddleback in the Eagles’ 44-13 victory that clinched the Orange Coast League title.
Brown connected with five different receivers Thursday night, including Konrad O’Daly, Jordan Balcazar, D.J. Davis, Tyler Ross and Wilmer Sanchez. Of the five, O’Daly was easily his favorite target, as he had eight catches for 216 yards and three touchdowns. Brown and O’Daly hooked up for touchdowns of 20, 61 and 53 yards.
“He’s just really matured,” Bargas said. “His arm’s matured, his feet have matured and he’s really intelligent, too.”
— Matt Szabo
Senior cornerback Josh Snipes stayed hot, as he had two interceptions for the second straight game.
Snipes, the Daily Pilot High School Football Athlete of the Week this week, helped ice the game with the second one. He picked off an underthrown pass at the Costa Mesa five-yard line with 2:38 left in the fourth quarter.
Snipes also was involved in the passing game, making three receptions for 26 yards.
“He’s doing a great job,” Fisher said. “He’ll tell you that the play he remembers is the touchdown that [Santiago’s Dominick Smith-Dotson] caught over him [in the second quarter]. That’s what he’ll tell you. You know, two weeks in a row with two interceptions, you get a little greedy. He’s got to understand that sometimes it’s OK to knock the ball down. But we feel so good about him and where he’s at, what he does. We feel very fortunate to have him as part of the family.”
Senior linebacker Cameron Curet also was a leader on defense as he forced two fumbles, recovering one of them, and had a quarterback sack.
— Matt Szabo
The Sea Kings improved to 6-0 all-time against Dana Hills, and the games haven’t been close.
The Sea Kings have won by an average of 25.8 points per game.
Dana Hills (0-2) is getting beat by everyone, having lost 13 of its last 14 games dating back to 2013.
Next week CdM goes up against another winless team, but this one is much better than Dana Hills.
El Toro (0-2) is ranked No. 6 in the West Valley Division. The Sea Kings lead the series against El Toro, going 9-7.
— David Carrillo Peñaloza
The Sailors travel to Pico Rivera El Rancho next week, marking the first of three consecutive nonleague games against teams ranked in the CIF Southern Section polls.
Newport Harbor will try to start 2-0 for the first time in five years when it faces El Rancho (0-2), ranked No. 10 in the Southeast Division.
After El Rancho, the Sailors have the Battle of the Bay game against rival Corona del Mar, No. 5 in the Southwest Division, at Orange Coast College on Sept. 17, and they’re at San Clemente, No. 1 in the Southwest Division, on Sept. 25.
— David Carrillo Peñaloza
Jack Rapillo had quite the night as a punt returner for the Sailors.
The senior returned two punts for touchdowns in the opening quarter, a 58-yarder and a 29-yarder. The returns came almost six minutes apart.
Rapillo was unable to field a punt in between those two because Alex Pearce partially blocked an Eisenhower punt. Rapillo’s only other punt return, coming in the third quarter, went for one yard.
— David Carrillo Peñaloza
Konrad O’Daly, a senior tight end, had a breakout type of game for Estancia. He’s the younger brother of Dalton O’Daly, a 2015 Estancia football graduate who was a first-team All-Orange Coast League selection last fall as a wide receiver, when Dalton caught 30 passes for 557 yards and five touchdowns.
O’Daly is also the Eagles’ long snapper, which proved a bit problematic on special teams. A couple of low snaps produced one play where the punter couldn’t get a punt off, and another where a hurried kick resulted in a punt of just nine yards.
“I bet you he was a little bit tired from running and playing a lot on defense,” Bargas said. We’ll just have to work on that stuff. He never leaves the football field. That’s par for the course for us this year.”
— Matt Szabo