High School Football Player of the Week: Edison’s Mateo Gallego catches on

Whenever Edison High plays Tesoro in football, it leaves a bad taste in Mateo Gallego’s mouth at halftime. The last two times he has gone into the break hurting.

Gallego said he injured his right knee a year ago, forcing him to exit the game.

A week ago, he and his Chargers trailed 28-14.

Unlike last year, the Chargers needed Gallego to beat Tesoro again.

In the locker room, Gallego was down on himself, as was the team. His mistakes in the first half stood out.

“I dropped three screens, [and] if I had caught them, I could’ve probably got a touchdown off them,” Gallego said. “[The pass] came by and I took my [eyes] off it, trying to make a move before I had the ball in my hand.

“On that [first drop], I was like, ‘It’s fine. It’s not going to happen again.’ The second [drop] was late in the second quarter. That one really made me mad. Same exact play and I dropped it. That’s when [quarterback] Griffin [O’Connor] came over and said, ‘Hey! I know you missed the other one. Yeah, that one was fine, but this one, you know, if we can just get that ball in your hands, you’re a lot more deadly with the ball, than without it.’”

O’Connor proved to be right.

The Yale commit went to Gallego in the second half, almost always on the same play, a bubble screen. O’Connor and Gallego popped Tesoro’s momentum, allowing Edison to open the season in comeback fashion.

The Chargers rallied for a wild 48-47 win on the road, and Gallego performed on both sides of the ball. He started at wide receiver and outside linebacker, but it was his play on offense that kept drives alive during the comeback and ate time off the clock when the Chargers took the lead.

Gallego finished with a team-high 10 receptions for 75 yards.

“That’s probably the most catches I’ve ever had,” said Gallego, who started at linebacker as a junior last year.

The Chargers have turned to Gallego on offense this year. The senior’s load increased right away because Brandon Moradian focused on defense last week because of a calf issue.

Jeff Grady informed Gallego that he would be starting at receiver the day before Grady made his head-coaching debut with his alma mater.

“I was very nervous because I never had that much pressure put on me before,” Gallego said of going two ways. “I was very shocked, but I felt like that was my time, my moment to shine.”

It took some time for Gallego to settle down and show what he was capable of on offense. O’Connor has raved about the 5 feet 11, 175-pounder since Gallego made nice catches near the sideline against Mater Dei during a scrimmage eight days before the first game.

Everyone knows about O’Connor’s standout receiver, David Atencio, a first-team All-Sunset League performer last year, and McCade Barrett, a starter a year ago. Gallego wears No. 3, but he isn’t necessarily Edison’s third option in the air.

Gallego will be seeing time at receiver when Edison (1-0) plays host to Westlake Village Oaks Christian (0-1) at Huntington Beach’s Cap Sheue Field on Friday at 7 p.m. The Chargers are ranked No. 2 in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 poll, while the Lions are No. 8.

“He’s just a fun guy to watch. He’s an energy player for us,” Grady said of Gallego. “He really helped us on offense. We threw him some bubbles, and he got some really hard yards. We had a third-and-three. We threw him a bubble and he got stopped, and then he just kind of restarted his feet and willed himself to get the first down. It was a huge first down in the game.”

While Gallego moved the chains, he made it difficult for Tesoro to get a first down. Edison’s defense only allowed one first down in the third quarter, coming with 1:17 to go.

Gallego, who had three tackles and two passes defensed, also helped a fellow linebacker find the end zone. He threw a block during Cameron Eden’s 13-yard interception return for a touchdown, which extended Edison’s lead to 48-35 with 9:44 left to play.

The rest of the way, the Chargers failed to score, while Tesoro scored twice. Edison’s lead vanished to one at the 1:45 mark. The Titans opted to take the lead after their second fourth-quarter touchdown, going for a two-point conversion.

Gallego said he breathed a sigh of relief when the two-point try failed.

But there would be one last chance for Tesoro to win it. In the waning seconds, the Titans attempted a 37-yard field goal, only to see it go wide.

“I was trying to blow to see if that would work,” Gallego said. “We went crazy. Everybody starting screaming, all of our guys rushed the field, and we just kind of ran to each other and hugged each other.”

The result showed that Gallego and the Chargers have some fight in them. As for that taste in Gallego’s mouth, there was nothing sour about it afterward.

Mateo Gallego

Born: March 17, 2000

Hometown: Huntington Beach

Height: 5 feet 11

Weight: 175 pounds

Sport: Football

Year: Senior

Coach: Jeff Grady

Favorite food: Orange chicken

Favorite movie: “Step Brothers”

Favorite athletic moment: “Winning CIF last year.”

Week in review: Gallego finished with 10 receptions for 75 yards, and three tackles and two passes defensed in Edison’s 48-47 come-from-behind win at Tesoro last week.

david.carrillo@latimes.com

Twitter: @ByDCP