High School Football: CdM’s Garbers, Le put on a show

After playing in Los Angeles County and Santa Clara County the past two weeks, Corona del Mar High was back on the football field in Orange County.

In the Sea Kings’ first home game of the year, quarterback Chase Garbers and wide receiver Taeveon Le put on a spectacular show for three quarters on Friday.

Garbers, a Cal commit, and Le scorched El Toro’s secondary en route to a 42-13 win at Jim Scott Stadium.

Garbers hooked up with Le nine times, and Le finished with 231 yards and three touchdowns. The receiving yards by Le is a CdM single-game record, breaking Kevin Welch’s mark of 223 he set in 2002.

Le was unstoppable, scoring on catches of 68, 12 and 82 yards. The first and last touchdowns the 6-foot-4, 225-pound junior turned short passes into big scores.

The Sea Kings avenged last season’s 13-7 setback at El Toro. A year ago, Garbers didn’t throw a touchdown against the Chargers, finishing with only 100 yards.

The senior ripped apart El Toro, which is off to its first 0-3 start in eight years. Garbers completed 18 of 24 passes for 328 yards and four touchdowns, and he rushed for two touchdowns.

Garbers has completed 76.6% of his passes in the last two games, both wins. The season-opening loss at Palos Verdes is in the rear-view mirror, and up next for CdM (2-1), ranked No. 6 in the CIF Southern Section Division 4 poll, is the Battle of the Bay with rival Newport Harbor (2-0) at Orange Coast College.

“It’s going to be a really good game because we know each other really well,” Garbers said.

The Sea Kings are looking to beat Newport Harbor for the fourth straight year. The only other time CdM has won four in a row in the rivalry was from 1985-88.

The favorite to win it this year is CdM, which will be the away team in the 55th edition of the game. The Sea Kings go into the matchup allowing 13 points per game in the previous two weeks.

Their opponent on Friday had a hard time offensively, as the Chargers turned the ball over on downs twice in the red zone and fumbled once inside the 20-yard line. The Sea Kings sacked quarterback Cooper Jones three times, picked him off once and forced him to fumble once.

El Toro is a much different team than the one CdM faced last season, with its quarterback Dawit Wilson transferring to Montebello Cantwell-Sacred Heart and its running back Demarlo Cobbins moving on to Mission Viejo.

“They sure did [lose some key pieces],” CdM Coach Dan O’Shea said. “The big thing is compared to last year we were able to protect Chase and let him get the ball out.”

Garbers got time to throw, with the help of the offensive line, which features center Arwin Rahmatpanah and right guard Bryan Samudro.

A series after CdM went three-and-out on the game’s opening drive, the Sea Kings got a first down. Two plays later, Garbers went to Le toward the right. What was a nine-yard pass Le made it into a 68-yard touchdown. Near the 40-yard line, Le hurdled over a defender and raced in for the score.

With 6:21 left in the first quarter, the Sea Kings took a 7-0 lead. They got the ball back right away.

On the ensuing kickoff, the Chargers misjudged the short kick toward the CdM sideline. The ball took a high bounce, over the leaping returner and CdM’s Mitch Haly recovered it on El Toro’s 22.

The great field position led to another Garbers-to-Le highlight. Garbers rolled to his right, eluding the rush to find Le for a 12-yard touchdown.

El Toro handled the next short kick, and Noah Aguilar returned it 41 yards, setting up the offense inside the Sea Kings’ 40-yard line. The Chargers got to the 21, before bringing on Matt Freem to try a 38-yard field goal. The left-footed kicker’s attempt was low, and the same player who had a huge play on special teams almost four minutes earlier did so again. Haly, who is 6-5, blocked the field-goal try.

The Sea Kings took advantage of the special teams’ miscue. They covered 80 yards in 14 plays, taking four minutes off the clock to extend the lead to 21-0. Garbers rushed in for a five-yard touchdown, the first of his two first-half rushing touchdowns.

On the second score, Garbers launched himself into the end zone. The 6-3, 210-pounder spun around like a helicopter, before crashing in to make it CdM 28-0 midway through the second quarter.

This one was over at halftime. Garbers’ third-quarter touchdown passes, a 10-yarder to Reese Perez and an 82-yarder to Le, allowed CdM to become the third team to put up 40-plus points on El Toro in as many tries.

“After last year, the rough loss [at El Toro], losing only by a touchdown, we came out thinking we were just going to dominate right from the start,” said Le, who has 29 receptions for 441 yards and five touchdowns in three games.

“Newport Harbor, [its] our rival, but we approach it like it’s any other team. They’re not special. They don’t do anything we haven’t seen before, so we approach that as we’re going to do what we did here today.”

Nonleague

Corona del Mar 42, El Toro 13

SCORE BY QUARTERS

El Toro 0 – 6 – 0 – 7 — 13

Corona del Mar 14 – 14 – 14 – 0 — 42

FIRST QUARTER

CdM – Le 68 pass from Garbers (Casper kick), 6:21.

CdM – Le 12 pass from Garbers (Casper kick), 4:05.

SECOND QUARTER

CdM – Garbers 5 run (Casper kick), 10:35.

CdM – Garbers 15 run (Casper kick), 6:40.

ET – N. Aguilar 18 pass from Cooper (kick failed), :37.

THIRD QUARTER

CdM – Perez 10 pass from Garbers (Casper kick), 10:10.

CdM – Le 82 pass from Garbers (Casper kick), 6:02.

FOURTH QUARTER

ET – Blevins 70 run (Freem kick), 6:44.

INDIVIDUAL RUSHING

ET – Blevins, 15-159, 1 TD.

CdM – Moses, 6-30.

INDIVIDUAL PASSING

ET – Jones, 17-32-1, 131, 1 TD.

CdM – Garbers, 18-24-0, 328, 4 TDs.

INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING

ET – N. Aguilar, 6-56, 1 TD.

CdM – Le, 9-231, 3 TDs.