High School Football: Edison too much for Newport Harbor
Almost two weeks after Edison failed to put up any points in a football game for the first time in nine years, the Chargers scored at will on Thursday.
Facing a team the Chargers have owned since 1980 helped.
Host Edison bounced back with a convincing 48-7 win against Newport Harbor in a Sunset League opener at Huntington Beach High.
The victory is a good sign for Edison. Every year the Chargers have beaten the Sailors in the previous 11 matchups they have gone on to finish first in league nine times.
Defending league champion Edison marked the fourth ranked opponent the Sailors have played in as many weeks. Just like the previous three teams, the Chargers, (5-1, 1-0 in league), ranked No. 2 in the CIF Southern Section Division 3 poll, rolled past Newport Harbor (2-4, 0-1).
Edison had a bye last week, and it needed it after losing to Mater Dei, 42-0, on Sept. 23. The Chargers responded, giving Coach Dave White, in his 31st and final year at the helm of Edison, his 230th career win.
“Getting your butts kicked by Mater Dei,” White said is what motivated his team. “You see all the weaknesses you got to work on. That’s why we play the Mater Deis [during nonleague play], to try to do well in league. We had a good week of practice, which we always haven’t had. The kids were focused. We were ready to play.”
Some teams come out of the bye week a little rusty. That wasn’t the case with Edison, which looked impressive before next week’s showdown with Los Alamitos at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach.
Edison and Los Alamitos are the league favorites.
“It looks like that,” White said of the contest being for the league title. “It’s early to say that in [the second game of league], but I think we are maybe the best two teams. They’re playing really well right now and they really upped their [nonleague] schedule [with games against Long Beach Poly, Lancaster Paraclete and JSerra], so they’re battle tested, too.”
The Sailors didn’t challenge Edison, or slow down running back Jack Carmichael.
Six of Edison’s first seven plays from scrimmage involved Carmichael. Everything Carmichael touched turned out to be positive, as the junior rushed 13 times for 110 yards and three touchdowns and caught three passes for 54 yards and one touchdown.
The fifth time Carmichael got his hands on the ball came on a fourth-and-four situation in Newport Harbor territory. The Chargers dialed up the right call.
With the offensive line letting the Sailors’ front line storm through with ease, quarterback Griffin O’Connor lofted a screen pass over the rush to Carmichael. He caught it with no defenders in the vicinity and raced untouched for a 32-yard touchdown.
By halftime, Carmichael produced his four touchdowns. The Chargers scored four touchdowns as a team in the second quarter, the longest a 53-yard hook-up between O’Connor and wide receiver McCade Barrett.
With standout wideout Shaun Colamonico still sidelined with what White said was a hairline fracture of the fibula, O’Connor’s favorite receiver on the night was EJ Ginnis, who finished with six receptions for 107 yards.
White said he was happy to see Ginnis back on the field after he went down with an injury against Mater Dei.
While O’Connor completed 13 of 18 passes for 237 yards and two touchdowns in the first half, the Sailors’ two quarterbacks through the first two quarters were a combined four of 10 for 21 yards.
Newport Harbor Coach Jeff Brinkley opted to go with sophomore Sam Barela at the start again. After a quick three-and-out on the game’s opening drive, Brinkley used Barela and junior Spencer Hook. One down Barela would come in, and the next Hook would replace him.
With the signal callers alternating on almost every down, no one found a rhythm. The pressure from Edison linemen Melvin Bowden and Kenny Carmichael had something to do with it as well, as each registered a sack in the first half.
It wasn’t until the 6:16 mark in the second quarter that the Sailors recorded a first down for the first time. Barela found tight end Will Harvey for a 13-yard pass. The play was Newport Harbor’s longest in the first half.
The only other first down Edison’s defense allowed in the first 24 minutes was on a five-yard run by Cole Kinder with less than three minutes left before halftime.
Kinder went into the break with 11 carries for 23 yards. Edison stopped Kinder, who entered this week with 866 rushing yards, the fifth-best total in Orange County. The senior finished with a season-low 56 yards.
Newport Harbor once again played without two key players, senior Levi Hooper (shoulder), a receiver and cornerback, and sophomore receiver Dayne Chalmers (ankle). Brinkley said he’s unsure if those two players will be ready for the Sailors’ game with Fountain Valley next week at Huntington Beach.
“That’s going to be up them and the doctors, whoever they’re seeing,” said Brinkley, adding that he also lost his third receiver, Ryan Del Valle, to a concussion in the first quarter against Edison.
As for whom fans will see start at quarterback for the Sailors next week on the same field, Brinkley didn’t say. Barela or Hook, whose two-yard touchdown to Harvey in the third quarter ended Edison’s shutout bid, will try to snap Newport Harbor’s four-game losing streak.
“They’re pretty equivalent guys,” Brinkley said of Barela and Hook.
“[Our play] wasn’t very good [on] either side of the ball. We needed to improve tonight and we didn’t do that.”
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Sunset League
Edison 48, Newport Harbor 7
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Newport 0 – 0 – 7 – 0 — 7
Edison 7 – 28 – 10 – 3 — 48
FIRST QUARTER
E – J. Carmichael 32 pass from O’Connor (Morrell kick), 7:42.
SECOND QUARTER
E – J. Carmichael 6 run (Morrell kick), 11:49.
E – J. Carmichael 10 run (Morrell kick), 7:44.
E – Barrett 53 pass from O’Connor (Morrell kick), 3:45.
E – J. Carmichael 2 run (Morrell kick), :08.
THIRD QUARTER
E – Morrell 30 FG, 5:19.
NH – Harvey 2 pass from Hook (Schroeder kick), 1:56.
E – Pavlik 65 run (Burris kick), 1:31.
FOURTH QUARTER
E – Morrell 28 FG, 5:22.
INDIVIDUAL RUSHING
NH – Kinder, 18-56.
E – J. Carmichael, 13-110, 3 TDs.
INDIVIDUAL PASSING
NH – Barela, 5-11-0, 27.
E – O’Connor, 13-18, 237, 2 TDs.
INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING
NH – Harvey, 2-15, 1 TD.
E – Ginnis, 6-107.
