Costa Mesa ruffles Cavaliers’ feathers

Barry Faulkner

If Costa Mesa High football coach Dave Perkins was looking for a tidy

little transition between Golden West League competition, or a glad

hand from Santiago Coach Aaron Shahrestani, he got neither Friday

night at Orange Coast College.

For despite a 56-21 victory over the visiting Cavaliers, Perkins

was peeved with three lost fumbles, what he called horrendous

tackling on defense, and some suspect special teams play.

“If we play like this next week [against Orange] we’re going to

get boat-raced,” Perkins said, using slang for being blown out by the

Panthers. “Orange is going to run up and down the field on us.

“We did a poor job of taking care of the ball tonight. We did some

good things, sure, but I’m not at all happy with the way we played

tonight.”

Perkins was not alone in his displeasure, as Shahrestani waved off

a postgame handshake with Mustang coaches after taking exception to

the hosts’ decision to continue passing the ball midway through the

fourth quarter with a 49-21 lead.

“There’s a thing called football etiquette,” Shahrestani said.

“[Perkins] wanted to keep passing the ball. They violated football

etiquette.”

Perkins, who appeared surprised at Shahrestani’s postgame snub,

later dismissed the Cavalier coach’s criticism.

“Whatever,” Perkins said when asked to comment on Shahrestani’s

slight.

It appeared all Mesa (4-2), ranked No. 6 in CIF Southern Section

Division VII, needed to do to handle the Cavaliers (0-6) was hand the

ball to senior tailback Omar Ruiz.

Ruiz, who had exploded for 234 rushing yards and four touchdowns,

then 246 yards and another TD the previous two games, collected 252

rushing yards before halftime Friday. Ruiz settled for 250 yards,

including TD runs of 5, 79 and 2 yards to give him 1,009 rushing

yards for the season.

There were several other offensive standouts for the Mustangs,

however, including junior receivers Jeff Waldron and Jorge Quiroz,

junior quarterback Bruce Wilkinson, senior fullback Junior Epenesa

and a bevy of blockers on the offensive line.

Waldron caught two passes, both for touchdowns, including a

36-yard sideline streak to cap Mesa’s first possession with 9:28 left

in the first quarter. He also returned an interception 22 yards to

the Santiago 5 to set up the final TD and had two sacks, forcing a

fumble on one that was recovered by teammate Gary Gonzalez.

Quiroz caught five passes for 125 yards, including a 66-yard

scoring toss from Gonzalez on a fake punt that helped the Mustangs

re-establish command. The touchdown play, on which he was uncovered,

came after Santiago scored 14 points within a 20-second span midway

through the third quarter.

Wilkinson completed 8 of 14 for 135 yards and two TDs, without an

interception, while Epenesa rumbled for 101 yards on three carries,

the bulk supplied by an 89-yard touchdown sprint early in the fourth

quarter.

The 387 ground yards and 588 yards of total offense could not have

been possible without the starting line of tackles Rodrigo Gutierrez

and Joe Ortiz, guards David Vernotico and Bryce Carich, center Luke

Sapolu and tight end Brett Via.

The Cavaliers helped limit the damage with some explosive scoring

plays, including a 92-yard kickoff return by Matt Sharabi that helped

give them a 7-6 lead with 9:12 left in the first quarter.

After Mesa scored on all four of its second-quarter possessions to

lead, 34-7, at halftime, Santiago, which had scored 33 points in its

first five games, made things interesting.

First, the visitors drove 61 yards on nine plays, capped by a

4-yard Kyle Parrish pass to tight end Alex Tekurio. A missed

conversion kick kept the deficit at 34-13, but Sione Penitani cut

into the lead by returning a fumble 41 yards to paydirt on the first

play of the Ensuing Mesa possession.

A two-point pass from Parrish to Jesse Vega made it 34-21 with

6:13 left and Santiago added to its momentum by recovering a fumble

on the ensuing kickoff at the Mustangs’ 37.

The Mesa defense held strong to force a punt, then ended

Santiago’s final four possessions on turnovers, including

interceptions by Luis Gonzalez and Tony Krikorian inside the Mesa

2-yard line.