MISSION VIEJO – The real adjustments came after halftime for the Mission Viejo football team Friday night.
After a frustrating first half on defense for the Diablos, they turned up the aggression in the second half, keeping the San Juan Hills offense out of the end zone until the fourth quarter, leading to a 42-21 South Coast League home victory over the Stallions.
The Diablos (7-2, 3-0) were coming off of their hard-fought victory over Tesoro the previous week.
If they weren’t ready, the Stallions proved early on that they were. San Juan Hills (3-5, 0-2) scored on its first two possessions of the game on long drives, with quarterback Patrick O’Brien keeping the Diablos off-balance with his run-pass threat.
The Diablos were able to keep up and took a 21-14 lead into halftime, but it certainly wasn’t a comfortable lead.
“I’ve been in this business a long time and coaches know how to read it and coaches know what can happen and they (San Juan Hills) do a great job over there,” Mission Viejo coach Bob Johnson said. “They have some big guys, their quarterback is decent and you have to be prepared every week.
“We didn’t take them lightly as a staff. We’re very fortunate that we got away with this. Obviously, we’re going to win that game, but it didn’t feel that way in the first half. It happens all the time to everybody. I just didn’t want it to happen to us.”
The Diablos forced a turnover to start the second half and scored 21 consecutive points to take firm control of the game.
Rome Innocenzi and Isaiah Miller had 12- and 9-yard touchdown runs, respectively, and Brett Guerrero applied the knockout punch with his 73-yard interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
“I read the quarterback’s eyes and I came up to make the tackle,” Guerrero said. “The ball was deflected into my hands and I just ran.
“We knew we couldn’t take them lightly. We came out slow and there’s not much you can do about that, but we rallied in the second half and came out and played like a team.”
Guerrero also had a sack in the game.
Innocenzi led the Diablos ground game with three rushing touchdowns.
“We’ll take that lead right there, learn from it and we have one more to get the league championship again that we’ve owned for six or seven years,” Johnson said.
The Diablos will conclude their regular season next week against El Toro. A victory would give them the outright league championship.
San Juan Hills visits Dana Hills next week.
Contact the writer: dcalhoun@ocregister.com
