GARDEN GROVE – Garden Grove overcame a sloppy start, scored on five consecutive possessions and romped to a 30-9 victory Friday night over visiting Los Amigos to finish off another perfect run through the Garden Grove League, its fourth in succession.
Jordan Antunez ran for 109 yards and three touchdowns and set a school career rushing record, and the Argonauts (8-2, 5-0), ranked second in the CIF-SS’s Southern Division, shut down Los Amigos’ three-pronged running game to turn a tight game into a rather ugly rout.
It sends the defending Southern champion, which outscored GGL opposition, 253-29, into the playoffs on something of a roll.
“Your first goal is to win a league championship. Our next goal is to win the CIF championship,” Garden Grove coach Ricardo Cepeda said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but now we’re playing for keeps. And we’ve been there before, so we’ve got a lot of experience. We’ve got a really good defense, a good running back. ”
Antunez, who got his yardage on just 11 carries, went over 1,700 yards for the season and, with a 13-yard touchdown sprint to give the Argonauts the lead at the end of the first quarter, surpassed Jim Sebreros‘ 22-year-old school yardage record, extending his total to 3,482.
Antunez also ran 60 yards for a score in the second quarter. Besides that and his earlier TD run, Garden Grove had minus-12 yards on just 11 offensive plays in the first half.
Malik Bilal caught a touchdown pass and Antunez added a 14-yard TD run in the third quarter.
Things didn’t always go well for the Argonauts. A bad snap on their first play led to a 20-yard loss and a safety, a long TD was called back on a formation penalty (one of 12 flags against them for 120 yards), and Los Amigos (3-7, 3-2) twice kept the ball after punts and, until a touchdown drive capped by a Jorge Najera run, had made three of their five first downs through penalties.
