ANAHEIM – The toll Mission Viejo’s run to the CIF-SS West Valley Division championship physically took on Rome Innocenzi was more than apparent as the scoreboard clock hit zero Saturday at Angel Stadium.
While his teammates stormed the field in jubilation, the senior running back walked slowly, helmet in hand, with a slight limp. It was a snapshot of pure exhaustion, as if what he put into the playoff journey was physically extracted from his body.
He followed his standout, 314-yard, five-touchdown rushing performance in the semifinals with 134 yards and a touchdown on 27 carries in Mission Viejo’s 21-10 win Saturday over Vista Murrieta.
Simply put, without Innocenzi’s playoff contributions – 707 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns in four games – the Diablos almost surely would not have been walking off the Angel Stadium field with smiles Saturday.
“He’s probably playing with some broken ribs or something like that. I don’t know. He’s not going to tell anybody,” Diablos assistant coach Bret Johnson said. “He’s just that type of kid. He’s the type of kid you’re going to win with.”
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As good as Innocenzi’s statistics were in the playoffs, his full impact for Mission Viejo wasn’t limited to the stat sheet. All you had to do was watch him run.
Throughout the season, it regularly took multiple tacklers to bring him down. On multiple occasions, Vista Murrieta needed four defenders to take him down to the Angel Stadium grass. He didn’t make the opposition miss as much as he simply refused to be brought down.
The hits, and the weight of multiple players consistently driving him into the turf, probably explains why he appeared to be in pain after the game. He probably would have felt better if he went down on first contact every once in a while.
“I’m a little tired,” Innocenzi acknowledged after the game, with a wry smile.
The 5-foot-11, 185-pound tailback also affected the Diablos’ passing game. On Mission Viejo’s final scoring drive, Innocenzi carried the ball five times for 30 yards and set up the scoring play – a 28-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Brock Johnson to Connor Hill – which gave the Diablos a commanding 21-3 lead.
Seconds before Brock Johnson released the pass, he faked a handoff to Innocenzi to draw the defense.
“God, he was special, wasn’t he?” Mission Viejo coach Bob Johnson said of Innocenzi. “If I said something about Rome right now (and he heard), he’d turn around and (smile). He’s a class kid and I’ve seen him since flag football when they were teeny guys.”
The Mission Viejo offense struggled at times early in the season, in Innocenzi’s absence, when the senior missed five games with an ankle injury, but thrived upon his return.
“You always hope for it, but you never expect anything like this,” Innocenzi said. “You just work for it with everything you can.”
It all felt rewarding for Innocenzi after the win Saturday and he showed it with the smile his coach loves. It was the only movement he made in the aftermath that didn’t look like it hurt.
Contact the writer: jbalan@ocregister.com
