Fryer breaks down wild Week 4

It was Mater Dei's last chance, the Monarchs' last chance to win the game, their last chance to avoid dropping out of the top 10 for the first time in three decades, and their last chance to avoid going 0-4 for the first time in even more decades.

Two seconds left. Ball on the Edison 15, and a four-point deficit. Only a touchdown would do. Mater Dei junior quarterback Ryan McMahon took the snap, dropped back, stepped forward as if about to tuck the football and run for it, cut left, tiptoed the line of scrimmage he could not see but still sensed was close, and floated the ball to the middle rear of the end zone. There was the receiver that McMahon had targeted often, and perhaps too often, all night, Thomas Duarte, who made the catch and tumbled out of the end zone.

Touchdown. Game over. Final score – Mater Dei 22, Edison 20.

Mater Dei had been so close before to getting that first victory. The Monarchs lost to Carson by four, had a lead over state-top 10 Centennial of Corona before losing by eight, and lost in overtime to county-top 10 San Clemente to start 0-3.

No Mater Dei team had started 0-4 since 1951, the school's first year of varsity football when the Monarchs went 2-7.

Orange County rankings are largely meaningless – it is the CIF-Southern Section rankings that influence the seeding of the playoffs – but they are very interesting to people who follow county football. Coaches can pretend that they don't care about where they are, whether they are in, the county top 10 but we know the county rankings are important to them.

Mater Dei has been in the top 10 continuously since Bruce Rollinson became coach at his alma mater in 1989. That Mater Dei has remained in the county top 10, which is a poll of 10 county media members, has been a hot discussion project in recent days. No. 9 Mater Dei's victory Friday over No. 7 Edison will keep Mater Dei in the top 10.

Mater Dei also has been in the playoffs every year since Rollinson took over in '89. That is a streak that is very much in danger.

Top-ranked Servite is the favorite in the Trinity League. Friday's three-point loss to Bishop Gorman of Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, should not change that.

Santa Margarita, third in the county poll, looks like the No. 2 team in the Trinity. The Eagles (5-0) did not look their best Thursday night, but still were good enough to beat No. 8 Los Alamitos by 11 points.

Orange Lutheran, No. 4 in the county, also is 5-0. The Lancers enjoyed a 33-13 victory over Redondo on Friday.

St. John Bosco of Bellflower is 4-1. The Braves beat La Habra by 31 points on Thursday. Keep in mind that Servite beat La Habra by the much-smaller margin of eight points.

The top three finishers in the Trinity League go to the Pac-5 Division playoffs. As there is no at-large berth in the Pac-5 Division, there will be a good fourth-place team in the Trinity League that will not be in the playoffs.

The same situation is in place in the South Coast League, also a Pac-5 Division league. Mission Viejo (5-0) is the league favorite. San Clemente (5-0) is the second-best team there. That leaves the third and final playoff berth for Tesoro (3-2), Trabuco Hills (4-1) and Dana Hills (2-3).

Who is the favorite in the Sunset League? To these eyes, Los Alamitos looked better in its loss to Santa Margarita on Thursday than Edison did in its loss to Mater Dei on Friday. Los Alamitos has more playmakers.

If Mater Dei is the county's best 1-3 team then La Habra has to be the best 2-3 team. The Highlanders went 0-for-3 in its back-to-back-to-back games against Trinity League teams Servite, Orange Lutheran and St. John Bosco of Bellflower. La Habra lost to Servite by eight points, then in the following week lost in overtime to Orange Lutheran, but got hammered Thursday by Bosco, 41-6.

Perhaps what happened to La Habra this week happened to other teams. League play, the most important part of the regular season, gets going in most leagues in two weeks. Many county teams are taking their bye weeks next week. Maybe some players, and some teams, were looking ahead to the league opener.

That could have happened to Tesoro. The Titans took on winless Chaparral of Temecula and lost big, 24-6. San Clemente did not put away Newport Harbor until the final minutes of its 24-12 victory.

League play is underway in the county's two seven-team leagues, the Century and Empire leagues. Brea, Villa Park and Foothill won their Century League openers this week. In the Empire, Cypress, Tustin and Yorba Linda were league-opener winners.

There remains plenty of time for those league-opener winners to falter, and for those first-game losers to rally.

Time was something Mater Dei had in short supply Friday night. The Monarchs finally can exhale. But the Trinity League awaits them, and Orange Lutheran, and Servite and the rest. Let the hyperventilating begin.