CERRITOS – Mission Viejo would be the obvious favorite in the South Coast League. That was certain.
Not so certain was which team would be the Diablos’ top challenger in league. Trabuco Hills was expected to field its best team in years. El Toro again would have a dynamite passing attack.
Tesoro? The Titans were an unknown quantity.
The school does have good football players, year after year, but Tesoro underwent a coaching change, going from Brian Barnes to Matt Poston. Transition years are not always winning years.
But here are the Titans, 6-1 overall and 2-0 in the South Coast League after a 35-6 league win over El Toro. Tesoro beat Trabuco Hills last week.
The Titans get the ultimate challenge next week. They play Mission Viejo, at Mission Viejo, on Friday.
Tesoro went to the Pac-5 Division playoffs last year, and is on its way back to the playoffs this year. The Titans would like to go as a league champion.
Week 7 of the season brought several teams closer to league championships.
Edison is 2-0 after beating Newport Harbor, 28-16. The Chargers play Los Alamitos next week, then get Fountain Valley the following week in the annual “Battle for the Bell.”
Westminster got another huge game from quarterback Daniel Thomsen in the Lions’ 35-10 win over Orange. Thomsen ran for 125 yards and two touchdowns, and Orange running back Aaron Aguilar was his usual stellar self with 221 rushing yards and a touchown.
Dana Hills was 1-4 in nonleague games against a challenging schedule. The Dolphins now are 2-0 in the Sea View League after a 52-37 league win over Capistrano Valley. Dana Hills has scored 104 points in two league games.
Orange Lutheran was the focal point of Twitter’s county football activity. The Lancers led St. John Bosco at halftime, and were right there with California’s second-ranked team in the third quarter. But Bosco’s athletic superiority took over and the Braves won going away, 42-24.
Servite junior quarterback Travis Waller had perhaps the best game of his life Friday. He rushed for 187 yards, including touchdown runs of 21 and 80 yards, and passed for 124 yards and two touchdowns as the Friars beat Santa Margarita, 30-14. Waller’s improvement had rocket-like trajectory over the past three weeks, from having a fair game against De La Salle of Concord to a good showing against Mater Dei to simply outstanding against Santa Margarita.
There were a lot of terrific underclassmen in the Santa Margarita-Servite game at Cerritos College. Waller is a junior, as is his Servite teammates Maurice Davison, who made one of the more athletic interceptions you can see at any level of football with a leaping, pull-it-away-from-the- receiver-from-behind grab. Friars receivers Tony Brown and the wonderfully-named Equanimeous St. Brown are juniors.
Mater Dei handled JSerra, 38-14. Monarchs running back Justin Allen was great against Servite last week, rushing for 244 yards and two TDs in Mater Dei’s 28-21 win at Angel Stadium. On Friday, Allen ran for 314 yards and four TDs.
Allen might be OC Varsity football athlete of the week for the second week in a row. Maybe it will be Waller, or perhaps Aguilar. Costa Mesa’s Oronde Crenshaw put his name on the ballot with 278 rushing yards and six touchdowns in the Mustangs’ 64-39 win over Godinez, a crucial game in the Orange Coast League playoff picture.
Yorba Linda stayed undefeated with a 28-14 win over Cypress on Thursday. The Mustangs are 7-0 overall, 3-0 in the Empire League.
That was a fun game for Yorba Linda, but a depressing one for a sportswriter there. See, the Centurions’ leading receiver was Bobby Brito, the namesake son of a Cypress All-County baseball player of the 1990s.
It seems like only yesterday yours truly was writing about the exploits of the father. It is said that time marches on. It sometimes seems to be running as fast as Travis Waller.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
