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Damian Calhoun. Sports Newsroom Assistant.

// MORE INFORMATION: Associate Mug Shot taken August 24, 2010 : by KATE LUCAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

HUNTINGTON BEACH – The early stages of Thursday’s season opener couldn’t have started any better for the Huntington Beach football team.

On the first play from scrimmage, Travis Heer took a hand-off and raced 80 yards for a touchdown.

On the Oilers’ first defensive series, Chris Reene scooped up a fumble and took it 57 yards for a touchdown to give the Oilers a 13-point lead.

However, the rest of the night belonged to visiting Coronado of Henderson, Nev., as the Cougars stormed back for a 41-26 victory over the Oilers.

“After that (early start), they would go on long drives and we would miss a bunch of tackles and they would push the pace on us,” Huntington Beach coach Eric Lo said. “It looked like our guys got tired, which is frustrating, and they converted on a ton of third downs when we thought we had a chance to get off of the field.”

The closest the Oilers would get in the second half was 27-20 on a 23-yard touchdown pass from Chad James to Malik Miller.

The Cougars quickly responded with a pair of defensive touchdowns (a fumble recovery in the end zone by Jad Cheetany and 25-yard interception return by Justin Belknap) for a 41-20 lead.

Hunter Simmons capped the scoring with a 3-yard run for the Oilers.

“Besides that first touchdown (Heer’s 80-yard run), we didn’t do anything else in the first half,” Lo said. “We just struggled. We couldn’t run the ball like we should, and those are areas we need to get better in.”

The Oilers are coming off a remarkable season in which they won the CIF-SS Southwest Division championship.

The Cougars are looking to use this victory as a springboard for the rest of the season. They finished 4-6 last year.

“We knew coming into a different environment than what we were used to, our kids were a little nervous and that showed early,” Coronado coach Brad Talich said. “We came back, ran our NASCAR-paced offense at them a little bit and tired them down.

“Huntington Beach is a good program. We knew we were going to be in for a challenge and we wanted to come down here and perform here and represent our state well.”

Contact the writer: dcalhoun@ocregister.com