Los Alamitos wins to set up more Sunset drama

LONG BEACH - Los Alamitos did its part. Now the Griffins will cheer for Esperanza or heads. Or tails.

Los Alamitos rallied to beat Fountain Valley, 31-22, in a Sunset League game Thursday at Veterans Stadium in the final regular-season game for both.

Fountain Valley, ranked No. 5 in Orange County, and No. 6 Los Alamitos finished 3-2 in league.

If Newport Harbor beats Esperanza tonight, that would create a three-way tie for second place in the league among Fountain Valley, Los Alamitos and Newport Harbor.

An Esperanza victory would make Los Alamitos the Sunset League's No. 2 playoff representative and give Fountain Valley the league's third and final guaranteed playoff berth.

A three-way tie would require a coin flip to determine the league's Nos. 2 and 3 representatives, and those two teams are guaranteed entry into the CIF-Southern Section's Pac-5 Division playoffs.

The No. 4 team would have to qualify by getting the division's one at-large berth. There will be other good teams in the division vying for that at-large berth.

Playoff seedings and first-round pairings, and the identity of those at-large teams in the Pac-5 and other divisions, will be released Sunday and will be available at ocvarsity.com.

Fountain Valley, which lost for the first time this season to Edison, the Sunset League champion, last week and is 8-2, took a 22-21 lead when senior Kyle Middlebrooks returned a punt 57 yards for a touchdown with 4:42 left in the game. A Middlebrooks run for a 2-point conversion was stopped just short of the goal line.

Starting from its 20-yard line, Los Alamitos, which had relied on running back Nick Richardson on offense pretty much all night, moved quickly downfield on a 22-yard completion from quarterback Dylan Lagarde to Josh Barut and then Lagarde's 36-yard pass to Shaquille Richardson.

The drive stopped at the 18, so the Griffins lined up for a 35-yard field goal attempt, and Dan Boyer made it to put Los Alamitos on top, 24-22, with 1:47 to play.

On Fountain Valley's ensuing possession, on the second play, Griffins linebacker Traveeon Bennett intercepted a pass at the Barons' 35 and returned it for a touchdown with 1:24 left, making it 31-22.

Barut made an interception in the Los Al end zone for a touchback in the closing seconds.

"This was a great game," Los Alamitos coach John Barnes said. "Two good teams, playing their hearts out."

Nick Richardson, a 5-foot-7, 150-pound junior who came into the week as the county's No. 3 rusher averaging 173 yards and 25 carries a game, ran for 164 yards and one touchdown on 37 carries.

Richardson deflected the credit to the Los Alamitos offensive line of Derrick Laureano, Jake McDowell, Griffin Hewitt, Niusualmalie Sale and Ben Wysocki.

"Any back could run behind this line," Richardson said. "All these linemen, they're all my best friends."

Lagarde completed 14 of 21 passes for 172 yards and one touchdown with no interceptions.

Middlebrooks, the county's fourth-leading rusher and averaging 162 yards a game, ran for 176 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries.

Los Alamitos had a 14-10 lead at halftime, and the score remained that way until the Griffins' Twin Fernandes scored on a 1-yard run to make it 21-10, with 7:27 left in the fourth quarter. A 57-yard kickoff return by Middlebrooks set up his 5-yard touchdown that cut the Los Alamitos lead to 21-10 with 7:03 remaining. Then came Middlebrooks' big punt return, and then the Griffins' comeback.

Middlebrooks scored on Fountain Valley's first offensive play, on a 58-yard run. Middlebrooks, who finished second in the 100 meters in the CIF State track and field championships this past spring, quickly got into the defensive backfield and then outsprinted everyone to the end zone. That made it 7-0, Barons, with 7:50 to go in the first quarter.

Fountain Valley's Christian Rodriguez kicked a 23-yard field goal on the Barons' next possession to push the lead to 10-0 with 52 seconds left in the opening quarter.

Los Alamitos scored on an 18-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Lagarde, who transferred from Long Beach Poly a few weeks ago, to senior receiver Shaquille Richardson, who finished with nine catches for 115 yards, to cut Fountain Valley's lead to 10-7.

The Barons twice drove to the Los Alamitos side of the field in the second quarter, but could not convert on a third-and-one and a fourth-and-one.