Corona del Mar grinds out victory over Beckman
Corona del Mar grinds out victory over Beckman
Corona del Mar vs. Beckman
NEWPORT BEACH - Corona del Mar scraped out a 20-10 victory over Beckman on Friday at Newport Harbor High.
"I thought we were playing pretty well the last game, we were clicking, but we didn’t seem to be clicking too well tonight," Sea Kings coach Jason Hitchens said. "Hopefully we knocked the rust off this game and we’ll find it (our game) for the playoffs."
With the victory, Corona del Mar (8-2, 3-1 Pacific Coast League) locked up second place and assured itself a playoff berth. (Full game stats.)
Despite a predominantly ground-focused offensive approach for much of the season, Sea Kings quarterback Mitch Sands came out firing Friday. Five of the first seven plays from scrimmage were passes, which prevented Beckman from loading up against the run.
The pass-first approach served the Sea Kings well, setting up Alex Swigert to take a draw up the middle and race 61 yards for the first score.
Swigert finished with 85 yards rushing.
Early in the second quarter, Sands snuck one in from 2 yards out to extend the lead to 14-0. But from there, Beckman began chipping away at the lead.
After trading punts, Beckman (6-4, 1-3) took over on its 20-yard-line. Following a pair of runs by senior Tyler Sackman, it was the Patriots who returned the favor of catching the defense off guard. After faking a handoff, Rhett Bender spotted Andrew Flores open along the sideline and hit him in stride for a 866-yard touchdown.
On the first drive after halftime, a 24-yard field goal by Mike Schmidt brought Beckman to a 14-10 deficit.
But two field goals from Andrew Boehm of the Sea Kings and a lockdown defensive effort halted the comeback effort.
Contact the writer: preps@ocregister.com
