El Toro wins epic battle, ends La Habra's reign

LA HABRA - The only time La Habra stopped El Toro's offense was at halftime and when the Highlanders kept the high-powered Chargers off the field.

That wasn't very often.

The Highlanders showed the heart of a true champion, nearly coming back from a 34-point deficit before falling to El Toro, 47-41, in the CIF-SS Southwest Division semifinals on Friday night at La Habra High.

El Toro quarterback Conner Manning had another spectacular game. He completed 32 of 49 passes for 465 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

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"There's nothing like it," said Manning, who has passed for 3,946 yards, breaking the single-season record of 3,560 set by Mater Dei's Matt Barkley in 2007. "La Habra's the best team in the division. To beat them on their turf ... that's rare. This is awesome.

"On offense, I mean, we were unbelievable, just executing all night, putting up points after points."

La Habra coach Frank Mazzotta was impressed with Manning.

"That kid is good," Mazzotta said. "He's the real deal."

Cody White had nine catches for 109 yards and a touchdown, Blake Murphy had nine catches for 103 yards and a touchdown and Jacob Furnari had 231 yards and four touchdowns on 36 carries.

"Sometimes that's too formula for success and that's to keep us off the field," Frith said. "Again, my hat's off to Coach Mazzotta and his program here at La Habra. What's done and his kids have done is so impressive. Now we're ready to have some fun at Anahem Stadium."

El Toro earns its first trip to the finals since beating Servite, 27-17, in the 1995 Division V title game. El Toro will play Tustin, a 21-20 winner over Foothill, for the Southwest championship next Saturday at 2 p.m. at Angel Stadium.

"That was unbelievable, man," Frith said. "I mean, you guys tell me? They said it was going to be the game of the year. I think anybody who was here would agree they got their money's worth tonight."

Mazzotta's team was trying to become the first county team to win five consecutive CIF-SS championships.

"Unfortunately, we put ourselves in bad position early and they are good enough to score points fast and they did," Mazzotta said. "We got too far behind. The thing about the game is the clock runs out."

La Habra led 13-0 before El Toro scored 47 consecutive points to take a 47-13 lead on Furnari's 64-yard touchdown run with 1:07 left in the third quarter.

If the Highlanders fell behind by 35 points, they were in danger of having a running clock in the fourth quarter.

But then the game took a turn. There was a penalty on the ensuing kickoff and La Habra started at El Toro's 45. UCLA-bound Aaron Porter, who played linebacker and running back all game, broke a 45-yard touchdown run.

La Habra's defense forced a rare El Toro punt and Porter led them on another scoring drive, finally, punching in an 11-yard touchdown run.

La Habra went for an onside kick and Sergio Escalante Jr. recovered for the Highlanders. This time Porter scored on a 10-yard run to cut El Toro's lead to 47-34 with 5:07 remaining.

La Habra went for another onside kick and Dylan Barney recovered for the Highlanders. Brett Bartolone scored on a 23-yard touchdown pass from Sean Sparling, and La Habra cut it to 47-41 with 3:31 remaining.

La Habra went for a third onside kick, but it went out of bounds. Finally, Manning had the ball back in his hands.

"I told everyone, 'Put the ball in my hands and we win this game,' " Manning said. "That's what I told them."

The Chargers ran out the final 3 minutes and 31 seconds, picking up three first downs to seal the victory.

Follow Carlos Arias at twitter.com/LosOCVarsity.