Trinity drought ends for jubilant JSerra

MISSION VIEJO- The monkey is off its back.

JSerra finally took the step forward it has been looking to take, and it came by making plays on defense and, in the fourth quarter, on offense.

The end result was a hard-fought and well-earned 14-12 Trinity League victory over Santa Margarita on Friday at Saddleback College.

It is a watershed moment for JSerra (6-0, 1-0), which is in its fifth season of varsity competition and its third in the Trinity League, regarded by many as the best in the state.

It is program’s first victory over a Trinity League opponent after 14 losses, with Santa Margarita (3-3, 0-1) being a footnote it was hoping to avoid.

Santa Margarita pulled close with 2:12 left when Reiley Higgins hit Jeff Emanuel behind the secondary for a 30-yard score. The Eagles, still down by two points, went for a 2-point conversion and Emanuel again was the target, but Higgins overshot him in the back of the end zone.

“We didn’t finish,” Santa Margarita coach Mike Jacot said. “We had plenty of opportunities. We’ve got to make our red zone offense a little bit better.”

Santa Margarita got to the 14-yard line or closer three times against JSerra, and each time had to settle for a field goal attempt. Twice the Eagles were successful off the toe of John Reisinger, of 44 and 30 yards, and they trailed going into the fourth quarter, 7-6.

JSerra, which scored in the first quarter on a 12-yard drive on Bobby Brown’s 12-yard run — after Joey Kimper blocked a punt — scored midway through the fourth on a 17-play, 80-yard drive, the culmination being Brown’s three-yard fastball to Otto Behrle with 6:11 left. Luis Valentin’s kick made it 14-6, putting Santa Margarita in the uncomfortable position of having to go for two points.

Brown, who threw an interception and fumbled twice in the first half, admitted that until the fourth quarter he felt it was his worst game as a Lion. But in the aftermath, the field stormed by classmates, he said the feeling was “unbelievable.”

“The defense won us the ball game,” Brown said, referring to teammates that included Kyle Sonksen, Jonathan Schaefer and Bo Goldschmied. “This means the world. We’ve worked so hard for this.”