Irvine can't stop run game, falls to Norwalk

NORWALK - Irvine's football team knew it had to contain Norwalk's running game to pull off a victory Friday night in a CIF-SS Southern Conference second-round playoff game.

But the Vaqueros couldn't do it, and fell to the Lancers, 29-3, at the Excelsior Adult School Stadium.

Norwalk (8-4) moves into the semifinals next weekend against Laguna Hills.

"They're a good ball club, physically, we just couldn't hang in there," Irvine coach Terry Henigan said. "We did for a while, but we needed to keep the ball for a little bit and we couldn't stop them."

Norwalk running backs Ray Craig (189 yards, 24 carries, one TD) and Jose Guzman (110 yards on 26 carries) led the attack.

The Lancers defense was also tough, allowing just 30 yards on the ground.

Irvine (8-4) had just two possessions in the first half.

The first possession resulted in a 26-yard field goal by Edgar Santana  with 9:48 left in the second quarter.

Irvine had advanced the ball to the Norwalk 5-yard line, but quarterback Allen Merritt was sacked for an 8-yard loss, ending the Vaqueros hopes for a touchdown.

Norwalk then countered with 29 unanswered points, the first coming on an 8-yard touchdown run by Guzman with 22 seconds left in the second quarter.

Norwalk also converted a 2-point conversion to take an 8-3 lead going into halftime.

Irvine's opening drive of the third quarter looked promising when the Vaqueros advanced the ball to the Norwalk 44.

But Irvine could not convert on a third-and-one play and punted.

On Norwalk's next drive, Craig bolted 67 yards for a score to make it 14-3.

"They were good, we knew that going in, but we had to play a good game and we had a couple of third and short situations that we needed to keep the ball and we didn't do it," Henigan said. "You can't give them the ball, because once you do, you never get it back, but our kids played hard, I know that."

Norwalk added an insurance score with 4:11 left in the third quarter on a 48-yard touchdown run by Julio Macias, making it 22-3.

The Lancers completed the scoring when Diaz completed his third pass of the game with 30 seconds left, connecting with Cesar Mejia on a 10-yard TD pass.

Junior quarterback Merritt led Irvine, completing 9 of 15 passes for 102 yards.

Michael Ernst was Irvine's leading receiver with four catches for 65 yards.

Contact the writer: preps@ocregister.com