Garden Grove earns another shot at CIF title

GARDEN GROVE - Last season's Garden Grove football team advanced to the CIF-SS Southern Division final before losing to LaMirada.

This year's group is headed back with some unfinished business to attend to.

Garden Grove, led by another spectacular performance by Josh Webb, defeated visiting Northwood, 35-21, Friday night to advance to its second consecutive division final.

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The Argonauts (12-1) will face either Corona del Mar or Beckman, who play Saturday night. The final is next Friday, likely at Orange Coast College.

Northwood, the second-place finisher from the Pacific Coast League, finished the season 8-4-1.

"This has been our goal since January that we wanted to go back (to the finals) and win it," Garden Grove coach Willy Puga said. "We were right there last year. Sean Young got hurt, La Mirada is a good team, but our goal, no matter who we were going to play, we want to get back there and win the thing.

La Mirada defeated Garden Grove, 49-27, in last year's final.

"A lot of these guys played last year, and they know what it takes," Puga said.

One advantage that the Argonauts have is in Webb. The quarterback does a little of bit everything. He runs the Wildcat, passes and lines up at receiver. Friday night, he left his imprints on the victory.

Webb rushed for 218 yards and two touchdowns on 37 carries, completed 4 of 7 passes for 79 yards and one touchdown and he had five receptions for 117 yards and one touchdown.

"He's an awesome player," Northwood coach Rick Curtis said of Webb. "They have some other players, too, it's not just him, but he's a great player.

Northwood opened the second half just the way it wanted when Ricky Bautista connected with Alex King on crossing pattern. King separated from linebacker Seto Cherchian and turned up field and went 52 yards for the go-ahead touchdown, giving Northwood a 21-20 lead.

It proved to be short-lived, however, thanks to explosiveness of Webb.

On the sixth play of the next Garden Grove possession, Webb got behind defensive back Justin Gisch down the right and took in a 66-yard touchdown pass from Jovani Duran to put the Argonauts up, 27-21.

After a punt, Garden Grove marched, mostly on the ground, from its 25 to the Northwood 33. On a third-and-1, Webb took the handoff around the right end for atouchdown. Duran connected with Webb for a 2-point conversion and a 35-21 lead with 2:09 left in the quarter.

"We don't get too high and we don't get too low," Puga said. "We kind of go how Webb goes, just low-key. We knew they (Northwood) were going to put points up and we knew it could be a shootout, but our defense, I thought, played really well."

After Northwood's scored to open the third quarter, the Garden Grove defense went into shutdown, forcing one punt and four consecutive failed fourth down attempts, to seal another trip to the finals.

"We just didn't convert on the fourth down plays," Curtis said. "We needed to get a drive going to stop their momentum, but we just didn't convert."

Last year's Garden Grove team was motivated by the death of teammate Kevin Telles. Webb said that this year's team is still drawing inspiration from Telles.

"He's still right here with us," Webb said. "He's a big part of this team."

After Northwood opened the game scoring with a 3-yard run by Kevin Fiege, Garden Grove answered with three consecutive touchdowns to take a 20-7 lead.

Avery Williams had a big 56-yard touchdown pass from Webb in the second quarter.

The Timberwolves went into halftime trailing, 20-14, after a much-needed touchdown late in the second quarter.

Northwood had a four-play, 68-yard drive that took 31 seconds and ended with a 20-yard touchdown pass from Ricky Bautista to Reed Gubernick.