Orange quarterback Star Thomas III eludes the pressure from Irvine’s William Rudolph (No. 5) to complete a pass during the second half of Thursday’s Foxtrot League matchup at Fred Kelly Stadium. (PHOTOS: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone)
Orange’s junior quarterback Star Thomas III set the tone for the game in the Panthers’ first play from scrimmage Thursday night.
He connected with a wide open KJ Woodbury on a 79-yard touchdown pass and went on to throw five more touchdown passes to help the Panthers capture a 55-17 Foxtrot League victory over Irvine at Fred Kelly Stadium.
To see the slide show, click on the first photo:
Orange (9-0, 4-0) clinched at least a share of the Foxtrot League championship. The Panthers are off to their first 9-0 start in program history. Orange’s last league title came in 2022.
Thomas completed 16 of 22 passes for 419 yards for six TDs with one interception.
“It was a good victory, we came into the game knowing we had to come out here and dominate and we did exactly just that,” said Thomas, who has not committed yet to a college team. “We worked this week working on our game plan and today executed.
“Coming into this game, we knew we had to come in here and do what we do best and that’s exactly what we did.”
Thomas threw three of his TD passes to KJ Woodbury. The duo also hooked up on a 82-yard TD pass on the Panthers second possession and a 36-yard TD pass in the second quarter. Woodbury wound up with five catches for 220 yards.
“He’s a very good football player, very intelligent football player and obviously very high IQ, he’s one of those players who can just go up and get the ball and that’s what we love,” Thomas said of Woodbury.
Orange junior Dylan Stone also had a big game, hauling in TD passes of 12 and 21 yards in the third quarter. Stone had seven catches for 134 yards.
Freshman Jeremiah Dunklin was also impressive rushing for 127 yards and capped the night with a 10-yard touchdown run late in the game for the Panthers.
“Obviously great,” Orange Coach Robert Pedroza said of the league title. “We saw a lot of mistakes tonight, we got to fix a lot of things coming into next week to kind of stay the course of what we’re doing right now.
“Obviously, the offense was clicking pretty well tonight, we got to fix some things on defense and clean up a lot of the little mistakes we made tonight. We want to see where we can land in the playoffs and we always have high expectations for our program. We’re happy with that {the league title} but that’s not our end goal, we have a lot in front of us that we want to accomplish.
“It’s obviously a great stepping stone for what the boys have done and how hard they’ve worked, but we have a lot more in front of us.”
And leading the way has been Thomas.
“He’s the best I’ve ever had and we’ve had a lot of good ones, he’s next level and he’s unreal and whoever gets him at the next level is going to be very happy,” said Pedroza who led the Panthers to the CIF title in 2017. “From working out to film, to everything he does is constant. I get distracted because I love to watch him play.”
Thomas put the Panthers in scoring position early in the second quarter on a 13-yard run, but he fumbled the ball at the 1 and senior Marley Holguin celebrated a lineman’s dream when he recovered the ball in the end zone for a TD putting Orange ahead 20-0.
Irvine (6-3, 2-2) tried to battle back on its next possession when it marched to the Orange 6-yard line, but the Panthers defense stiffened. The Vaqueros Dylan Nguyen made a 29-yard field goal to make it 20-3.
Irvine then cut the lead to 20-10 when Gavin Furr, who came in at quarterback when starter Ronin Scheinblum had to leave the game after having his helmet come off, connected with Seamus Hoffman on a 25-yard TD pass to cut the lead to 20-10.
Furr also threw a 28-yard TD pass in the third quarter to Kyle Fogarty to trim Orange’s lead to 34-17.
But Orange responded with three straight scores, including a 48-yard TD pass from Thomas to Kaleb Fisher in the third quarter.
Furr completed 3 of 3 passes for 57 yards while Hoffman rushed for 62 yards on 17 carries. Fogarty had five catches for 55 yards.
“We knew what Orange was coming into this,” said Irvine Coach Tom Ricci. “Our goal tonight was to battle, we wanted to battle hard and to me, I always tell our guys, this is a benchmark game to see what we can do against a team like this. We’ve got a homegrown team so we have to come into a team like this and say, ‘what can we do with the kids we got.’
“Our kids worked hard through the game, they didn’t quit towards the end and they just kept going and that’s all I can ask out of them. Seamus ran hard and we had the two touchdown passes from Furr and he had an interception, he had an exceptional game tonight. We’re hoping we can get some of our injured guys back and get ready for playoffs hopefully.”
Irvine, which is battling to finish in the top three of the league, wraps up the regular season next Thursday at El Dorado.
“Segerstrom had the tiebreaker on us, so it depends on how these last couple of games pan out,” Ricci said. “Hopefully if things go our way, we’re in.”
Orange finishes the regular season next week at El Toro.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
The post PHOTOS: Star Thomas III powers Orange to win over Irvine clinching share of league title first appeared on .