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Members of the South team celebrate with the championship trophy. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Defense was showcased for the first three quarters of Saturday night’s 65th annual Orange County All-Star Football Classic at Orange Coast College.
The game was deadlocked 7-7 going into the final quarter.
But the South scored the deciding touchdown when quarterback Vanden Dugger of Dana Hills connected with Campbell Schamel of Tesoro on a 46-yard TD pass with 6:03 left in the game to put the South ahead by seven following a PAT by Crean Lutheran’s Connor Stephens. Stephens also had the first conversion and punted for the South.
To see the slide show, click on the first photo:
The South defense then did the rest to help the South win 14-7. It was the 10th victory in a row for the South.
“The play just worked perfectly,” Schamel said. “The guys went up there, the guys lined up exactly how we wanted, Max (Kotiranta) and Max Krosky pulled down their guys and there was no one in the back, it just worked perfectly. We executed just how we wanted and we ended up winning because of it.
“Vanden just rolled out, made a perfect pass, he’s a stud, he played great all year. It was a great way to end it all.”
Dugger wound up completing 7 of 10 passes for 86 yards.
There were only two other scores in the game. South quarterback Tommy Acosta (Capistrano Valley) scored on a 6-yard TD run in the first quarter to put the South ahead 7-0. The North came back midway through the second quarter to tie the game 7-7 on a 2-yard TD run by QB Nate Lewis of Villa Park. Lewis completed 4 of 6 passes for 102 yards.
The North tried to move ahead late in the first half but Noah Czaykowski (Beckman) intercepted a pass in the end zone to end the threat.
The North also moved the ball near midfield on its final drive of the game but the South defense stepped up to seal the win.
“It was a great time and a ton of fun,” said South Coach Marcello Giuliano from Beckman. “I loved that it was a tight game and exciting at the end. It could have gone either way and that’s how you want these all-star games to go for sure. You want it to come down the last drive and it did, and it was awesome that our defense came through.
“It takes so much time to actually gel on offense with all the guys you are rotating in so it’s pretty normal that offenses have a tendency to struggle. It was a great showcase for both defenses, a lot of guys going on to play college football and the D-lines were awesome.”
And there was the biggest play of the night on offense which led to the win.
“It was a broken play, it was kind of like the one they got that set up their touchdown where they kind of forgot about a guy deep and Vander did an awesome job of keeping his eyes downfield, not just looking to run and found him, beautiful, beautiful ball,” Giuliano said.
North Coach Zack LaMonda from El Dorado was proud of the effort of his team.
“It was fun, it’s great coming out here, a little different, not doing special teams, it was fun watching these guys compete and play, I haven’t had an opportunity to coach in February before, there aren’t a lot of people who can say they can do that. It was great watching these guys all coming together at four practices, then compete and have fun,” he said.
“It’s really hard for offenses to come together, you got 11 different guys, sometimes from 11 different schools coming out there and trying to run a scheme. I thought both sides did well, their best executed, it’s just who makes the biggest play or who makes the biggest mistake. Unfortunately, we made the mistake and they made the big play and we lost.
“I’m proud of all of them. Having a connection over a short period of time, I will remember these guys, it was fun, hopefully they had a great experience, like I played many years ago here. I still talk with some of the guys I played with. Hopefully it’s the same for these guys five, 10 or 15 years from now.”
JJ Amezcua (Western) hauled in three catches for 28 yards for the North.
Several other South players contributed to the victory. Noah Tagaloa of Segerstrom had 22 yards on six carries and also caught four passes for 24 yards for the South.
Deacon Moss of Irvine also hauled in two catches for the South.
“It’s tradition, the South coming out victorious,” Moss said. “We’ve been talking about it the last two weeks about coming out here with that same intensity that the previous teams have had and keeping that tradition alive. I think we came out here and did exactly what we wanted to do. From the very first whistle to the last, we were physical, we hit them hard and we hit them every single play.
“And we played as brothers. I know it’s been a short period of time where we’ve worked together, but the chemistry we’ve been able to build in this short period of time really showed on the scoreboard today.”
Giuliano, the Beckman coach, said he was proud of all the South players and enjoyed coaching his Patriot players.
“One of the most rewarding parts of this was coming from a smaller program to make sure we had smaller programs represented, and our guys stepped up, Kian Kashkoolinia had a really key block in the fourth quarter on their Boise State kid, defensively MK Karpukhin played his tail off in the D-line totally undersized, Noah had the pick to end the drive and CJ (Bertoni) was out there running a bunch of offense.”
Tanner Rohan (San Juan Hills) was named the South MVP and Ulavai Fetuli (La Habra) the North MVP.
The game was presented by Costa Mesa United which uses the game to donate funds to local charities. No attendance figure was announced on a chilly night in Costa Mesa but local fans turned out well.
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—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com