MOORE LEAGUE: Lakewood wins despite losing five fumbles. Press-Telegram November 10, 2007 LAKEWOOD - The Lakewood High football team was mired in a nasty bit of self-destructiveness for a long while Friday night at John Ford Stadium. But the Lancers overcame eight fumbles (they lost the first five off them) and an interception to rally to knock the visiting Compton Tarbabes, 33-25, to finish in second in the Moore League. Coach Thadd McNeal's team, which lost only to Moore champion Poly after its first two games, will take a 7-3 record into the first round of the CIF Southern Section Pac-5 playoffs next Friday evening. The pairings will be unveiled Sunday morning at the Southern Section's office in Los Alamitos. The Lancers, facing a Tarbabes team that was playing without its top two running backs (Donald Green and Currey Williams) and one of its two best linemen (Justin Brown), each of which suffered injuries against Poly on Nov. 2, held the visitors to a net of 107 yards rushing on 43 carries and no completions in five pass attempts. But, for much of the evening, Lakewood's carelessness with the football provided the Tarbabes with all of the real estate their offense couldn't accumulate on its own. Compton (8-2), which advances to the playoffs as the league's No. 3 seed, turned three of its fumble recoveries into 22 first-half points, six of those coming when Benjamin Maluia picked up an Alex Fletcher fumble and sprinted 99 yards along the Lakewood sidelines for a touchdown and (after a 2-point conversion run by Jensen Watson) 14-0 lead with 10 minutes to go in the first half. The Tarbabes held a 22-14 lead at intermission and then extended that advantage to 11 points when, following a Datone Jones' recovery of another Fletcher fumble, they settled for a 26-yard field goal by Jonathan Cuellar with 7:21 to go in third quarter. But once the Lancers discovered what the phrase "ball security" is all about, their offense started cranking out yardage in gulps and touchdowns almost as rapidly. Sophomore quarterback Jesse Scroggins overcame a slow start, including an interception late in the second quarter, to complete his final 10 pass attempts - three of those for touchdowns, including the go-ahead score on a 12-yard toss to tight end Vincent Abbott with 6:49 to go, following a nifty play-action fake, for a 26-25 advantage. Fletcher overcame his miscues to rush for 166 yards on 23 carries (the Lancers had 391 net yards) and scored an insurance six points on an 18-yard burst through a gasping defense with 2:44 to go. "I'm not sure what the problem (with turnovers) was," Scroggins said, after connecting on two TD throws to fellow 10th grader Kevin Anderson. "I guess we were a little too hyped. "But we came back. No one in the league can stop our offense when we don't commit turnovers." Next week they'll find out how well a non-Moore League opponent holds up to that offense. Compton scoring: Griffin 2 (4 and 1 runs), Maluia (99 run with fumble recovery). FG: Cuellar (26). PAT: Watson 2 (run) and Holzendorf 2 (run). Lakewood: Anderson 2 (11 and 7 passes from Scroggins), Laurente (55 run), Abbott (12 pass from Scroggins), Fletcher (18 run). PAT: Orozco 3 (kicks). |
