PHOTOS: Northwood earns second straight trip to CIF finals with dominating effort

Northwood players celebrate after Friday night’s semifinal victory. (Photos courtesy Mark Bausman).

Northwood High School football players and coaches were expecting a battle from second-seeded Vista Del Lago in the semifinal round of the CIF Division 8 playoffs Friday night at Irvine Stadium.

Vista Del Lago was coming off a road victory over Crean Lutheran last week in the quarterfinals of the playoffs and was looking to avenge last year’s loss to Northwood in the semifinals.

But Northwood was ready, took control early and rolled to a 41-14 victory to advance into the Division 8 championshhip game Saturday at Lakewood. Lakewood defeated Rancho Verde 24-19 in the other semifinal.

Northwood won the Division 11 crown last year, the first in the school’s history. The Timberwolves are 12-1 and have won 10 in a row.

“Two weeks ago, I thought we were going to do the same thing to Monrovia,” said Northwood Coach JC Clarke. “And they just lit us up, so I stopped believing in myself a little bit.”

To see the slide show, click on the first photo:

Clarke had no reason to worry. He had a swarming defense which put constant pressure on Ravens’ quarterback Jaylen Patterson and limited the Ravens potent running attack to 75 yards. Northwood running back Adam Harper had his usual steady game, rushing for 140 yards on 20 carries and two touchdown runs of 13 yards.

Timberwolves quarterback Eugene Miyata had some big tosses, completing 8 of 19 passes for 204 yards and three touchdowns.

Harper’s first score put the Timberwolves ahead 6-0. Northwood missed a two-point try.

Vista Del Lago (9-4) then fumbled on its next possession and Northwood cashed it into a score with Kaden Carter scoring on a 3-yard TD run.

A blocked punt early in the second quarter gave Northwood excellent field position. Harper capped the drive with a 13-yard TD to put the Timberwolves ahead 20-0.

Vista Del Lago looked like it might get back in the game when it drove to the 3-yard line, but the Ravens fumbled and Northwood took over. The Ravens got on the scoreboard when KJ Wright scored from 7 yards out late in the second quarter.

Northwood led 20-7 at halftime and outscored Vista Del Lago 21-0 in the third quarter to break it open. Miyata threw TD passes to Ahmad Kazi (19 yards), Joseph Harper (44 yards) and Ryan Kesler (30 yards) in the second half.

“Our defense did our thing, our O-Line did our thing, everything was perfect this game,” said Miyata. “We didn’t think we would do this good, we knew Vista was good coming into this game but our team did its thing. We had a 50-50 plan coming in, we have one of the best running backs in the league. It’s always Adam first, and if we need to change it up, we can pass it.”

Harper added:

“We were kind of firing on all cyclinders, especially on offense. The run was there, the pass was there. The run set up the pass. We were hitting our shots. It was really good for the defense to know that we give up a score, the offense is picking us up. Their big strength was running the ball and once we got up early because our offense was doing well we kind of took that away from them because they couldn’t run the ball since they were down, so that really helped us out.

“We played these guys last year, we knew they were going to come out firing so we had to match that and we did.”

Patterson had Vista Del Lago’s other TD on a 2-yard run late in the game. Trying to catch up, the Ravens tried to pass more in the second half. Patterson wound up throwing for 143 yards.

The first half was played without the scoreboard clock working. A techinician was able to fix the problem at halftime.

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com