PHOTOS: Sunny Hills erases memory of painful loss with dominating 55-20 win over Irvine

Sunny Hills quarterback Luke Duxbury throws a TD pass in the third quarter Friday night (Photos Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone)

Sunny Hills football team wanted to put the memory of last week’s heartbreaking 36-35 last second loss to Aliso Niguel behind it quickly.

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Friday night, the Lancers did just that. They were fired up and ready to play and went on to put on a dominating performance, defeating Irvine 55-20 at Irvine to even their mark at 1-1.

It was 34-6 at halftime and the outcome all but settled. Sunny Hills led 55-6 after three quarters and there was a running clock in the fourth quarter.

“We wanted to come out with a lot of fire and energy,” said Sunny Hills Coach Pete Karavedas. “Our guys were pretty worked up after the heartbreaking loss last week.”

Wilson Cal set the tone intercepting a pass by Beck Moss on Irvine’s first possession and returning it 35 yards for a score. It was one of four turnovers that Sunny Hills forced against Irvine (0-2).

“That was really good to set the tone with a pick six and get us rolling, great job,” Karavedas said. “

It was the start of a big night for the Lancers. Quarterback Luke Duxbury passed for 173 yards and two touchdowns and also ran for a 23-yard TD. Jun Ahn rushed for 122 yards on 10 carries, scored on a 7-yard run and hauled in a 20-yard TD pass.

Vince Silva rushed for 50 yards and had touchdown runs of 11 and 14 yards for the Lancers.

Sunny Hills could not be stopped offensively.

“Jun and Wilson are out playmakers and Luke did a great job of getting them the ball and we also had nice compliments from Vince Silva and David Harris,” Karavedas said. “We want to spread the ball around and run it and throw it and give it to multiple guys. I thought our offense did a really good job of executing the game plan tonight.”

“It was a great team win being able to bounce off the one-point loss last week,” Cal said. “That was tough last week but we said the whole week that we were going to make Irvine feel our frustations and I think we did that. The line was blocking good, we were running the ball doing whatever we wanted on offense and the defense played great, six points.”

The early interception was critical.

“I read the play and took it to the house and got a spark going,” Cal said.

Jonathan Lee also had an interception.

“It was great to see Jake Massar play so well with two forced fumbles on the strip sack and Jonathan Lee got his first varsity interception tonight. Some guys made some big plays on defense,” Karavedas said. “We really pushed our defense in practice and really put a lot of pressure on them after last week.”

Noah Brown also hauled in a 5-yard TD catch for the Lancers.

Irvine’s Moss wound up passing for 286 yards but Irvine had no running back with more than nine yards rushing and the turnovers were too much to overcome. Kade Zimmerman hauled in 12 passes for 172 yards including a 42-yard TD as time expired. Moss also hit Cade Calderon on a 10-yard TD pass in the fourth quarter. Sunny Hills used back-ups in the final quarter.

Irvine’s other score came when Moss hit Jacob Sears on a 24-yard TD pass late in the second quarter to cut the lead to 24-6.

Irvine Coach Tom Ricci had a quick meeting with his team then headed to the locker-room with his players and staff.

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