Costa Mesa gets key league win over Saddleback to stay in playoff hunt

Costa Mesa players gather after Thursday’s victory for a post-game meeting. (Photo Tim Burt, OC Spors Zone).

Costa Mesa’s football team got the win it needed Thursday night to stay in contention for the third CIF playoff berth in the Orange Coast League.

The Mustangs took charge from the start and rolled to a 56-0 victory over Saddleback at Segerstrom. Costa Mesa (4-4, 2-1) plays co-league leader Santa Ana next week before meeting Estancia in the regular season finale Friday, Oct. 29 at Costa Mesa.

“This win is way overdue,” said acting head coach Van Tuinei. “To have a shutout is big-time, to get 56 points, we needed that for our offense to get that confidence, especially going against Santa Ana next week and then finishing the season with Estancia. I think it’s going to come down to Estancia, we all do. That’s for third place, we’re looking at a playoff bid, I think we can make it happen.

“This is something we preached for a couple of weeks. As soon as we beat Calvary, we said, ‘this is a must win.'”

Costa Mesa was led by quarterback Garrett Richards who completed 12 of 15 passes for 359 yards and five touchdowns, including strikes of 6 and 77 yards to Riley Weinstein, who had four catches for 119 yards.

The Mustangs got a strong performance from Kobe Lemari, who rushed for 143 yards on 21 carries. Lemari gave Costa Mesa an early spark with a 13-yard TD run. He then returned an interception 18 yards for a score and later scored on a 4-yard TD run to put Costa Mesa ahead early 21-0.

The Mustangs led 35-0 at halftime.

“We’re trying to find our identity, right now I think we’re a running team,” Tuinei said. “I think we all know football enough that if you have a good running game, those passing plays are going to be wide open.”

Richards capped his big night with touchdown passes to Christian Beatty (27 yards), Adelfo Bahena (55 yards) and John Simco (16 yards).

Saddleback, which was shutout by Santa Ana last week, had another long night. Costa Mesa recorded three interceptions. Quarterback Alberto Marquez was held to 39 yards passing. Costa Mesa also limited the Roadrunners to 30 yards on the ground. Saddleback (3-5, 0-3) has been held to two points in its three league games.

The Roadrunners best opportunity to score came in the third quarter when they got the ball following a fumble on the kick-off. On a fourth and goal, Marquez scampered to the 1-yard line but was stopped short of the goal.

“It got away from us early,” said Saddleback assistant coach Lee Lowe. “In the first part of, the field position hurt us and we played on the short side of the field for the most part and when they jumped ahead 21, it’s kind of hard to stop 24 (Lemari) because they have a good running game. I thought we had a little bit of fight but fighting uphill is kind of hard.

“We got to go back to the drawing board and keep working.”

Saddleback’s senior players and cheerleaders were honored at hafltime.

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