Irvine clicks on all cylinders and captures decisive victory over city rival Woodbridge

Irvine Coach Tom Ricci talks to his players after Friday’s win over Woodbridge. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).

Irvine and Woodbridge football teams aren’t in the same league any longer as a result of a major re-leaguing plan in Orange County.

But there is still plenty of city pride at stake when the two crosstown rivals meet.

Irvine came out fired up and captured a 36-0 non-league victory over the Warriors Friday night at Irvine Stadium. Irvine (2-1) used multiple offensive weapons and a stingy defense to notch the win.

“We wanted this one pretty bad,” senior Irvine receiver Deacon Moss, who had two TD catches. “They’ve been our crosstown rivals for a long time. Every single season we have Woodbridge circled on our calendar and it feels really good to get this one.”

A running clock was used in the fourth quarter after Irvine jumped to a 36-0 lead.

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“We’ve been working on fixing all of our mistakes,” said Irvine Coach Tom Ricci. “We still had mistakes in this game, but I feel like we’re continuing to iron them out. We had a couple players back and that helped out, it gave us a little more depth.

“Woodbridge is always pretty physical and we knew they were going to come to play. They played tough, we played tough. We were watching some films in there, old NFL stuff with the Bears and we thought we had to have that mentality, fly around the field and don’t back down on defense. I’m happy with the outcome.”

Irvine quarterback Khoa Bui had a solid night, passing for 129 yards and two touchdown passes. Moss had a 21-yard TD catch in the first quarter and a 27-yard reception in the third quarter.

Moss has been battling an ankle injury, according to Ricci, but showed no ill affects Friday.

“Second play of the Laguna scrimmage we had I sprained my ankle pretty bad,” Moss said. “I’ve been working every single day to get better, taking a couple plays off at practice, going to PT almost every single day, icing it, doing heat so I can get back and play with my brothers.”

Moss said the Vaqueros had a plan.

“We watched a lot of film on them,” he said. “We knew where we could hit them. I’ve been working with Khoa since freshman year and our connection has gotten better and better and the only reason I was able to get those (touchdowns) is because we have great time, our O-line works so hard and I’m so proud of them. All the success I have is because they give my QB time.”

Sina Saferzadeh also had a 17-yard TD run in the second quarter.

Then on the Warriors next possession, he stripped the ball from a Woodbridge carrier and returned the ball to the Woodbridge 37-yard line. Irvine later scored on a 14-yard TD run by Brandon “Figgy” Figueroa to take a 22-0 lead. Figueroa was the Vaqueros leading rusher with 61 yards on 11 carries.

Woodbridge (1-2) was hoping to get back into the game in the third quarter but Jaden Burke recovered a fumble and returned the ball 45-yards for a TD to put the Vaqueros ahead 29-0.

It was a rough night for Woodbridge, which couldn’t get much going offensively and lost the ball twice on fumbles. The Warriors were playing without starting quarterback Caden Jones, who injured his shoulder last week in the third quarter against Canyon.

Aydrien Garnica came in to start at QB.

“A few of our players were out,” said Woodbridge Coach Aaron Craver. “We had a lot of guys who stepped up and did the best that they could do. We had a few mistakes and Irvine is a good football team and has a cohesive system already going and we’re trying to figure out what we were going to do tonight and it just didn’t work out for us.

“Our quarterback came in and stepped up and took some big hits and some shots, he’s one of the best receivers in the league, we just got to get better and get all our guys healthy and we have a good enough team where we can make some noise in our league.”

Craver said he doesn’t expect Jones to return for at least a couple weeks.

The Warriors biggest play when Caden Godby, who came on at quarterback, completed a 39-yard pass to Garnica, but Woodbridge was unable to score.

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