PHOTOS: Irvine makes the most of its first game of spring season, defeating Northwood 32-3

Irvine quarterback Beck Moss hands off to Cameron Goods during Friday’s non-league game. (Photo courtesy Jim Tomlin, For OC Sports Zone)

Irvine High’s football team has been waiting a long time, 504 days to be exact, for the season to start.

But the wait was worth it for the Vaqueros, who opened with a 32-3 non-league victory over Northwood Friday night at Irvine Stadium. The two teams are part of the new Pacific Coast Conference, which is divided into two four-team leagues.

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The season was supposed to start in August, but delayed until this week due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s been a long time coming, a long time coming; we’ve been preparing for this 504 days since we played a football game and I have to thank my lineman and my running backs all the dudes that give me pass pro,” said senior quarterback Beck Moss who threw three touchdown passes. “I can’t do it without them. They run a very aggressive defense and we were able to tear right through it with our running backs.”

Northwood took the early lead on a 27-yard field goal by Karim Yowkeem but then Moss and his teammates went to work, scoring 32 unanswered points.

Moss completed 8 of 16 passes for 132 yards with one interception. He threw a 7-yard TD pass to Tate Zimmerman and added TD passes of 12 and 11 to Kade Zimmerman.

Irvine led 26-3 at halftime.

“It was a blast, I had such a good time with all my friends,” Kade Zimmerman said. “It was literally everything that I expected it to be with all the big plays and coming out with the win. It was a great way to start the season and hopefully we can do this in the next few games.”

Irvine running back Cameron Goods had an outstanding game rushing for 104 yards on 10 carries. He scored on touchdown runs of 2 and 26 yards.

“We were talking how about it’s been 504 days since we last played and we haven’t let up since then,” said Irvine Coach Tom Ricci. “We’ve done everything we can to continue to work through the COVID times when they were working at home on a Zoom. They knew we were going to have a season and they’re focused on their goal and they’re ready to play ball.”

Ricci said that Goods had a breakout game and “he’s been working in the weight room.”

Ricci also credited new defensive coordinator Dubhe Ramirez. Irvine’s defense allowed Northwood just 35 yards rushing.

“He gets the kids fired up,” Ricci said. “Bringing him over here has made a world of difference for our defense,” Ricci said. “The defense was flying around and we had three turnovers. They’re fired up and he’s a big part of that.”

Jack Condon and Kade Zimmerman had the interceptions for Irvine, which also recovered a fumble.

Northwood was led by sophomore quarterback Andrew Penrod, who passed for 65 yards. Penrod took over for starting quarterback Trey Littlejohn, who injured his knee in last week’s scrimmage.

The Timberwolves were victimized by another key injury when one of the top receivers in the county, senior Travis Arena, left with a knee injury in the first half. He also plays defensive end.

“This was a tough one for us tonight,” said Northwood Coach Mike Stewart, who was making his head coaching debut. “We came up against a very good Irvine squad, they’re very well coached, their kids played extremely hard. It was very tough on us early. We lost three of our two-way starters to knee injuries within six days: Travis Arena, Josiah Smith and Trey Littlejohn.

“Not making any excuses at all. Irvine definitely deserved this game. They were the much better team tonight.”

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