Northwood football team making believers after 17-10 opening round CIF playoff victory over Rancho Alamitos

Northwood’s football team, led by Coach Pete Mitchell, is 8-3 overall. (File photo: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone)

Northwood’s football team, one of the most improved teams in the county, is preparing for its next challenge in the CIF Division 12 playoffs when it takes on No. 2 seeded Laguna Beach Friday night at 7 p.m. in the quarterfinals at Irvine Stadium.

Laguna Beach (9-2)  shared the Pac-4 League title with Ocean View and Western. Laguna Beach opened the playoffs with a 30-21 victory over Saddleback Valley Christian.

Northwood (8-3) is coming off a 17-10 victory over Rancho Alamitos Friday night. In the game, the Timberwolves behind junior quarterback Jaden Piazza rallied from a 10-3 halftime deficit to record the school’s first CIF playoff victory since 2010.

“I think we feel like we have something to prove,” said Northwood Coach Pete Mitchell. “We’ve always kind of played with a chip on our shoulder and I think we want to try and prove everyone wrong and keep winning.

“The kids have been playing really hard and practicing well. Honestly, we have such a great coaching staff. We are very well prepared and we have been every week.”

It’s been quite a turn-around for Northwood, which was 2-8 overall last season. It was the third straight losing season for Northwood, which posted just five total wins in the three years.

“Northwood hasn’t won in a couple years,” Mitchell said. “We’re probably under our own radar. We knew we were going to get better but maybe we didn’t realize as quickly.”

Northwood got into the playoffs with a 21-13 victory over Irvine in the final game of the Pacific Coast League schedule.

“It was huge,” Mitchell said. “We weren’t expected to beat Irvine at Irvine. I think that showed the kids that we can beat a good team, not only athletically good, but very well coached. It was a playoff game basically. For us to win like that, we turned the corner a little bit there. I think that helped us with confidence going into that first playoff game.”

The key to Northwood’s success is simple, Mitchell said.

“When we’re on top with turnovers, we usually win,” he said. “The defense has played well. I think we’ve given up one defensive touchdown in the last two games.”

Leading the way has been junior tackle Xavier Cousar.

“He’s a force to be reckoned with,” Mitchell said. “We have a very good D-LIne that has improved.”

Two linebackers, Ayron Milgrom and Michael Sarno, have also excelled.

“They have done a great job, they’re very athletic,” Mitchell said.

“And our secondary, we’re very talented, we have quite a few athletes back there. We play a lot of man-to-man so it requires a lot of focus for those kids. Quite a few of them are young; we’ve done well.”

The offense has been led by Piazza, who has some talented receivers to throw to including seniors Seth Locke and Luke Demaio and sophomores Travis Arena and Trey Littlejohn. Six of the Northwood starters are sophomores.

“Jaden Piazza hadn’t played a lot of varsity football and he’s had a lot of big games for us offensively,” Mitchell said. “Our run game has helped us, we’ve started to run the ball a little, which is a compliment to the O-Line.”

Now the Timberwolves get ready for Laguna Beach.

“They’re very talented; we’ve been watching them all year,” Mitchell said. “They’ve been ranked high in Division 12. They are coached very well and they are a very athletic team. I think they’re a lot like us. This is going to be an interesting match-up.”

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