PHOTOS: Newport Harbor advances with 38-28 win over Sunny Hills

Newport Harbor quarterback AJ Guitron-Moore runs for a first down Friday night. The defender is Sunny Hills’ Joseph Roh. (Photos courtesy Jim McCormack, For OC Sports Zone).

As if he needed to be reminded, Coach Peter Lofthouse was handed a list of the seven teams who had beaten his Newport Harbor team during the regular season.

The reason for the list?

To show that each of those losses had been at the hands of a team that was now in the CIF playoffs, and five of those teams were either in Division 1 or 2.

Yes it had been a rough season, a 3-7 record is evidence enough.

But, Friday night, the Sailors’ semester in the School of Hard Knocks paid off when they used a collection of explosive plays to knock off Sunny Hills 38-28 in a CIF Division 6 first-round football playoff game.

The triumph by the host Sailors (4-7) earned them a trip to Santa Barbara for a second-round game Friday. Sunny Hills ended its season with a 7-4 record.

To see the slide show, please click on the first photo:

The Sailors bookended three touchdown passes from quarterback AJ Guitron-Moore around a 75-yard game-opening kickoff return by Joshiah Lamarque with an 80-yard touchdown run by Hayden Farley to secure the victory.

The Sailors twice led by 21 points but were challenged twice be the Lancers before Farley’s 80-yard run with a minute to play in the third and John Richardson’s 29-yard field goal five minutes into the fourth quarter established a lead Sunny Hills could not challenge. The Lancers’ last chance died with three minutes to play when Billy Ridley intercepted a Max Spero pass inside the 10-yard line.

Newport Harbor built its first 21-point advantage on explosive plays, Lamarque’s scoring kickoff return and Guitron-Moore passes of 24 yards to Hashton Henjun and 50 yards to Lamarque.

To that point, five minutes into the second quarter, things looked particularly bleak for Sunny Hills. That changed quickly when Nick Wilde caught a 50-yard pass from Spero for a score.

Sunny Hills held the Sailors on their next possession, forcing Newport to punt, and Wilde broke up the middle on a 54-yard run to narrow the deficit to 21-14.

Unruffled by the sudden turn of events, Guitron-Moore marched his team downfield, adding a couple of critical scrambles to his passing, hitting Henjun with a 4-yard pass for a TD 22 seconds before halftime.

Sunny Hills dominated the first 11 minutes of the third quarter, Spero scoring on a 4-yard run out of a field goal formation to trim the Sailors’ advantage to 28-21.

Newport drove again, reaching the Sunny Hills four before Guitron-Moore’s pass was deflected in the end zone by Dane Souper and intercepted by Miguel Berrios. It was his eighth interception of the year.

Two plays later, with the ball at the 21, Spero hit Dylan Lawson on a fade route and the 6-foot-3 senior shook off one tackle and outran the Sailors on a 79-yard scoring play.

When kicker Mathias Brown put the ball in the end zone on the kickoff, the Lancers believed momentum had shifted. That feeling lasted one play.

Farley, taking the ball on a zone read play, broke to the outside and zipped 80 yards for the Sailors’ last TD.

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—Courtesy Jim McCormack for OC Sports Zone