Portola tight end Jacob Lee celebrates with teammate Kamran Jahromi after scoring a late first half touchdown for the Bulldogs. (Photos: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone.)
A season that started with its share of struggles has suddenly turned into one of joy and satisfaction for Portola High School’s football team.
The Bulldogs, who won just one game in non-league play, notched their second consecutive Pacific Hills League win defeating Woodbridge 13-10 at Irvine Stadium Friday night to clinch the league title and a CIF playoff berth.
Portola Coach Peter Abe, after hearing that University defeated Beckman 21-14, explained that the Bulldogs have already defeated University and Woodbridge. So that means that Portola (3-6, 2-0) would win the outright title with a win over Beckman (2-7, 0-2) next week.
If Beckman were to defeat Portola, “no matter who wins between Woodbridge and Uni, we beat both of them, so it would still be a tie but we own the tie-breaker,” Abe said. “My understanding is that we’re solo league champs.”
To see the slide show click on the first photo:
Photo: OC Sports Zone, Tim Burt
Woodbridge (4-5, 1-1) and University (3-6, 1-1) wrap up league play next week against each other and both those squads playoff hopes appear to still be alive as two teams from the league are guaranteed berths.
Abe reminded his players, after a 1-6 start, to keep battling, and they did just that Friday.
“The biggest thing we had to do was to keep the guys positive, understanding that number one, win, lose or draw, just get better every single week and if guys actually buy into the program and get better …. I’ve always had confidence in our guys,” he said. “I would like to think that even though we had the losses, I want to say we were hanging in with a lot of those guys, but just didn’t have weapons or didn’t execute enough plays, so you have to learn those hard lessons.”
There were many clutch performances for Portola but third-string place-kicker Zain Alzobiede, who normally plays wide receiver and linebacker, was the hero for the Bulldogs.
Alzobiede kicked a 22-yard field goal with 27 seconds left, then the Bulldogs iced the win with an interception by Micah Talapatra in the end zone on Woodbridge’s final play of the game.
“I played on JV last season. Both our starting kicker and our back-up kicker (had injuries) so I just went in and was nervous, I went in and drilled all my field goals and the game-winning one,” said Alzobiede, who also made a 24-yard field goal in the second quarter. “I’ve never had a game-winning field goal. I said, this is the time, ‘I got to make that field goal,’ and I did.”
Abe indicated faith in Alzobiedie.
“In our scenario it’s kind of like next man up,” said Abe. “He’s been competing every week and we always told him, ‘it’s going to come down to one play one day so just practice and stay patient’ and he went out there with the kick of his life. It was fun to watch.”
Both teams traded turnovers in the final five minutes.
Following an interception by Kamran Jahromi, Potola got the ball near midfield and drove to the Woodbridge 5-yard line. But Woodbridge sacked quarterback Rocky Palacio for a big loss at the 25 on third down. Out of field goal range, that set up a desperation fourth and long play. But Woodbridge’s Feiamma Armstrong intercepted the ball in the end zone to end the threat.
However, Portola got the ball right back when Zephyr Suri intercepted a pass giving the Bulldogs possession at the Woodbridge 15-yard line.
Portola could not punch the ball into the end zone so on fourth and goal, the Bulldogs went for the game-winner. Portola got a delay of game penalty, moving the ball back five yards, but it wasn’t a problem for Alzobiedie.
Woodbridge took a 7-0 lead on an 11-yard TD pass from Edward Ma to Daniel Goodrich in the first quarter. Alzobiede’s first FG cut the lead to 7-3.
Then, Portola went ahead when Palacio connected with Jacob Lee on a 12-yard TD pass late in the first half. Woodbridge tied the game on a 25-yard field goal by Goodrich early in the fourth quarter.
Palacio passsed for 165 yards with two interceptions while Ma passed for 172 yards and two interceptions. Davis Gurski had eight catches for 72 yards and Marcus Sung rushed for 88 yards on 19 carries for Portola.
Armstrong rushed for 90 yards on 17 carries and Goodrich hauled in three catches for 59 yards for Woodbridge.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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