Hard to pick a better time to play your most complete game of the season.<\/p>\n
Carson Palmer, the first-year Santa Margarita High coach, put it best as his players surrounded him after the clock hit zero.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhenomenal effort,\u201d the former NFL quarterback and 2002 Heisman Trophy winner from USC said. \u201cRose Bowl bound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santa Margarita (9-3) will be playing at the Rose Bowl in the Southern Section Division 1 final after an end-to-end dominating effort to take down Orange Lutheran in a 31-6 steamroll Friday at Orange Coast College. <\/p>\n
Four of Santa Margarita\u2019s first five drives started in Orange Lutheran territory. It was one of those nights for the Eagles, as an offense led by senior wide receiver Trent Mosley started to click at the same time as their stellar defense. <\/p>\n
Mosley put the Eagles on top with a four-yard touchdown grab in the first quarter, the USC commit accounting for 37 of the drive\u2019s 45 yards after Jayden Crowder began the game with a 55-yard kick return. Santa Margarita sparked its second drive with a successful onside kick grounded by Hunter McKinney.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Linebacker Leki Holani was one of the leaders of a Santa Margarita defense that held Orange Lutheran scoreless until late.<\/p>\n
(Benjamin Royer \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got to be aggressive,\u201d Palmer said. \u201cAnd we definitely were aggressive tonight. On the defensive side of the ball, on the offensive side of the ball, and obviously on special teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon the Eagles were up 14-0 \u2014 after a 13-yard touchdown from sophomore running back Jaion Smith \u2014 and then 21-0, following a five-yard score from freshman tailback Adrian Petero.<\/p>\n
The Lancers (3-9) tallied only three plays of 10 or more yards in the first half. Even when quarterback Reagan Toki showed comfort, driving the Lancers 77 yards from his own 10-yard line in the third quarter, he was hit with Santa Margarita\u2019s defensive fury.<\/p>\n
Eagles senior linebacker Vai Manutai forced Toki to fumble inside the Santa Margarita 20-yard line, halting the Lancers\u2019 chances of scoring. On the previous drive, Santa Margarita senior linebacker Leki Holani dragged Toki to the ground for a 14-yard sack. On the next play, senior do-it-all linebacker Dash Fifita picked off a Toki pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came out here, we set the tone early,\u201d said Holani, a part of a defensive front guided by defensive coordinator Steve Fifita that tallied seven tackles for loss and two sacks.<\/p>\n
Mosley already had placed the Eagles up by 28 \u2014 catching a screen pass, making a defender miss with a step-back juke and turning on the burners for a 40-yard touchdown. Mosley finished with 82 yards on five catches for two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cJob\u2019s not done,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cComing and making it to the championship is a big deal for us. Excited to be here in this moment and live in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santa Margarita has a chance to win its first Southern Section title since winning the Pac-5 championship in 2011. The Eagles will match up against Corona Centennial, whom Santa Margarita defeated this season in overtime \u2014 for Palmer\u2019s first coaching victory \u2014 without Mosley.<\/p>\n
Is Year 1 earlier than Palmer was expecting potential Southern Section glory?<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it\u2019s quick,\u201d he said, \u201cbut, I mean, \u2026 our senior class is phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hard to pick a better time to play your most complete game of the season. Carson Palmer, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,39148,320,11155,5817,10444,39146,21023,39145,39150,39149,11588,10365,315,39147,1539],"class_list":["post-65398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-carson-palmer","tag-chance","tag-defense","tag-drive","tag-eagles","tag-lancers","tag-line","tag-mosley","tag-orange-lutheran","tag-rushing-touchdown","tag-sack","tag-santa-margarita","tag-time","tag-toki","tag-yard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}