September 29, 2007

Griffins routed by the Lancers
Orange Lutheran dominates in a Pac-5 showdown.
By Joe Stevens, Staff writer

FULLERTON - Los Alamitos High fell down early, and against a team that often looked like a juggernaut, just couldn't recover in a nonleague showdown of previously unbeaten squads.

Orange Lutheran showed why it's considered a power in the CIF-SS Pac-5 Division by blasting Los Al 31-8 Friday night at Cal State Fullerton's Titan Stadium.

"They kicked our butt," Los Al coach John Barnes said. "We weren't ready for that physical pounding, and that's what we got.We're going to have to set our minds different because it's tough.Maybe in some ways this was kind of good for us because our league games are going to be physical, too."

Los Al (3-1) went into halftime trailing 21-0, after Lutheran's Ricky Pemasa scored on a 4-yard run with 25 seconds left in the half.

Los Al had possession with 2:18 left in the half, couldn't muster much on offense and with just a 13-yard punt, gave Lutheran possession on the Los Al 40 with 1:12 left.

With senior quarterback Blake Hyepock leading the Lancers' offense, Lutheran (5-0) scored with time to spare to end the half. Lutheran added a 35-yard field goal by James Rammelsberg with 7:52 left in the third quarter to go up 24-0.

Hyepock went 15 of 19 for 178 yards with two TDs and no interceptions.

"The defense held them to eight points, so they deserve credit," Hyepock said. "Again for us on offense, we had a lot of big plays."

Hyepock's counterpart, Los Al junior QB Clark Evans, went 19 of 33 for 163 yards with one TD and no interceptions. The lone Los Al touchdown came with 4:34 left in the third quarter, when Darryl Jenkins had an 18-yard reception. Evans added a two-point conversion run to pull the Griffins to 24-8.

But the Griffins never got closer than that in the fourth quarter as Ayles added one of his TD receptions with 9:42 to play.

Jenkins finished with eight receptions for 107 yards. But Los Al's running game struggled. Evans had 14 rushes for negative six yards.