Mission Viejo Keeps Laguna Hills in a Fog

A dense bank of fog suddenly rolled into Mission Viejo Stadium Friday night, and the field eerily disappeared from view in a matter of seconds.

The fog arrived with less than a minute remaining in the South Coast League game between Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills and had no impact on the final score.

In truth, it could have arrived two hours earlier and it would have had no impact on the outcome of this game.

Mission Viejo, ranked No. 2 in the Orange County Sportswriters’ Assn. poll, dominated and ran its record to 7-0 with a 35-2 victory over winless (0-7) Laguna Hills.

The hapless Hawks still haven’t scored any points in the last two weeks on their own. Their only score Friday night was on a safety when Mission Viejo’s Wayne Preheim (who, incidentally, performed superbly all night on defense) snapped the ball over punter Marc Preston’s head. Preston had the presence of mind to bat the ball out of the end zone, giving Laguna Hills the two points.

The bad snap was about the only thing that went wrong for the Diablos. Coach Bill Crow was able to play his reserves for much of the second half (“It’s nice because they practice as hard as the first-teamers and deserve the chance to play,” he said.) and he saw both of his starting units overpower--make that overwhelm--Laguna Hills.

Probably the best play of the night was an 85-yard run by Diablo quarterback Brendan Murphy, who actually covered about 120 yards on the play. It was called back, however, because of a clipping penalty. Still, the Diablos had plenty of others worthy of their 1985 highlight film.

Todd Yert, a punishing 212-pound senior who looked like Earl Campbell let loose in a Pop Warner game, scored the first two Mission Viejo touchdowns with airborne dives of two and three yards. He finished with 11 carries for 61 yards.

Then linebacker Bill Hales got in on the offensive fun. Hawk running back Dave Delmonico lost control of the ball and it bounced into the arms of Hales, who barreled 43 yards for a touchdown that put the Diablos ahead, 21-0, with two minutes left before halftime.

The only remaining suspense at this point was who would be named Mission Viejo’s homecoming queen. Crow was feeling sorry for Murphy (who had the first touchdown of his career called back because of the clip), so Murphy was allowed to cap a 4-play, 62-yard drive with a 5-yard bootleg to put Mission Viejo up, 28-0, less than two minutes into the third quarter.

Four minutes after that, Murphy’s passing statistics got a boost when Bob Doran grabbed a short pass over the middle and turned it into a 60-yard scoring play. That made Murphy 6 of 8 for 147 yards on the evening.