Corona del Mar football again wins Battle of the Bay, adding to ‘decade of dominance’
Dan O’Shea came on board as the defensive coordinator for the Corona del Mar High football team in 2011.
In his first two years on staff, he saw the Sea Kings lose the Battle of the Bay football game to Newport Harbor.
“I wake up every day and I think about those kids in 2011 and 2012,” O’Shea said. “We lost focus in the fourth quarter twice.”
Since then, the Sea Kings have started a remarkable sea change against their Back Bay rivals.
And when O’Shea became the head coach in 2015, Corona del Mar just kept rolling along.
Senior quarterback David Rasor threw four touchdown passes Friday night at Davidson Field as CdM rallied for a 28-14 Sunset League win over Newport Harbor. It’s the Sea Kings’ 10th straight Battle of the Bay victory.
“We call it a decade of dominance,” O’Shea said. “That’s what we’re aspiring to be.”
Corona del Mar (7-2, 3-1 in league) stayed in a second-place tie with Edison, which blanked Fountain Valley 50-0 in another rivalry game Friday night. The Sea Kings will host the Chargers on Friday, with second place in league likely on the line.
Even if CdM loses that game, it has clinched a top-three spot in league and an automatic berth into the CIF Southern Section playoffs. Newport Harbor (5-4, 1-3) has to hope for an at-large berth.
With the Sailors double-teaming CdM senior receiver Cooper Hoch much of the night, Rasor showed he had more in his arsenal. His four touchdown passes went to four different receivers — Russell Weir, Zach Giuliano, Mason Kubichek and Hoch.
The UC Davis-bound Rasor, showing his toughness, also had 14 carries for 90 yards as CdM’s primary running back.
“He’s a dog,” Kubichek said. “There’s nothing else to say.”
Rasor said he was motivated by last year’s Battle of the Bay game, in which he threw three interceptions in the first half.
“I just wanted to come out and have fun with my friends, put up a lot of points and lead this team,” Rasor said. “[The Sailors] are a physical team ... but I think I base my quarterback play on just being tough, and having my O-line buy into me — knowing that I’m going to get up from every hit and push them to do good. I’m going to represent the toughness that we need to win as a team. I think tonight, I ran hard and our O-line blocked like crazy.
“They gave me the holes and we hit it well. It was a good night.”
Newport Harbor opened up a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter as senior quarterback Colton Joseph threw two touchdown passes to senior receiver Kashton Henjum. The second was particularly impressive, a 21-yard strike on fourth-and-10 where Henjum beat double coverage.
Newport Harbor could have had an even bigger lead, but CdM’s Aiden Walsh blocked a short field-goal attempt.
“We couldn’t get out of our own way,” O’Shea said. “We were buried down there, and we couldn’t flip the field — couldn’t get a first down. Offensively, we were so damn good, it was just hard to get going early.”
The Sea Kings started to rally with a big play. Rasor hit Weir over the middle on a 50-yard touchdown pass with 7:38 left in the second quarter. Then, just before halftime, he found sophomore tight end Zach Giuliano for a six-yard score.
Kubichek got open for a 30-yard touchdown pass from Rasor midway through the third quarter, giving the Sea Kings their first lead.
“Once we figured it out and our offense put a drive together, we knew that once we got momentum it was going to be game [over],” Kubichek said. “We always struggle a little bit against Harbor at the beginning, but we figure it out and we get the ‘dub’ at the end.”
CdM blanked the Sailors in the second half for the second straight year. Senior cornerback Oliver Ayala, a three-year starter, proved up to the challenge of covering the talented Henjum, batting away a number of passes.
Kaulin Post added a fourth-quarter interception for the winners.
The Sea Kings, the designated hosts, were fortunate to get their final score. On second-and-goal at the Newport Harbor 6-yard line, the snap went over Rasor’s head.
But he calmly picked the ball back up and lofted a pass to Hoch in the right side of the end zone for a 28-14 lead with 5:55 remaining.
“I couldn’t believe that,” Sailors coach Peter Lofthouse said, adding that the Sea Kings did a good job controlling time of possession in the second half. “That was just dumbfounding. When the snap went over his head, I really thought to myself, ‘Here we go, this is the opportunity I was hoping for.’ I thought one of our kids was coming off the edge and we would be in a position to get that ball, and unfortunately we didn’t.”
Newport Harbor closes out league play at Huntington Beach on Friday night; the Oilers are also 1-3 in league.
“We’re familiar with being in this position,” said Lofthouse, who led the Sailors to the Division 6 title last year as an at-large team. “We’ll hopefully be an at-large team in a division, make the playoffs and go from there.”
Unfortunately for Newport Harbor, Corona del Mar also found itself in a very familiar position as the clock hit zeroes on Friday night.
O’Shea gave credit to his offensive coordinator Kevin Hettig and defensive coordinator Brian Pearsall, who have 12 and 10 years in the program, respectively.
“There is not a better offensive and defensive coordinator in the country than our two guys,” he said. “We don’t win this game on size, speed or whatever. We win with football intellect and football IQ.
“This game is about owning the city of Newport Beach,” O’Shea added. “We want to own every inch of it.”
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Sunset League
Corona del Mar 28, Newport Harbor 14
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Newport Harbor 7 – 7 – 0 – 0 – 14
Corona del Mar 0 – 14 – 7 – 7 – 28
FIRST QUARTER
NH – Henjum 27 pass from Joseph (Richardson kick), 10:00.
SECOND QUARTER
NH – Henjum 21 pass from Joseph (Richardson kick), 10:52.
CdM – Weir 50 pass from Rasor (Pene kick), 7:38.
CdM – Giuliano 6 pass from Rasor (Pene kick), 0:26.
THIRD QUARTER
CdM – Kubichek 30 pass from Rasor (Pene kick), 3:42.
FOURTH QUARTER
CdM – Hoch 6 pass from Rasor (Pene kick), 5:55.
INDIVIDUAL RUSHING
NH – Irving, 13-62.
CdM – Rasor, 14-90.
INDIVIDUAL PASSING
NH – Joseph, 17-34-1, 210, 2 TDs.
CdM – Rasor, 18-25-0, 189, 4 TDs.
INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING
NH – Henjum, 6-92, 2 TDs.
CdM – Kubichek, 4-60, 1 TD; Weir, 3-60, 1 TD.
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