Football: Sailors stun Barons

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Tiebreakers to determine which Sunset League football teams make the playoffs haven’t gone Newport Harbor High’s way in the past.

Go back six years, when the Sailors won a share of the league title, it failed to make the postseason because of a random tiebreaker. A sportswriter picked bottles out of a bucket to determine which three teams in the league qualified for the playoffs. None of the three bottles had Newport Harbor’s name on it.

The Sailors almost found their playoff fate decided by another tiebreaker on Friday. Somehow they avoided it in the waning seconds against Fountain Valley.

On the field is where the Sailors decided whether they continued playing past the regular season. They rammed their way into the CIF Southern Section West Valley Division playoffs.

Newport Harbor had 34 seconds to come from behind to beat Fountain Valley, and it used every second. The Sailors clinched the league’s No. 3 automatic berth into the postseason on fullback Trevor Shaw’s game-winning one-yard touchdown run, lifting the Sailors to a 34-33 win as time expired at Huntington Beach High.

The Sailors will make their 23rd playoff appearance in 29 years under legendary coach Jeff Brinkley. They had never secured a postseason berth in the way the Sailors did on Friday.

“Wild, wild, wild,” Brinkley said of the finish. “You’re happy. You’re sad. You’re happy. You’re sad.”

At the end, Brinkley was all smiles. His team finished third in league at 3-2. The school’s athletic director, Mike Zimmerman, stopped by to check on Brinkley, asking the 62-year-old, “How’s your heart?”

Brinkley’s heart was racing. He had just watched his offense cover 66 yards in six plays. There were only 34 seconds to pull off one of the greatest comebacks in Brinkley’s coaching career. Cole Norris, who completed 13 of 20 passes for 215 yards and two touchdowns, led the way.

On the game-winning drive, Norris rushed for nine yards, then hit wide receiver Keaton Cablay for a 22-yard pass. With the ball on the opponent’s 35-yard line, Norris spiked the ball to stop the clock with 19 seconds. The next play featured Norris scrambling to his left and hooking up with Riley Gaddis on a 34-yard pass, leaving him one yard short of the end zone.

The offense hurried up to the line, where Norris spiked the ball again with less than 10 seconds. From the one, Newport Harbor went to its jumbo package, three running backs in the backfield. Cole Kinder lined up on the left, Shaw in the middle, and Gaddis on the right. The ball went to Shaw, who recorded a one-yard touchdown at the end of the first half. The touchdown to end the game proved to be the biggest one.

Shaw plowed his way into the end zone. The seconds ate away, and with no time left on the clock, the referees signaled a touchdown. The Sailors ended Fountain Valley’s hopes, as well as those of Huntington Beach of forcing a three-way tie for third place in league. The Oilers finished fourth in league at 2-3, and the Barons in fifth at 1-4.

“It’s just the extraordinary spirit of this team,” Shaw said. “We’re all brothers, and because of that, in scenarios like that, we can come together for the win.”

The Sailors had to rally twice in the fourth quarter.

They trailed, 33-28, after they allowed Fountain Valley’s Moe Falealii to burn the defense for a 59-yard touchdown catch with 42 seconds to go.

Falealii gave the Barons the lead for the second time in the fourth quarter. The previous time, he escaped a tackle 11 yards behind the line of scrimmage, and rushed for a 15-yard touchdown with 4:10 left.

Twelve seconds later, Gaddis put Newport Harbor back in front. He fielded the kickoff at the 28, and then bolted down the Newport Harbor sideline, before cutting inside the 20-yard line to complete a 72-yard return for a touchdown.

It wasn’t the first time Gaddis, who finished with five catches for 126 yards, beat the Barons. In the third quarter, he caught a short pass and turned it up field, toward the sideline, outrunning defenders for a 70-yard touchdown. The touchdown pass was Norris’ 28th of the season, breaking the Newport Harbor single-season record of 27 set by Norris last year.

Norris and the Sailors can add more touchdowns because they’re playoff bound.

“We don’t want to get into the [coin] flips,” Brinkley said, referring to the tiebreaker process had Newport Harbor lost. “We wanted to finish this thing out here. The kids just battled. It was just unbelievable that they came back again. They could’ve easily rolled over and said, ‘That’s the game’ [after we fell behind, 33-28].

“It was one of those [battles] everybody knew what was on the line, and that’s how they played.”

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Newport Harbor 34, Fountain Valley 33

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Newport 7 – 7 – 7 – 13 — 34

Fountain Valley 0 – 6 – 6 – 21 — 33

FIRST QUARTER

NH – Cablay 13 pass from Norris (Schultz kick), 3:59.

SECOND QUARTER

FV – Hernandez 4 pass from Swift (kick failed), 6:36.

NH – Shaw 1 run (Schultz kick), :47.

THIRD QUARTER

FV – Swift 12 (run failed), 4:23.

NH – Gaddis 70 pass from Norris (Schultz kick), 4:12.

FOURTH QUARTER

FV – Swift 17 run (Filipek kick), 9:16.

FV – Falealii 15 run (Swift run), 4:10.

NH – Gaddis 72 kickoff return (Schultz kick), 3:58.

FV – Falealii 59 pass from Swift (run failed), :42.

NH – Shaw 1 run (no kick), :00.

INDIVIDUAL RUSHING

NH – Kinder, 18-54.

FV – Swift, 24-115, 2 TDs.

INDIVIDUAL PASSING

NH – Norris, 13-20-0, 215, 2 TDs.

FV – Swift, 5-8-1, 96, 2 TDs.

INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING

NH – Gaddis, 5-126, 1 TD.

FV – Falealii, 1-59, 1 TD.