Eagles ring bell with shutout

NEWPORT BEACH — The bell will stay with the Estancia High football team for another year.

The Eagles’ defense made sure of that on Friday night at Newport Harbor High.

Mike Morley ran for a touchdown and threw another to Eddie Tomasek, and Estancia forced four turnovers to shut out Costa Mesa, 17-0, and get an early leg up in the Orange Coast League standings.

It’s the third consecutive Battle for the Bell win for the Eagles.

After the game, Estancia (6-2, 1-0 in league) was awarded the perpetual bell trophy and brought it over to its home sideline, which was packed all game and had fans chanting nonstop for the Eagles’ homecoming contest.

“It couldn’t get better,” Eagles Coach Brian Barnes said. “The community is so supportive. The Battle for the Bell win isn’t just for the team, it’s for the school and the city of Costa Mesa. Our fans are just the best fans around. They support us, and winning builds everything.”

Both teams started slowly, and Costa Mesa (2-6, 0-1) actually had the first momentum-changing play. That came with 9:05 left in the first quarter, when the Mustangs’ Josh Lowe intercepted a pass and returned it 20 yards to his own 40.

But the Eagles used two Mustangs penalties and one of two quarterback sacks by junior defensive end Connor McKendry to force Costa Mesa into a fourth-and-39 situation.

“We had to stop [Costa Mesa back D.J.] Lepper, because every other game he’s been running wild,” McKendry said. “In this game, I think we did a pretty good job of shutting him down.”

But Costa Mesa settled down and drove 59 yards on its next possession. On second-and-five from the Estancia 11, however, the Mustangs fumbled and Estancia’s Dion Domurat recovered.

“It was just the fact that we didn’t finish,” Costa Mesa Coach and Estancia High graduate Jeremy Osso said. “That’s what hurt. We had other opportunities to take control too, and we didn’t do it. Hats off to [the Eagles]; they did a good job tonight.”

Mesa had another sustained drive early in the second quarter, this time taking the ball to the Eagles five-yard line.

But on fourth-and-two, Lepper was halted for no gain after Tim Morley stopped his progress.

“What we were doing was working, but we just didn’t finish,” Osso said. “When we needed to dig down deep and get something, we just didn’t do it.”

Estancia proceeded to go on a 95-yard drive just before halftime, capped when Mike Morley dived in from a yard out.

Diego Carrasco added the conversion kick to give the Eagles a 7-0 lead heading into halftime.

“Going in at halftime tied would have been bad,” McKendry said. “That score, it pumped us up more. Everybody just played their [behinds] off. Our whole O-line, we just dominated them. It was great. It was fun.”

Mike Morley had thrown just three passes in the first half, none of them completions. But that changed in the second half after Matt Redding’s interception at the Costa Mesa 28 with 5:21 left in the third quarter.

Redding — the Eagles’ leading receiver — had no catches in the game. That only served to open the door for Tomasek, who caught a 17-yard touchdown pass on a slant route to up Estancia’s lead to 14-0.

Tomasek caught all of Mike Morley’s four completions.

“In the first half, the coaches saw that they were manning up on Matt,” Tomasek said. “That left the back corner open. They told me to run there, I ran there to get the ball and caught it. It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world. I live for this.”

The Eagles stuck mostly to the run after that.

Rafael Alejandre’s 49-yard interception return with 11:15 left in the fourth set the table for Carrasco to boot a 22-yard field goal to put Estancia up three scores.

Alejandre, who had 143 rushing yards, credited the Eagles’ defensive front four of McKendry, Domurat, Junior Contreras and Sean Ulrich.

“The defensive line was doing great,” Alejandre said.