TWO-MINUTE DRILL

Estancia High football coach Brian Barnes got some fatherly advice during Friday’s Battle for the Bell against Costa Mesa at Newport Harbor High.

His father, longtime Los Alamitos Coach John Barnes, was in attendance after the elder Barnes’ Griffins had defeated Marina on Thursday.

John Barnes sat in the press box, discussing strategy with the Estancia offensive and defensive coordinators.

“To be honest, I did have a little help from my dad upstairs,” Brian Barnes said after the Eagles’ 17-0 win.

He came back to stand out defensively in Estancia’s Battle for the Bell win, recording two quarterback sacks and tackling a Costa Mesa running back for a four-yard loss.

“He saw what big-time football is about, and he’s a big-time player for us,” Barnes said.

But the previous four times, it had been Costa Mesa that recorded the shutout win.

It was the second shutout win of the year for the Eagles.

But CdM Coach Dick Freeman said Hughes’ percentage should have been much better.

“He threw the ball away three times to avoid a sack and we dropped two passes that should have been caught,” Freeman said.

So, perhaps, he was speaking from experience when he predicted before the snap midway through the second quarter that White, who called the Chargers’ plays in their 37-6 Sunset League triumph over the Sailors Friday at Huntington Beach High, would send a receiver deep over the middle.

True to his prediction, Hunter White, found a seam in the Sailors’ coverage on a post pattern and quarterback Nick Crissman delivered a strike for a 43-yard touchdown.

However, he made an interception and returned the opening kickoff 48 yards to energize an already-loud Estancia crowd.

Osso said they were supposed to arrive before the season began, but there was a delay, due to a backlog of orders.

The Lightning played well on both sides of the ball and scored both offensively and defensively. And things were made easier by the fact that Animo did not punt the entire game.

The Aztecs converted on only three of seven fourth-down attempts, which left the Lightning with good field position all night.