LOS ALAMITOS — Los Alamitos football coach Ray Fenton believes this year’s team seems different, and after just one quarter of play, his belief was playing out on the gridiron.
The Griffins, ranked eighth in the Orange County preseason Top 25, scored five times in the opening quarter and 10 touchdowns overall to earn a 71-0 blowout victory over Western on Friday night at Los Alamitos High.
Jerod Terry and Lenny Ibarra scored three touchdowns each, including Ibarra’s 82-yard kickoff return to start the second half.
“Our kids genuinely like each other,” Fenton said, “there’s no cliques on our football team. There’s one team and everybody’s united and together, it’s fun to be around.”
Not even a power outage could slow down the Griffins.
After Ibarra scored from the 3-yard line to make it 21-0, the stadium lights at Los Alamitos High and the scoreboard lost power. There was a 20-minute delay before play resumed.
“We have so much construction going on in our facilities and things like this happen often,” Fenton said, pointing toward a new gym being built on campus. “And no fault of our school or the admin or anything like that, it just happens when you’re digging holes and you have all that stuff going on.”
Meanwhile on the opposite sideline, Western coach Dan Davidson tried to take advantage of the delay, trying to get his players to settle down.
“I told them, this is good for us to come back in, take a deep breath and go. I felt we had a little energy from it,” Davidson said.
Los Al quarterback Alonzo Esparza played a clean game going 7 of 13 with 144 yards passing and a TD throw to Kam Tillis.
Esparza’s backup, Wyatt Nucci, also got in on the act with a 42-yard QB keeper to make the score 28-0 in the first quarter.
On the defensive side, the Griffins knocked Western quarterback Chance Thomas out of the game early. Noah Giddins took over under center for the remainder of the game.
“Chance getting hurt on that second play (of the game) hurt us a little bit,” Davidson said, “and we started chasing once he went down.”
Giddins was picked off twice, including a pick-6 by Los Alamitos’ Justice Croffie in the third quarter.
The 71-point margin of victory was the largest in Fenton’s tenure with the Griffins, surpassing the 69-0 victory over Fountain Valley in 2018.
The 71-0 score was Davidson’s worst loss of his 11-year career at Western.
Los Alamitos will look to keep things rolling when they host Narbonne next week while Western (0-1) travels to La Mirada.
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