LA HABRA — The La Habra football team found itself living on the edge throughout its CIF-SS Division 3 opening-round playoff game against Mira Costa on Friday at La Habra High School.
La Habra scored three of its four touchdowns on fourth-down plays and converted a critical fourth down late in the game, which allowed the Highlanders to run out the clock and escape with a 27-24 victory over the Mustangs.
“I think we survived on a little bit of toughness,” La Habra coach Frank Mazzotta said. “Sometimes you just have to gut one out.”
The Highlanders (10-1), who are ranked No. 13 in Orange County and have won 10 games in a row, will take on Simi Valley, the No.1 seed in Division 3, in a quarterfinal matchup at Simi Valley.
The Pioneers escaped with a 49-47 victory in their opening round game against Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks on Friday.
La Habra, the first-place team out of the Epsilon League, made a statement on both sides of the ball in the game’s opening minutes on drives that wound up factoring into the victory.
The Highlanders capped an 80-yard drive with a 6-yard touchdown run from Kavika Martinez on the game’s opening.
On the ensuing drive, the Mustangs (5-6) drove 54 yards and faced a first-and-goal from the 4.
But instead of giving up touchdown, the Highlanders held Mira Costa to a 23-yard field goal and maintained the lead.
La Habra’s next two scores came on fourth-down plays in the second quarter.
On fourth-and-13 from the Mustangs 31, Kenneth Saucedo made a spectacular leaping catch in the end zone on a pass from D.J. Mitchell to give the Highlanders a 13-3 lead.
Then, on fourth-and-1 from the Mustangs 35, Bobby Brooks ran through a huge hole on the left side of the line and raced for a touchdown, putting La Habra ahead 20-3.
But the Mustangs, who were an at-large selection out of the Bay League, came back and scored on a 12-yard touchdown pass from Nicolas De la Cruz to Barrett Ryan just before the end of the second quarter.
Mira Costa received the second half kickoff and scored again, this time on an 8-yard scoring pass from De la Cruz to Luke Meeker, who caught the pass in the back of the end zone on a ball that was bobbled by two La Habra defenders.
The Highlanders led 20-17 late in the third and had a first-and-goal from the 1 after a 27-yard run from D.J. Mitchell.
But instead of running it from the 1, the Highlanders were penalized 5 yards and were now 6 yards from the endzone.
Then Brooks was tackled for a 4-yard loss on first down and an errant snap over Mithcell’s on second pushed the Highlanders back to the 24.
Mitchell threw an incomplete pass on third down, and on fourth-and-goal from the 24, Mitchell connected with Blake Rodgers in the endzone to give the Highlanders a 27-17 lead.
The Mustangs hen scored on a fourth-and-7 from the La Habra 41 when De la Cruz found Brady Prince in the endzone to make a 3-point game again.
With the Mustangs out of timeouts, Highlanders took over on their 20 with just under eight minutes remaining.
The Highlanders drove to their 44 but were two yards short of a first down.
Saucedo, who is also La Habra’s punter, took the long snap, but instead of punting, he completed a pass to Rogers for a first down, enabling the Highlanders to run out the clock.
“I found my guy Blake on a quick little stop route,” Saucedo said. “They were playing deep back, (worried) about his speed about his speed, and we just dumped it down to him for the first down.”
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