Mustangs Football Aims to Improve Play

Despite his calm demeanor, there were no mistaking Mira Costa High School football coach Don Morrow’s frustrations.

"We’re struggling to find production, that’s for sure," Morrow said after his varsity team dropped its third consecutive contest after a 33-3 drubbing by Newport Harbor in a nonleague affair Thursday night in Newport Beach.

"We tried a little different wrinkle tonight with the spread, which we haven’t run much of, but we just can’t seem to get anything going," Morrow said. "We tried. It looks good in practice, but it hasn’t carried over to the games. It’s very frustrating."

Newport Harbor, which had experienced some frustrations of its own during the past few weeks, took advantage of Mira Costa’s troubles, cashing in three second-half turnovers to rout the Mustangs in a nonleague contest at Newport Harbor.

Mira Costa couldn’t contain Newport Harbor’s Titus Hasson, who ran for a game-high 109 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries and recorded two interceptions, both of which led to third quarter touchdowns for the Sailors.

Hasson, who didn’t play in the fourth quarter, also had a 47-yard scoring run called back for an illegal procedure penalty.

"I thought they definitely took it to us in the second half pretty good," Morrow said. "We didn’t make anything happen and they did a lot of good stuff. They definitely outplayed us in the second half."

Hasson ignited the spark and guided the Sailors to a 21-point run in the opening eight minutes of the third quarter, turning a 10-3 halftime lead into a blowout.

A 6-1, 190-pound senior, Hasson intercepted a pass by quarterback Chase Caprio at the Newport Harbor 31 after just 52 seconds had elapsed in the third quarter. Four plays later, he bolted up the middle of the Mira Costa defense en route to a 52-yard touchdown run and a 17-3 Newport Harbor lead with 9:31 remaining in the third.

He wasn’t finished. Less than four minutes later, Hasson picked off Mira Costa quarterback Alex Cuevas, leading to a 43-yard scoring pass from quarterback Cole Blower to wide receiver Cory Cablay for a 24-3 advantage with 5:44 remaining in the quarter.

Newport Harbor (2-3) added a 26-yard touchdown pass by Blower to Landon Gyulay less than a minute later for its final trip to the end zone.

Morrow and his staff will attempt to figure out which quarterback gives the team a better option. Again, they alternated with Caprio, a senior, who got his first start of the season, and Cuevas, a junior, who was the frontrunner at the start of the season.

But neither has been successful in leading the offense—they combined for only 80 yards passing and three interceptions against Newport Harbor—though Morrow wasn’t blaming either player for the Mustangs’ woes.

Initially, the coach thought starting Caprio might shake them from their funk, but that didn’t work either.

"We thought we’d give Chase a start tonight because he played pretty good in the Chaminade ball game," Morrow said, referring to last week’s loss. "Both have been getting reps in practice and we wanted to make sure we played both tonight. The whole offense is in a bog. It isn’t just them. All we can do is go back Monday and give them both chances, practice hard and see if we can get something going."

Mira Costa scored first before the Sailors coasted past it. The Mustangs took a 3-0 lead on a 25-yard field goal by Gavin Jerrigan with 2:24 left in the first quarter, but they never scored again.

Newport Harbor answered with an 81-yard drive in eight plays as Hasson scored on a 2-yard run with 5:39 remaining in the second quarter for a 7-3 lead.

The Sailors added another score near the end of the first half. After getting possession near midfield, Newport Harbor drove to the Mira Costa 2-yard line before settling for a 20-yard field goal by Christian Ochoa with three seconds left for a 10-3 advantage heading into intermission.

After halftime, it all fell apart for Mira Costa (1-4).

The Mustangs will need to find an answer to their problems if they expect to repeat as champs of the Bay League. They open next Friday at home against West Torrance (4-1), which hasn’t had much trouble scoring. West Torrance posted a 40-7 victory over North Torrance on Thursday night. West has scored at least 28 points in three of their four victories.