by Paul Teetor
The Redondo Union football team continued its late season surge with an upset, revenge win over Torrance in Friday’s opening round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 5 playoffs.
The Sea Hawks, who lost to Torrance in the first game of the Pioneer League schedule back on October 3, got a rare rematch in the first round of the playoffs.
The difference between the first time these two teams met and Friday night’s 21-14 Redondo win: the availability of a healthy Bo Ausmus for the Sea Hawks.
The senior star receiver/running back did a little bit of everything in the rematch Friday night. He scored a rushing touchdown and caught the game-winning touchdown from quarterback Cole Leinart to lead the way to a win at Zamperini Stadium over the top-seeded Tartars, who came into the game with an impressive 10-1 record. Ausmus even intercepted a pass.
“He makes a difference,” Redondo Union coach Keith Ellison said of Ausmus. “Two touchdowns, a huge run when we needed it, huge touchdown catch in the back of the end zone …He’s the difference between this game and the first game.”
In that first game, Ausmus, who was coming off of a foot injury, saw limited snaps. Torrance trailed by eight but scored the final 18 points for a 34-24 win. Ellison said he felt that Torrance “took that first game from us.”
But after their early season slump the Sea Hawks have been red hot. During their four-game winning streak to end the regular season, Ausmus scored nine touchdowns.
Torrance got off to another quick start Friday night. They needed only two plays to score on their first possession of the game when Gibson Turner’s short screen pass to Elias Emerson turned into a 57-yard touchdown run.
Torrance had a great opportunity to add to its lead on its next possession, when they moved the ball down to the Redondo 16. However, Ausmus stepped inside a screen pass route, reading it perfectly, intercepted the pass and returned the ball to midfield.
The Sea Hawks, who are now 7-4 on the season after starting 0-3, converted the turnover on a 21-yard touchdown pass from Leinart to Tyler Harper to tie the game at 7-7.
Then, with three minutes left in the first half, Ausmus took a handoff, broke through the line of scrimmage and sprinted 66 yards for the go-ahead touchdown and a 14-7 halftime lead.
In the third quarter Torrance got back to its ground game with running back Vaughn Reinert carrying the football. Reinert ran the ball seven times on the drive and the Tartars ended it with a 16-yard touchdown pass from Turner to Emerson, tying the game at 14-14.
On their next possession, the Sea Hawks set up on their own 36. Leinart hit Harper for a 52-yard pass down to the Torrance 12. Two plays later, Leinart, scrambling to his left, found Ausmus in the back of the end zone for what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown.
“Nothing was open at first, but every day in practice, we work on, if nothing’s open the first time, get open and we trust each other, so I knew where he was going to be,” Leinart said. “I put it there and he caught it.”
Torrance had one final chance to tie the score. The Tartars, starting on their own 24, moved the ball down to the Sea Hawks’ 25. Then the offense was hit with a holding penalty followed by an unsportsmanlike penalty that moved the ball back to the 45 and gave the offense a 2nd-and-28 to overcome. Facing a fourth-down and 24, Torrance couldn’t convert.
The Sea Hawk star reveled in the revenge win.
“I was very limited against them the first time,” Ausmus said. “This is a team that came to our homefield and beat us and it was great to see them again in the playoffs. The first game was a bitter loss. We hate losing to them, just like they hate losing to us. But I didn’t want to see anybody else in the first round, I just wanted Torrance so we could get revenge.”
Mission accomplished.
Redondo Union will host St. Paul next Friday night in the quarterfinals.
Costa’s wild loss
Meanwhile, Mira Costa traveled an hour and a half and played its heart out in one of the wildest games of its once-promising season – but the Chino Hills special teams play proved to be too much to handle in a 42-35 first round Division three playoff loss.
Chino Hills return specialist Azari Warren had not one but two 90-yard kick off returns for touchdowns to power the win, but Costa kept fighting from beginning to end.
The Mustang’s star quarterback, Liam Meeker, got them off to a flying start by launching a 59-yard touchdown pass to Kingston Davies, and just like that Costa was up 7-0.
But Chino Hills fought back with 21 straight points to pull ahead by 21-7.
Then, just before the first half ended, Barrett Ryan gave new hope to the Mustang faithful who made the long drive to Chino Hills with a 55-yard pick-six, intercepting the ball and running it all the way back for a touchdown that cut the halftime deficit to 21-14.
Warren opened the second half with his first 90-yard return for a touchdown – 92 yards, to be exact – to pump up the Chino Hills lead to 28-14.
And again, the Mustangs fought back behind Meeker. He connected with Davies again, this time for a 74-yard touchdown that cut the Chino Hills lead down to 28-21.
The two teams traded touchdowns once more to make it 35-28 Chino Hills. Then Azari Warren delivered the back-breaker: another 90-yard kickoff return for a TD that made it 42-28.
Davies scored once more for Costa, this time on an 8-yard run, but time ran out for the Mustangs and the final score was 42-35 to close out one of the most exciting, thrilling games of the season.
Costa finished 7-4 on the season and 2-3 in the Bay League, good for fourth place.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER
