ORANGE — The wet weather wasn’t what Villa Park coach Dusan Ancich expected on Friday night, but he had the Spartans prepared anyway.
Villa Park recovered four fumbles against Great Oak in the CIF-SS Division 4 quarterfinal game and limited its own mistakes in the slippery conditions, allowing the Spartans to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 2018 with a 30-6 victory at El Modena High.
Villa Park will host San Jacinto, which beat top-seeded Charter Oak, 29-27, in three overtimes.
“We haven’t been here in a while,” Ancich said of the semifinals. “It feels really good and we get to play at home again, so that’s exciting.”
Ancich had the Spartans practice with wet footballs during the week. As the game drew closer, however, the forecast Ancich brought up on his phone indicated the game would be mostly dry.
“We didn’t know it was going to rain the entire game,” he said. “You look at the stupid phone, it said no rain, but it rained the whole day, nonstop, so that was different.”
Because of two fumbles on pass attempts and a failed-fourth down try, the first three drives for Villa Park started at the Great Oak 24, 39 and 38-yard lines, allowing them to build an early 16-0 advantage.
The lead was 23-0 entering the third quarter when Great Oak tried to rally, scoring on a 21-yard reverse by Blake Certeza to cut it to 23-6 and then getting the ball back at the Villa Park 17 on the Spartans’ only turnover of the game.
The Wolfpack drove to the 1-yard line before sophomore quarterback Trent Lux fumbled the snap out of a shotgun formation and the Spartans recovered. Great Oak forced a three-and-out and again and quickly got back to the red zone, but was stopped on fourth down.
“They had some serious momentum and our guys played really well when it mattered,” Ancich said.
Lux dropped back to pass on the first play from scrimmage, looked to his right to throw a screen pass, but the ball slipped out of his hands and Villa Park recovered at the Great Oak 24.
Three plays later, Coy Collins scored on an 18-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 lead.
“When we came into the game, we were expecting to throw the ball,” Villa Park quarterback Matt Smith said. “The rain had a big toll on our game plan, and so Coy really stepped up and was able to get us some yards, kind of brings the defense down.”
Villa Park stopped the Wolfpack on downs on their second drive and the Spartans used 13 plays to cover 39 yards and scored on a 1-yard sneak by Smith to make it 13-0 with 2:15 left in the first. quarter.
After the Spartans recovered another ball that slipped out of Lux’s hands, Dalton Lang managed to boot a 42-yard field goal through the rain to extend the lead to 16-0 with 9:28 left in the first half.
Smith had only attempted two passes when he dropped back and hit Luvie Clark deep over the middle for a 55-yard touchdown and a 23-0 lead with 7:08 left in the half.
Villa Park nearly scored again before halftime, reaching the 2-yard line before the offense was stopped for no gain on third and fourth down.
“The ball didn’t bounce our way tonight,” Great Oak coach Herschel Ramirez said. “The kid’s played hard. I’m proud of them.”
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