Mesa fizzles in loss

COSTA MESA — In losses the previous two weeks that involved valiant second-half comebacks, one might say the Costa Mesa High football team simply ran out of time.

Friday night against visiting Ocean View High, however, a case could be made that the Mustangs ran out of inspiration.

More specifically, the 6-foot-1, 220-pound battering ram that is Seahawks’ senior tailback Timmy Robinson, almost single-handedly bludgeoned it out of them.

Robinson consistently repelled would-be tacklers to amass 140 rushing yards on 18 carries in the nonleague contest at Jim Scott Stadium.

Robinson, whose No. 11 jersey might have appeared to be bulls horns to the Mesa defense, scored three touchdowns, each time either dragging a defender into the end zone or leaving one felled in his path. For good measure, he added one two-point conversion run and scored two more two-point tries on pass receptions.

Ocean View senior quarterback Nolan Tippy also provided plenty of discouragement for the hosts, as he threw for 165 yards and a pair of touchdowns, completing 12 of 15 attempts.

Mesa (0-4), held leads of 7-0, 10-6 and 16-14, the last of which resulted from senior DeSean Grayson’s 95-yard sprint with the second-half kickoff. It was the first time the Mustangs had led after halftime this season. It also proved to be all but the last reason for the Costa Mesa supporters to make some noise.

Ocean View sophomore Garrett Hoffman was injured on Grayson’s third kickoff return for a touchdown this season. Hoffman was attended to on the field for roughly 20 minutes and was taken to a hospital on a flat-bed stretcher as a precaution after temporarily losing consciousness, according to Ocean View assistant coach Eli Atol.

As both teams huddled quietly on a knee near midfield on their respective sidelines, the tenor of the game appeared to completely change.

The ensuing conversion kick after play resumed bounced off an upright and was no good.

Almost nothing good happened the rest of the night for the Mustangs, who will seek their first win Thursday against La Quinta at Bolsa Grande High.

“I think they were a little more inspired after that kid went down,” Costa Mesa Coach Jeremy Osso said of the Seahawks (3-1), who were also dealing with the emotional aftermath of an Ocean View student being killed in a car accident on Wednesday.

But Mesa, which rallied from halftime deficits of 26-7 the last two weeks against Santiago (a 26-21 loss) and Katella (rallying to tie the game, 28-28, in regulation, before losing in overtime on a failed two-point conversion attempt), seemed to be the team more emotionally spent in the final 23 minutes.

“I don’t think they wore us down,” Osso said when asked about the reason for his team’s downward spiral. “We’ll watch the film and evaluate what happened.

“We’ve got to shore some things up. We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot in the red zone. And we had two interceptions tonight. We’ve got to protect the ball better than that.

“DeSean is fantastic,” Osso said of one of a few positives, which also included sacking Tippy five times, two of which came on safety blitzes by sophomore Noah Jayarajah. “Our kickoff return is pretty darn good. I hope people keep kicking to [Grayson].”

Seniors Nick Guzowski, Andrew Albers, and Ryan Barnett also added sacks for the Mustangs, for whom junior Jordan Walden had four receptions for 81 yards.

Junior quarterback Nathan Alvis ran for the first Mesa touchdown and junior Peter Marquez kicked a 25-yard field goal midway through the second quarter to extend the hosts’ lead to 10-6.

Ocean View 36, Costa Mesa 16

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Ocean View 0 – 14 – 8 – 14 — 36

Costa Mesa 0 – 10 – 6 – 0 — 16

SECOND QUARTER

CM – N. Alvis 5 run (P. Marquez kick), 11:57.

OV – Robinson 10 run (kick blocked), 9:50.

CM – P. Marquez 25 FG, 7:11.

OV – B. Hernandez 63 pass from Tippy (Robinson pass from Tippy), 0:28.

THIRD QUARTER

CM – Grayson 95 kickoff return (kick failed), 11:46.

OV – Robinson 3 run (Robinson pass from Tippy), 7:51.

FOURTH QUARTER

OV – Robinson 9 pass from Tippy (Robinson run), 9:04.

OV – Tippy 2 run (run failed), 1:40.

INDIVIDUAL RUSHING

OV – Robinson, 18-140, 2 TDs.

CM – Sheffner, 12-29; N. Alvis, 7-23, 1 TD.

INDIVIDUAL PASSING

OV – Tippy, 12-15-0, 165 , 2 TDs.

CM – N. Alvis, 9-23-2, 160.

INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING

OV – B. Hernandez, 2-89, 1 TD; Robinson, 2029, 1 TD.

CM – Walden, 4-81.