ORANGE — The Villa Park football team took the field for its season-opening game against Carson on Saturday with a lineup that included 17 starters who had never started a varsity game.
Yes, Villa Park has some kinks to work out going forward, but the young Spartans gained maturity, especially in the second half, and came away with a 26-22 victory over the Colts at El Modena High School.
The Spartans (1-0), who were No. 25 in the county in the preseason rankings, came from behind twice in the second half, including a 68-yard scoring drive that was capped by Vinny La Gatta’s 1-yard touchdown on a quarterback sneak with 42 seconds left that proved to be the game winner.
“He’s been in our program four years and loves Villa Park,” Spartans coach Dusan Ancich said. “This is his first time starting and when he faced pressure, he got better and better. He wanted it.”
The Colts took a 16-11 third-quarter lead on Craig Walker’s 50-yard touchdown run.
The Spartans took the lead back in the third on La Gatta’s 28-yard touchdown pass to Luvie Clark that came on a third-and-20 from the Colts 28.
Carson came back with a 42-yard touchdown pass from Chris Fields to D.J. Panton to take a 22-19 lead.
Villa Park then took over with 7 minutes, 53 seconds left and drove down the Colts 1, setting up La Gatta’s quarterback sneak.
La Gatta finished with 102 yards and a touchdown on 13 attempts, with most of the passes coming in the fourth quarter.
“We were struggling to pick up like a lot of the defensive linemen,” La Gatta said. “But then after we got that down, we started throwing the ball a little more.”
Villa Park received the opening kickoff but its first drive didn’t end well.
The Spartans lined up to punt from their 49 but when the punter was unable to handle a low snap from center, Carson wound up with possession on the Spartans 25.
But on third down, the Spartans got the ball right back when Parker Johns recovered a fumble on the 25.
Then, on the second play from scrimmage after the fumble recovery, running back Coy Collins found a hole and ran down the right sideline for a 73-yard touchdown.
Collins also ran in the 2-point conversion, giving Villa Park an 8-0 lead.
Carson scored on the ensuing possession on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Chris Fields to Craig Walker.
After the teams traded field goals in the second quarter, the Spartans went into halftime with an 11-10 lead.
“I’m just going to keep pushing every day in practice because Week-0 is not league,” La Gatta said. “We’ve got a hard league and we’re expecting good stuff out of our team.”