SANTA ANA – The only thing that matters is making the playoffs. Doesn’t matter how pretty the record is for the first 10 games, only that a ticket is punched for the opportunity to put it all together when it matters most.
Fate, we think you’ve already met Woodbridge High.
The Warriors’ improbable playoff run continued Friday when they scored 21 points in the second quarter and held on for a 24-21 upset of top-seeded Saddleback in the CIF-SS Division 13 semifinals.
It wasn’t much of a game until it was a heck of a game. A late flourish by Saddleback made it close, but a fourth quarter field goal by Fabian Grey – a 20-yarder that made it a 10-point advantage with 4 minutes 16 seconds remaining – provided the difference.
“It means everything,” first-year Woodbridge coach Connor McBride said. “It’s a point of history. It’s a fairytale to our struggles early in the year. We were shown adversity, but my boys never give up. It’s the moral of the story this year.”
After losing its first seven games, the Warriors have won five of six. It sends Woodbridge to the championship for the first time since 1998, the year McBride was born.
The Warriors will be matched against Montebello, which defeated La Puente, 43-36, in the other Division 13 semifinal.
With its victory, Woodbridge improves to 5-8, while Saddleback finishes 10-3.
“The worst first half we played the whole year,” Saddleback coach Rob Thompson said, summing up the contest from the Roadrunners’ perspective. “Other than that, we’d have won the game. We played a terrible first half, offense stunk. Then we played like we know how to play in the second half. To have a first half like that is just terrible.”
The Roadrunners gained just 42 yards in the first half. Meanwhile, Woodbridge gained 210 in the first 24 minutes, and ran 35 offensive plays to Saddleback’s 15 non-punting plays. For the game, it evened out, with Woodbridge holding a more narrow 290-240 advantage in total yards.
The second quarter was pivotal. Woodbridge started an 13-play, 62-yard drive that culminated on the first play of the quarter with David Bosley scoring from 16 yards, the last of seven running plays on the drive.
Bosley capped the next drive, too. He ended a nine-play, 70-yard drive with a 9-yard run. The scoring run was immediately preceded by Waylon Stone’s 25-yard pass to Elijah Morris. Stone, a freshman, completed 14 of 20 passes for 142 yard with an interception. When he had to leave with leg cramps, reliever Joey Cuykendall completed two passes for 35 yards.
Stone rushed also 15 times for 53 yards. “He extends plays and he’s years above his age in maturity,” McBride said.
The third score came with 36 seconds left in the half. The Warriors drove 69 yards on 10 plays – seven of them runs. But first down completions of 12 yards to Gavin Robley and 19 to Bosley were huge before Stone faked a handoff and scored from 4 yards.
Fabian Grey added the PATs for a 21-0 lead.
The Roadrunners finally got on the board in the third quarter. And then immediately in the fourth.
Saddleback quarterback Andre Scott threw three touchdowns passes. His first TD toss was to Andrew Alvarez for four yards with 6:13 left in the third, and then a 27-yard score on the first play of the fourth quarter. After Grey’s field goal stretched Woodbridge’s lead to 24-14 with 4:16 remaining, Scott threw a long TD pass to Andrik Valenzuela that covered 46 yards, his 13th score of the season. Robert Alcaras’ point-after made it 24-21 with 3:09 left.
“In the second half, I feel like we took things for granted because we were up 21-0,” said Warriors sophomore Hunter King, who had an interception that preceded Woodbridge’s second score.
King was outstanding on a defense that did a good job of limiting Saddleback’s big plays, and he said they learned an important lesson: “We can’t get lackadaisical.”
If you doubt whether the Warriors are a team of destiny – at least to this point – consider what Bosley said afterward.
“Before the season started, we talked about the championship,” he said. “Even when we were 0-7, we were talking about getting a ring. We had one goal in mind, and this was it. I truly believe it’s because we never gave up.
“We just don’t give up.”