Top-ranked Point Loma High School succumbed to a speedy Lincoln squad on Friday afternoon to end their regular season with a 25-20 loss.
The story of the game for the Pointers was penalties and mistakes. On more than one occasion the Dogs had a big gain called back because of penalties, stalling drives and giving the Hornets better field position than they deserved.
The mistakes allowed Lincoln to capitalize and score in every quarter.
“Sometimes it just doesn’t work out the way you want it to,” said senior tight end Mark Aros. “We made plays, but we made mistakes that we shouldn’t have made, obviously, that hurt us tremendously.
“Without those mistakes we are pretty much unbeatable,” he said. “Penalties killed us; 40-yard gains called back. You get rid of those and we’re set.”
Aros had some key plays in the game. His three receptions racked up 41 yards for the team. Most important, he hauled in a big catch with 3 minutes left in the game, then grabbed another a minute later.
Unfortunately for the Pointers, Aros was unable to stop the clock by getting out of bounds to give the Pointers another chance in the waning seconds.
“We called a quick pop-pass to our tight end there, but he just couldn’t get out of bounds,” said head coach Mike Hastings. “Unfortunately, we were out of time-outs and couldn’t get the ball off for another play.
“You cannot look at that and say it’s the whole football game, though, with all the big mistakes we made throughout the game,” he said.
The game was close all afternoon, with the Hornets scoring on big plays twice just when PLHS looked to be in control of the game with hard-fought offense.
Point Loma had outscored its previous opponents 168-19, a fact certainly not lost on the Lincoln staff and players as they prepared well for the previously league-unbeaten Pointers.
The bright spot for Point Loma’s offense was its usually fierce running game. The tandem of Leslie Rogers (122 yards) and Josh Wade (72 yards) carried the ball well all afternoon with great blocking by fullback Ben Ogle, who added 19 yards and a touchdown of his own.
The season has been a good one for the Dogs, despite being a year in which the offense was fairly young. Worse, the team suffered season-ending injuries to key starters early on. Yet the team rallied to show its determination through the trials of the year.
“We started off slow, but have gotten some huge wins this season and had to battle back from the layoff, with the bye from the fires, but we came back and beat La Jolla last week,” said senior kicker/punter Steven Padilla.
“Tonight we played a very fast team. They wanted it more and played their hearts out. They came out on top at the end. We just didn’t execute well enough today.”
The team knows it’s good and it will likely go far in the playoffs. Friday was not to be. The testament of a great team is it’s ability to bounce back after a tough loss.
“We just really hurt ourselves today with penalties and mental errors,” said Hastings. “They played a good game against us. We had the ball there on the 5-yard-line with 40 seconds left and just couldn’t get the ball in there.
“This is one to build on,” he said. “We still win the Western League and we end up in the playoffs and we know we have a home game in there.”
The squad did clinch the Western League title, earning them a bye in the first round of the CIF San Diego playoffs. The Pointers prepare to go head-to-head with Brawley on Friday, Nov 23 at 1 p.m. at PLHS.