Senior Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo has emerged as a leading contender to be Mr. Football State Player of the Year and his performance on Thursday in 76-49 win vs Los Alamitos only made his candidacy even stronger. Photo: Mark Tennis / Cal-Hi Sports.
QB Luke Fahey, committed to Ohio State, put up huge numbers with 564 yards passing but it nearly came in a loss as his team from state No. 4 Mission Viejo didn’t take the lead until it was 55-49 in the fourth quarter of a 76-49 victory on Thursday vs state No. 15 Los Alamitos.
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If you’re someone who doesn’t think that even high school football can be a week-to-week sport in which each game can take on a different vibe with different circumstances facing each team week-to-week, then we’d like to tell you about the two times that we have seen the Mission Viejo High football team play in person this season.
In the Diablos’ first game it was the coaching debut of Heisman Trophy winning head coach Carson Palmer at Santa Margarita and it was a defensive slugfest. Neither team could do much against the opposition defense and the 7-3 win by head coach Chad Johnson’s team wasn’t secured until an incomplete pass in the end zone late in the fourth quarter.
Fast forward to Thursday’s regular season finale between Mission Viejo and Los Alamitos that was played at Artesia High in Lakewood. It was, in fact, the first time that the Griffins have ever been at home at Artesia due to the size of the crowd expected on senior night at Westminster (where other home games have been held this season). Los Al was coming off of a poor performance in its first loss of the season to San Clemente. The Griffins of head coach Ray Fenton were determined to show what they could do against an even more highly regarded opponent. They did a lot, but in the end it was the Diablos who made all the plays in the final minutes of a game in which the offenses kept going back and forth down the field.
Mission Viejo’s 76-49 victory clinched the Alpha League title and gave the Diablos (9-1) a likely top five seed in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs. Their only loss is to an out-of-state team from Tennessee and their head-to-head win vs Santa Margarita is why they are No. 1 in the Orange County Register rankings and are No. 4 in the state. It seems as if the computer rankings that the CIFSS uses for its playoff pairings, however, is going to put Santa Margarita higher (which is right behind Mission in the state rankings we do at No. 5 and No. 2 for Orange County). Those pairings will be announced on Sunday.
As the Diablos and Griffins played to a 35-34 game at halftime that Los Al led, it was reminiscent of the famous 2015 CIF Southern Section D1 championship game we saw at Angels Stadium in which Centennial of Corona and St. John Bosco of Bellflower engaged in an even more dynamic matchup. It was 55-31 at halftime of that game with Centennial in front and it was a final score win of 62-52 for the Huskies.
Johnson was the offensive coordinator of that St. John Bosco team and his no-huddle offense under the controls of a quarterback like Luke Fahey make the Diablos a team that has to be considered a contender right up there with the current state No. 1 Braves for this year’s CIFSS title.
Mission Viejo head coach Chad Johnson stands with players as school alma mater song is being played after win Thursday vs Los Alamitos. Photo: Mark Tennis.
Fahey, who seemed to move toward the top of national class quarterback rankings after he enjoyed a sensational summer, had the most impressive outing of his career so far against Los Al. The Ohio State commit was not afraid to chuck it deep (especially to junior Jack Junker), showed he could make plays off-script, and set a school record for yards passing. We had 581 yards on 24 completions in 31 attempts while the Orange County Register reported 562 yards. The official total posted by the school on Friday morning had 23 of 30 for 564 yards. That will be high enough for inclusion on the all-time state list for single-game passing and it is a record for the most yards that a quarterback has had in a game played with Cal-Hi Sports in attendance. The first games we started going to were in the late 1970s.
“No, I’ve never been in a game like this,” said Fahey, who also rushed for one score to go with four TD passes. “We kind of practiced a lot of the deep throws this week, but our receivers showed up huge tonight and made some incredible catches.”
Earlier in a TV interview, Fahey said: “Our whole week we knew it was going to be four quarters. We found a way to come back.”
Then later while gathered up with the team, he said: “It took each and every one of you out there to win this game. Let’s keep going.”
Junker had a huge night, too, as he continues to pick up the pace with senior Vance Spafford (Miami commit) still out with a knee injury. The Register had him with 12 catches for 283 yards and three TDs. We had 13 for 301. His totals had not yet been posted by the school as of Friday morning. Either way, again, it’ll be a school record for yards. Like Fahey for passing yards, there are no entries for Mission Viejo above 470 yards in our state records and there are none above 280 yards for receiving.
Colin Creason was called “best kept secret in Southern California” before the start of the season by Los Al head coach Ray Fenton and guided offense to 49 points in loss on Thursday to Mission Viejo. Photo: Mark Tennis / Cal-Hi Sports.
On such a night, it didn’t go well for Fahey on Mission’s first series. He threw an interception, then Los Al went 60 yards in 11 plays for a 1-yard TD run by Tufi Lafaele (a 240-pound senior lineman). Also on that series Diablos’ standout defensive end D.J. Hill went out with what appeared to be a back injury. He didn’t return but was walking around and getting treatment later on.
Fahey hit Junker for a 49-yard deep ball on the Diablos’ second possession, which led to a 6-yard TD run by Davonte Curtis. They went for two after a penalty on the Griffins, but missed it and that led to the score being slightly different for the rest of the night as the squads traded scores. Curtis also later scored three more times and we had him with more than 100 yards rushing (17 for 111).
Los Al, led by QB Colin Creason, RB Lenny Ibarra and RB Kamden Tillis, took leads of 14-13, 21-20, 28-27 and finally 35-34 at halftime. Junior kicker Caleb Sylvia tried a 59-yard field goal for Mission Viejo on the final play of the quarter, but came up short.
The Griffins came out in the second half and continued to drive the field against the Diablos’ defense. They led 42-34 after a 17-yard TD pass from Creason to Beckham Hofland (Boise State commit), then again 49-41 after a 5-yard TD run by Ibarra. After the Diablos struck on a 81-yard bomb from Fahey to Junker, Los Al was looking to answer on a 14-play drive that extended into the fourth quarter, but it stalled on the 23-yard line and resulted in no points due to a missed field goal.
A 46-yard pass from Fahey to Junker led to a go-ahead score by the Diablos with 7:47 left in the game on a 12-yard TD run by Curtis. Leading 55-49, disaster then struck for Los Al on a kickoff that wasn’t handled properly and led to a turnover that was scooped up by the Diablos inside the 5-yard line. Curtis scored again on a 1-yard run for a 62-49 lead. Facing a situation in which more risky plays needed to be tried by the Griffins, an interception by Jordan Hicks (talented soph DB) gave Mission Viejo the ball back and the game was put away on a run by Curtis of 29 yards that saw him get stripped of the ball at the 10-yard line only to have the ball bounce right into the hands of teammate K.J. Woodbury, who ran those 10 yards into the end zone. The final TD of the night came on a high-ball leaping catch by Woodbury in the end zone a 37-yard pass from Fahey.
“Hopefully, we are going to have a bye coming up next week,” Johnson said. “We’re banged up and we’re going to really need it. We can’t continue to stick the next guy in there like a team like Bosco can do.”
After being told that Fahey had passed for more than 500 yards, Johnson said: “I know right now we don’t care about records. Our one objective is just to win the next game. The offense might win a game like tonight or it might be the defense like the first game. Football is just the ultimate team sport.”
RB Lenny Ibarra of Los Alamitos (committed to Army) has been one of the top players in Orange County all season. Photo: Mark Tennis / Cal-Hi Sports.
Luke Karby, a junior tight end, also had an impressive night for the Diablos. He didn’t get into the end zone but was tackled at the 1-yard line twice and ended with eight catches for 172 yards. His total also was posted on Friday morning by the team, and that’s also the total we had for Luke for the night.
Creason, who wears the same jersey number (3) as Fahey, said he wasn’t trying to match the Diablos’ star but just play his own game. He didn’t have the deep throws like Fahey, but was consistent in picking up third down conversions and had 193 yards (27 of 38) plus he rushed for 52 yards on eight carries. None of Los Al’s official totals had been posted when this story was written.
“I had written on my wrist band ‘Just be myself’ to help me stay focused,” he said. “There was a lot of high energy out there all night. It felt good to play like that on offense.”
Los Al’s two-man crew of running backs Lenny Ibarra and Kamden Tillis also were finding a lot of success. Ibarra rushed for three TDs and we had him at 20 carries for 143 yards. Tillis had 28 for 111 plus he had 77 yards on seven receptions. He got credit for 35 yards receiving and no catch after taking the ball up the sidelines on a lateral just before halftime.
Fenton’s team may be coming into a likely spot in the CIFSS D2 playoffs with a two-game losing streak, but the performance against a D1 team like the Diablos also could be a preview of what’s to come. In the last two years, a team that did not win the Alpha League title (Mission Viejo in 2024 in D1-AA and Edison of Huntington Beach last season) has won a CIF state title. San Clemente (5-4) is playing Edison (5-4) on Friday in the final Alpha League game of the season.
Mission Viejo’s coaches, on the other hand, know their defense will have to play much better to perhaps get a win against any of the other teams that it will face in the CIFSS D1 playoffs. After all, one of the prerequisites for a quarterback who throws for 500 yards or more usually is because the defense isn’t getting stops and the offense has to keep scoring.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle.
