La Mirada football takes over, tops Norwalk

NORWALK — The La Mirada shot squad needed astir of a 4th to travel to grips with Norwalk’s explosive double-wing attack. Once the Matadores figured things out, they were astir unstoppable, romping to a 35-10 triumph astatine Excelsior High School to each but unafraid the Suburban League’s 2nd guaranteed CIF Southern Section playoff berth.

Nehuel Garcia threw for 168 yards and a touchdown, Amel White ran for 130 and a score, and Eddie Lafferre doubly recovered the extremity portion from abbreviated yardage to pb a La Mirada discourtesy that amassed 418 yards en way to the Matadores’ archetypal triumph since beating Millikan connected Sept. 10.

“It’s a bully triumph due to the fact that we haven’t won successful a month,” Matadores caput manager Mike Moschetti said. “We privation to beryllium climbing and playing our champion football. There’s an aged saying: The games you retrieve are played successful November and December. We’re going to enactment everything down us, spot if we tin get steadfast and spell and marque a run, spot if we tin triumph a authorities championship.”

La Mirada (4-4 overall, 1-1 Suburban) tin clinch a postseason berth with victories successful the last 2 weeks implicit Bellflower and Firebaugh, the league’s weakest teams. They could assertion a stock of the league rubric if Norwalk (6-3, 2-1) surprises four-time defending champion Mayfair (7-0, 2-0) adjacent week. The Lancers person a beardown likelihood of receiving an at-large playoff berth.

Norwalk ran for 278 yards down Jonathan Goodloe (132 connected 17 carries) and David Herrera (129 connected 19), but it struggled to prolong drives against a carnal La Mirada defence aft scoring connected its archetypal possession.

The Matadores scored connected 3 of their archetypal 4 drives, and that mightiness person been each 4 but for a missed handoff that Norwalk’s Adrian Martinez recovered astatine the Lancers 21. Norwalk covered the region successful 11 plays, implicit a small much than 5 minutes, with Goodloe taking it successful from the 12.

La Mirada was successful complaint the remainder of the way, methodically marching 80 yards for the tying score, connected Lafferre’s 2-yard, fourth-down tally to commencement the 2nd quarter, past striking rapidly aft forcing 2 Norwalk punts. Amel White went 53 yards a small much than midway done the quarter, and Garcia hitting Brent Burroughs for a 24-yard people 49 seconds earlier the break.

Herrera got astir of his yards connected a 61-yard third-quarter sprint that led to Nelson Vasquez’s 33-yard tract goal, and La Mirada pulled distant with 2 fourth-quarter TDs, a 1-yard Lafferre tally and a 22-yard tally by freshman Josh Gonzalez.