Santa Margarita edges Bellarmine in final seconds for Division I Bowl win

CARSON, Calif. – Santa Margarita (Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.) football coach Harry Welch, trying to capture the moment of his team's remarkable 42-37 State Bowl Division I Championship game victory Friday night, couldn't say enough nice things about Bellarmine (San Jose, Calif.) or its quarterback Travis McHugh.

And who could blame him?

McHugh did everything humanly possible for his team. He rushed for a game-high 140 yards and a touchdown. Passed for 165 and another score. Booted a go-ahead field goal in the third quarter. Kicked five extra points and six touchbacks. He pitched the ball perfectly on a Conner Jauch 14-yard touchdown run. Led a 74-yard touchdown march in the final two minutes, capped by Justin Taliaferro's second rushing touchdown, that appeared to be the game-winning score with 1:46 remaining.

"That (McHugh) is one heck of a quarterback and competitor," Welch said before pausing a moment to make his ultimate point. "But I'd take my guy over any player in the country."

That "guy" was super junior quarterback Johnny Stanton, who accounted for 375 of his team's 407 yards and all six touchdowns, including the game-winning 1-yard sneak with 16 seconds left, lifting the Eagles to a heart-stopping victory at the Home Depot Center.

It's one they'll be talking about around Orange County for years to come.

After Bellarmine (12-2) went ahead 37-36 on Taliaferro's second TD, Stanton led an 80-yard march by completing two passes for 49 yards and scrambling for 22 yards. Stanton, a 6-foot-3, 220-pounder, threw four touchdown passes and ran for two more.

On 4th-and-goal from the 1, Stanton and his offensive line convinced coach Harry Welch to go for the touchdown rather than kick a game-winning, chip-shot field goal.

"We've been going for it on fourth down all season," said Stanton, who completed 14 of 25 passes for 306 yards and fourt touchdowns. "There was no reason to change now."

The touchdown capped a wild fourth quarter that featured 34 points and three lead changes. Santa Margarita (13-2) won the third Bowl championship for Welch, all with different teams.

The game was as good as any played any any of the five divisions over the past six Bowl seasons. Santa Margarita finished with 407 yards and Bellarmine 401.

After a terrific first half that ended deadlocked at 21, Bellarmine tooked in control following a 24-yard field goal by McHugh and a 3-yard touchdown run by Taliaferro, the latter with 9:50 remaining to go up 30-21. But Stanton, who struggled much of the third quarter, regrouped and fired a beautiful 32-yard scoring strike to Connor O'Brien with 7:52 left, closing the gap to 30-28.

"It looked bleak there for a while," Stanton said. "That's such a great team we played. But our guys are so confident. They've been through so much. We got the big plays when we needed it most."

Santa Margarita's defense, which got a whopping 16 tackles from linebacker Sammy Gibbs, received one huge play on a night when Bellarmine moved the ball at will and controlled the clock (30:34 to 17:26).

The line pressured McHugh into his only mistake, a hurried throw that was intercepted by linebacker Matt Andersen, who returned it 17 yards to the Bellarmine 1. Stanton scored on a sneak and after his two-point conversion, Santa Margarita had its first lead of the second half, leading 36-30 with 6:52 left.

That was an eternity for Bellarmine and McHugh, who methodically moved the Bells down field keyed by an acrobatic, juggling 22-yard catch from tight end Joe Gigantino. On second-and-goal from the 1, Santa Margarita conceded Taliaferro's 1-yard TD run to give Stanton time enough to go for the game-winning score.

When Stanton got into the huddle, he told his team, "We've done this all before. There's no reason why we can't do it again."

And they did, capped off with Stanton's 1-yard dive over the top that barely got into the end zone.

"We gave it everything thing and more," Bellarmine coach Mike Janda said. "The boys put all their heart and soul into it. I couldn't be prouder of them."

Bellarmine ended the season much as it began. It dropped a 26-23 double-overtime game to De La Salle to open the season. In both games the Bells played inspired and improved their standing on a national stage. But each time they fell painfully short, leading to players dropping to their knees. Tears. And thoughts of what might have been.

They almost pulled it out despite missing their best two-way lineman, Connor Lambert, the West Catholic Athletic League's unanimous Most Valuable Lineman and three-year starter out with a broken collarbone sustained in a Central Coast Section title win two weeks earlier.

"Even thought the scoreboard doesn't say it, I still feel like we're champions," McHugh said. "This was our time. This was our season. It just came a little short."

The first half was a shootout with quarterbacks Stanton and McHugh delivering at every opportunity.

A fumble recovery by Casey Wahl led to a 14-yard touchdown run by Conner Jauch after a fantastic pitch from McHugh giving Bellarmine a 7-0 lead with 9:08 left in the first quarter.

Stanton came right back with touchdown passes of 31 yards to River Cracraft and 41 yards to Sean Modster. Cracraft finished with eight catches for 187 yards and two touchdowns.

On the throw to Modster, Stanton avoided a rush, rolled to his right and then off his front leg fired a perfect strike, giving Santa Margarita a 14-7 lead with 2:18 left in the first quarter.

McHugh wouldn't let Bellarmine go away. On a 4th-and-2, McHugh called his own number, rolled to his right, found a seam then sprinted 47 yards for a touchdown, tying it at 14 with 11:11 left in the half.

Back came Stanton, who drove his team 68 yards, finished off with his third touchdown pass, a 10-yard bullet over the middle to Cracraft. Bellarmine was switching personnel due to an injury and Stanton took a quick snap and beat the short-handed defense.

Once again, McHugh responded, The strong 6-3, 205-pound lefthander rolled right, and then found Jauch with a 40-yard bomb to tie the game again at 21 with 3:15 left in the half.

Bellarmine made its only miscue of the half and that was due to time management and use of timeouts. Jauch forced a fumble and Tim Crawley recovered it at the Santa Margarita 39. Bellarmine got to the 15 in the final 10 seconds but with no timeouts didn't have time to get its field goal unit on the field.

McHugh completed a pass but time ran out.

At halftime, Stanton was 9-for-12 for 198 yards and three scores and McHugh had rushed for 68 yards and a score and he completed 7 of 10 for 115 yards and another score. Santa Margarita had 259 first-half yards and Bellarmine 225.

Santa Margarita earned the Division I Southern California nod largely because it won the fierce Southern Section Pac-5 Division. Its two losses came in arguably the state's toughest league, the Trinity League.

"I think that was the difference," Stanton said. "We came in incredibly battle-tested. There's nothing we haven't been through."

Bellarmine won probably Northern California's toughest league, the West Catholic Athletic League, and it did so with ease, going 7-0.

"The only place we didn't win was the scoreboard," Janda said. "Not having Connor definitely hurt but as always we had other people step up. It's been a great ride, a great season. That was one heck of a game."

The scary part is that Santa Margarita returns 13 starters next season, including nine on offense. That includes Stanton, Cracraft and leading rusher Ryan Wolpin. The Eagle will likely be a Top-10 preseason team nationally.

But that's next year. This one was to savor for at least a night. And many years to come.

"We'll try to do it all again," Cracraft said. "But it's definitely going to be hard to duplicate tonight. That's the best game I've ever been a part of."

Santa Margarita 42, Bellarmine 37

Bellarmine           7  14   3  13  -  37
Santa Margarita 14   7   0  21  -  42

First quarter
B - Jauch 14 run (McHugh kick), 9:08
SM - Cracraft 31 pass from Stanton (McGrory kick), 6:52
SM - Modster 41 pass from Stanton (McGrory kick), 2:19

Second quarter
B - McHugh 40 run (McHugh kick), 11:11
SM - Cracraft 9 pass from Stanton (McGrory kick), 6:33
B - Jauch 40 pass from McHugh (McHugh kick), 3:15

Third quarter
B - FG, McHugh 24, 4:06

Fourth quarter
B - Taliaferro 3 run, 9:50
SM - O'Brien 32 pass from Stanton (kick failed), 7:52
SM - Stanton 1 run (Stanton run), 6:52
B - Taliaferro 1 run (McHugh kick), 1:40
SM - Stanton 1 run (run failed), 0:16

PASSING - B: McHugh 9-15-1-199, Jauch 0-1-0-0. SM: Stanton 14-25-0-306.
RUSHING - B: McHugh 21-140, Taliaferro 15-53, Jauch 4-21, Crawley 11-20, Whipple 1-2. Totals 52-236. SM: Stanton 20-69, Modster 2-21, Wolpin 6-11, Suchesk 1-0, Cracraft 1-0. Totals 30-101.
RECEIVING - B: Jauch 2-44, Crawley 1-28, Manigo 1-27, Vallner 2-25, Gigantino 1-22, Kenter 2-19. SM: Cracraft 8-187, O'Brien 4-45, Modster 1-41, Wilpin 1-33.
TACKLES - B: Gigantino 11, Crawley 8, Kuh 7. SM: Gibbs 16, Andersen 9, Frost 9.

First downs: Bellarmine 19, Santa Margarita 18
Total yards: Bellarmine 401, Santa Margarita 407
Fumbles/lost: Bellarmine 0-0, Santa Margarita 4/3
Penalties: Bellarmine 5-30, Santa Margarita 6-66
Time of possession: Bellarmine 30:34, Santa Margarita 17:26
Sacks/yards lost: Bellarmine 4/25, Santa Margarita 2/11