San Clemente Cuts Off Aliso Niguel at the Pass

Aliso Niguel Coach Joe Wood wasn’t quick to credit San Clemente’s defense for shutting down the Wolverines’ running game Friday night. Instead he pointed to his team’s inability to pass as a key factor in the 21-14 nonleague loss at Aliso Niguel.

The Tritons held Iman Nikzad, the county’s eighth-leading rusher coming into the game, to 41 yards rushing in 15 carries. San Clemente didn’t put much effort into stopping Aliso Niguel quarterback Chris Bernard, who threw for only 26 yards, completing four of 11 passes.

Aliso Niguel (2-1) drove 65 yards in 10 plays on the opening drive and took a 7-0 lead on Nikzad’s four-yard run, but didn’t get a first down the remainder of the half.

“I think we stopped ourselves,” Wood said. “We drove it down there and put it in the end zone, then we got away from it. What happened is we thought we could spread it out and run and they weren’t going to honor us in our passing game, so they just stayed up in there and stopped our run.”

San Clemente (2-1) scored all its points in the second quarter to take a 21-7 halftime lead.

On San Clemente’s first possession, Aliso Niguel stopped the Tritons at midfield, but a clipping penalty during the punt gave the Tritons the ball back at the Wolverine 28. On the first play of the second quarter, James Allen scored on a one-yard run to tie the score, 7-7.

After San Clemente took a 14-7 lead on Allen’s six-yard touchdown run with 4 minutes 38 seconds remaining in the half, the Tritons’ special teams scored when J.D. Kolb blocked a punt that was recovered by Sean O’Mara in the end zone.

“I told our offensive coordinator, ‘Let’s get back to what we were doing,’ ” and we tried to do that, but then we got the punt blocked,” Wood said. “We were not able to be that effective with our passing game, so it’s tough to come back.”

The Wolverines got close midway through the fourth quarter after a muffed punt by Chris Roesti that was recovered by Aliso Niguel at the Triton 38. Six plays later, Devon Sutton dove for the pylon and scored on a nine-yard run to cut the lead to 21-14.

San Clemente got the ball back with 5:13 remaining and was able to run out the clock behind Allen, who rushed for 87 yards in 23 carries.