PREP FOOTBALL : Mission Viejo Upsets No. 1 Fountain Valley

Tailback Eric Ekdahl took a handoff and spun right, but fell a yard short of a first down.

The entire Mission Viejo High School offense looked toward Coach Mike Rush on the sideline.

This was a symbolic moment. A test of will.

Mission Viejo led Fountain Valley, Orange County’s No. 1-ranked team, 14-3, with 9:44 left at Mission Viejo Thursday night. The Diablos faced fourth-and-2 inches at the Fountain Valley 16-yard line. Barring a miracle--or a furious rally led by Fountain Valley quarterback David Henigan--the Diablos would go 3-0 with the biggest upset of the county’s prep season.

The safe thing to do was to kick a field goal, which would force Fountain Valley to score two touchdowns, an extra point and a two-point conversion to win.

But Rush didn’t want to play it safe.

“In our pep assembly (Thursday) afternoon, I made a special point of singling out our linemen,” Rush said. “I said for us to win this game, they would have to be the unsung heroes. They would have to control the line of scrimmage. So he we were with fourth-and-two inches. If you can’t make it from fourth-and-two inches, you can’t call yourself an offense.”

Quarterback Troy Kopp kept it up the middle for the first down. Four plays later, he caught a four-yard halfback pass from Ekdahl for a touchdown. But that fourth-and-short play symbolized the way Mission Viejo upset Fountain Valley, 24-3, in front of 6,000.

Mission Viejo won the game at the line of scrimmage, both in making way for Kopp, Ekdahl and wingback Jim Hagashi on offense, and in neutralizing Fountain Valley’s Henigan.

“This is a great win for us,” Rush said. “(Fountain Valley) is a great football team. They’ve got so much talent. But our team did what it had to do. They controlled the game where it counts.”

“Mission Viejo won the game at the point of attack, and most teams which do that win,” Fountain Valley coach Mike Milner said. “I’m surprised they beat us this bad, though. They showed us a running game that we weren’t sure they had.”

Ekdahl led the way, scoring or accounting for all of the Diablos’ 24 points.

He caught touchdowns of 5 and 9 yards from Kopp, threw the 4-yard halfback pass to Kopp, kicked 3 extra points and kicked a 46-yard field goal. Henigan completed only 11 of 30 passes for 196 yards and one interception.

“It was one of those games for him,” Milner said.