INLAND FIELDHOUSE

The Orange Lutheran-Centennial Week 11 varsity football game on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, was dominated by the Lancers in the first quarter. Then Gary Bryant showed up, tied the game with an electric punt return touchdown and before you knew it the game was over.

For Orange Lutheran, the final game of QB Ryan Hilinski’s career was stopped short after he sustained a big hit in the second quarter. It took him several minutes to get to his feet, and he walked slowly to the bench where he sat the rest of the game.

Orange Lutheran head coach J.P. Presley, “We started picking up injuries and getting banged up, we had a lot of young guys out there; no excuses, they should be prepared and this is good prep work for where were heading, but hat’s off to Centennial. We knew what we were getting in to here. Top level team, and we’re banged up doing different things with different guys at different positions (but) no excuses. This is football. (Ryan Hilinski) gets taken out and he’s a big piece of our offense, he’s a gunslinger, he’s our captain and our leader. We’ve been preparing for days like this since the Spring and it’s unfortunate when guys go down. Ryan has a had a great run, a great high school career, and my hat’s off to all my seniors who bought into what I was doing. I thought defensively we could do a little bit more and take some chances. We were holding them and to come out in the second half with a shutout – that’s an accomplishment for what we’re trying to do. Offensively, we just struggled. They’re defense brought the pressure and knew where we were at.”

For Centennial, scoring 35 points in the second quarter is nice but getting flagged 19 times for 170 yards and running several drives into the ground isn’t going to get the job done going forward.

Centennial head coach Matt Logan said, “The good news is we got to play four quarters tonight. The bad news is we didn’t play very well. Lots of penalties. Lots of mistakes, and we’ve got to play better. I’m disappointed in our execution on offense. Special teams and our defense were amazing as they’ve been all year. Our defense has kept us in it and played great, and other than that first drive we shut them out. We didn’t practice very well and we didn’t play very well so hopefully we’ll do some learning. I hope Ryan (Hilinski) is alright. He’s a helluva player and is going to have a helluva college career.”

BOX SCORE
Orange Lutheran – 7 – 0 – 0 – 0 — 7
Centennial – 0 – 35 – 0 – 0 — 35
First quarter
O – Loya 49 pass from Hilinski (Bloom kick), 10:29
Second quarter
C – Smith 50 pass from Retzlaff (Velasco kick), 8:43
C – Bryant 50 punt return (Velasco kick), 7:09
C – Bryant 42 pass from Mikaele (Velasco kick), 5:45
C – Bryant 45 pass from Freedland (Velasco kick), 2:07
C – Retzlaff 27 pass from Mikaele (Velasco kick), 0:34
Third quarter
No scoring
Fourth quarter
No scoring
Individual statistics
Rushing – Orange Lutheran: Amasio 4-24, Laguisan 7-21, Laban 4-19, Hilinksi 3-(minus-13), Fierro 4-(minus-20); Centennial: Kinslow 17-90, Mikaele 3-29, Clark 2-21, Freedland 5-18, Fulton 1-0, R.Retzlaff 1-0.
Passing – Orange Lutheran: Hilinski 11-18-0-130, 6-20-0-41, Gonzalez 1-6-0-3; Centennial: Mikaele 7-14-1-118, Freedland 7-17-0-117, R.Retzlaff 1-1-0-50, Fulton 1-2-0-1, J.Retzlaff 0-1-0-0.
Receiving – Orange Lutheran: Loya 10-136, Tax 4-31, Mojaro 3-5, Amasio 1-2; Centennial: Bryant 3-91, R.Retzlaff 5-72, Smith 4-80, Cuevas 1-27, Alvarez 1-12, Simpson 1-1, Esclovon 1-0.
Penalties</strong – Orange Lutheran 10-90; Centennial 19-170.