San Juan Hills football knocks off San Clemente with strong defensive effort

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — A local rivalry is brewing between the San Juan Hills and San Clemente football teams.

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The schools are less than 5 miles apart and fans from both schools filled San Juan Hills’ stadium on Friday night.

The fans that withstood a 105-minute delay because of lightning in the area saw San Juan Hills shut out San Clemente, 16-0, to set up a game next week to decide the Alpha League championship.

It was the first meeting between the two teams since 2021 and it was the first time San Juan Hills (8-1, 4-0) has beaten San Clemente since 2015, which was the first game ever between the two schools.

“For our kids, it’s really big,” San Juan Hills coach Rob Frith said. “They were hearing a lot of noise all week from that team down south. It was great bulletin board material. They felt disrespected. Everyone picked San Clemente over us and I want to thank everybody because it inspired us to win this football game.”

San Clemente (7-1, 2-1) was playing without its starting quarterback, Preston Beck, who entered Friday averaging 194 passing yards per game with 12 touchdowns.

Freshman Koston James made his first varsity start for San Clemente. James had no stickers on his helmet and it was his first time suiting up for a varsity game, let alone starting one.

San Juan Hills’ defense held San Clemente to 60 yards passing and had two big interceptions.

One of the interceptions came in the final minutes of the fourth quarter when Arthur Tuverson returned an interception 52 yards for a touchdown to extend San Juan Hills’ lead to 16-0.

“They didn’t throw the ball very much but I knew towards the end of the game, the ball was going to come out,” Tuverson said. “I was just waiting for it to come to my side. I was waiting all night for an opportunity and it finally came.”

It was the first time San Clemente has been shut out since 2021. The Tritons visited the redzone once and got to the 9-yard line, but missed a potential game-tying field goal in the second quarter.

“It was an amazing performance,” Tuverson said. “We are on our backup quarterback too, we don’t have a few starters playing. At the end of the day, injuries happen so I didn’t care who they put out there. I knew we were going to beat them no matter what.”

San Juan Hills was playing without its starting quarterback, Eiler King, a transfer from San Clemente who has thrown 24 touchdowns with no interceptions this season.

Parker Armstrong, a transfer from Scripps Ranch where he was a two-year starter, led the Stallions to a 14-10 win over Yorba Linda last week and made his second start for them Friday.

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He was efficient, completing 16 of 18 passes for 160 yards and led three scoring drives that ended in field goals.

Trevor Koko made all three of his field goal attempts for San Juan Hills and two of them were career-long kicks. He made a career-long 35-yard field goal in the first quarter and beat his new career-best in the fourth when he made a 44-yard field goal.

The referees stopped the game in the first quarter because of lightning in the area. The two teams adjourned to their respective locker rooms with 6:53 remaining in the first quarter and fans from both teams convened in the gymnasium.

After a delay of an hour and 25 minutes, the teams returned to the field to resume the game.

“We had a lot of energy coming in and I feel like it kind of took it away a little bit,” Tuverson said. “I’m glad we were able to come back out and play instead of playing tomorrow.”

Chayden Cadam had an interception for San Juan Hills, which set up a field goal to give the Stallions a 9-0 lead in the third quarter. Cooper Hladek and Maxwell Porter had sacks for the Stallions and Tyce Smith had multiple tackles for a loss.

San Clemente’s defense played well and held San Juan Hills to just 1 of 9 on third downs.

The Tritons have not allowed an offensive touchdown in their last three games.

Drew Della Vedova had two sacks with a forced fumble for San Clemente. Donovan Ragland contributed to a sack and Declan Sawyers had multiple tackles for a loss.

Matthew Norman ran for 78 yards for San Clemente and Jaxson Rex added 74 yards of offense.

San Juan Hills will play Mission Viejo for the Alpha League championship next week. Mission Viejo beat Los Alamitos on Friday night and both teams are undefeated in league play.

“This team is improving every week,” Frith said. “We are going to enjoy this tonight and get to work on Mission Viejo tomorrow. Mission’s a really good team with really good coaches. I’m just happy to be playing them for a league championship. The two best teams in the league.”

Both teams were affected by the Norte fire last week and had some players displaced from their homes. San Clemente’s game against Mission Viejo was canceled due to the fire last Friday and San Juan Hills had to cancel its junior varsity game against Yorba Linda. The Stallions’ varsity team played last Thursday at Yorba Linda High prior to the fire.

Prior to the game, both teams honored the Orange County Fire Authority and posed for a photo together at midfield. Members of the OCFA were with both teams for the coin toss and there was a helicopter flyover after the national anthem.

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