MISSION VIEJO — The Capistrano Valley football team is enjoying some early success in its newly renovated stadium.
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Capo Valley is now 2-0 in its new digs after beating Great Oak 35-27 on Friday.
The Cougars (3-0) christened their new stadium with a 33-23 win over Downey last week.
Capo Valley’s new stadium features a new entrance, team rooms, lighting and sound systems, a new video scoreboard, two team rooms and a 1,500 square-foot weight room. The $21.5 million project replaced the old stadium that had been standing since the school opened in 1977.
“What an atmosphere, right? It’s a lot different than it used to be,” Capo Valley coach Sean Curtis said. “It’s great to be back home and have that home campus feel again. We are hoping to make it the best play to come play high school football in Orange County.”
“It was in the works for decades and it came down to a vote at a district meeting and we took our whole team down there. It was another four years before it got started. The city of Mission Viejo was huge and having their support got it off the ground.”
The Cougars played at Saddleback College last season while construction of their new stadium took place.
Capo Valley quarterback Talon Spencer had one of the best games of his career. The Cal commit for baseball completed 22 of 32 passes for 225 yards with three touchdowns and ran for 177 yards. ‘
The 177 rushing yards are a career-high for Spencer and the 225 yards passing are the most for Spencer since Week 0 of last season.
“My offensive line was getting a great push, the receivers were doing their jobs and I was trying to make plays happen,” Spencer said. “It feels amazing to be on our home field in this beautiful new stadium. It’s been a good senior year so far and I hope we can keep it rolling.”
Great Oak (2-1) got a good passing game from its quarterback as well. Trent Lux threw for 300 yards with three touchdowns, but had a pair of costly turnovers in the first half.
Capo Valley’s defense has been among the best in the Southern Section in creating turnovers. The Cougars have seven interceptions through three games and forced three turnovers on Friday.
“We go against them every day in practice and we get frustrated with our own offense because we see how good they are,” Curtis said of his defense. “They do a great job of moving around and getting our guys in the right spot.”
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The Wolfpack had the ball with a chance to tie the game in the final minute. Great Oak had the ball on its own 20-yard line with 37 seconds left and drove to Capo Valley’s 35-yard line. Lux threw a deep pass into the end zone on the final play of the game but it was deflected by multiple Capo Valley defenders.
Great Oak opened the game with a 13-play, 73-yard scoring drive that lasted over half of the first quarter. Kannon Terracciano ran for an 8-yard touchdown to give the Wolfpack an early 7-0 lead.
Late in the first quarter, Capo Valley linebacker Brady Hassett intercepted a pass deep into Great Oak’s territory which led to an 8-yard touchdown pass from Spencer to Colin Hooper to tie the game.
After forcing a turnover on downs, Capo Valley went on a five-play, 83-yard scoring drive capped by a 17-yard touchdown pass from Spencer to Cartyr Quartucy to give the Cougars a 14-7 lead late in the second.
Great Oak answered with a quick 71-yard scoring drive on three plays that ended with a 57-yard touchdown pass from Lux to Matthew Crowson.
Zadyn Hall ran for a 6-yard touchdown at the end of the second quarter to give the Cougars a 21-14 lead at halftime.
Spencer led the Cougars on a six-play 65-yard scoring drive to open the second half and he ran for 58 yards on the drive. Hall ran for his second touchdown to extend Capo Valley’s lead to 14.
Lux threw touchdown passes to Crowson and Terracciano in the second half. Crowson caught five passes for 106 yards with two touchdowns.
Spencer threw a touchdown pass to Hassett in the fourth quarter. Quartucy led the Cougars in receiving with 106 yards on 10 catches.
Jolan Gonzalez had an interception for the Cougars and Brody Saavedra recovered a fumble on a muffed punt by Great Oak. Hassett, Kingston Morris and Chris Fields each had sacks for the Cougars.
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