TWO-MINUTE DRILL

Costa Mesa High senior running back-linebacker Cody De La Mater had plenty of reason to be fired up for the Mustangs’ 8-0 football victory over Calvary Chapel Thursday, which clinched Costa Mesa’s first playoff appearance since 2002.

De La Mater attended Calvary Chapel until eighth grade.

“This really means a lot to me,” De La Mater said. “I used to go to Calvary Chapel, so this is kind of my second rivalry.”

He had several bruising runs against his former schoolmates, including one early in the fourth quarter when he ran over one would-be tackler, spun away from two more and ended up with a substantial 21-yard gain, Costa Mesa’s biggest of the night.

It’s runs like that that lead Coach Jeremy Osso to say that De La Mater is Costa Mesa’s version of Mike Alstott, the hard-nosed, longtime Tampa Bay Buccaneers fullback. The two players share No. 40.

 Playing for its first outright league championship in 18 years, Estancia High Coach Mike Bargas found something missing.

And it hurt the Eagles in their bid to solely claim the Orange Coast League title, losing to defending league champ Laguna Beach, 17-13, at Newport Harbor High Friday.

“I don’t think we played with a lot of energy,” said the first-year coach, whose team had to share the title with cross-town rival Costa Mesa, as both teams finished 2-1 in league play. “You certainly don’t want to finish your last [regular season] football game like this. It was sloppy.”

 Estancia junior tailback Carlos Mendez needs only 38 yards to break the school single-season rushing record of 1,477 yards. Marshall Hendricks set the mark in 1999, needing just 200 carries and 10 games. Mendez has run the ball 262 times for a Newport-Mesa-area-leading 1,440 yards and 13 touchdowns.

 Estancia (5-5), which plays host to Irvine (7-2) Friday in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Southern Division playoffs at Newport Harbor High, will get a boost when senior two-way starter Sean Ulrich returns after serving a one-game suspension for getting ejected from the 41-13 victory against Costa Mesa in the Battle for the Bell Nov. 2. Ulrich plays right tackle and defense end, where he leads the team with eight sacks.

“Once we get him back this week things will be changed,” said senior left tackle/defensive end Connor McKendry, referring to the handful of lapses the defensive line had last week defending Laguna Beach quarterback Charley Bowman, who ran for 67 yards and a touchdown and threw for 74 yards and a touchdown.

 One week after getting picked apart by Edison quarterback Nick Crissman, who has committed to attend UCLA, Newport Harbor (7-3) will face another upper-echelon athlete at the position: Dayne Crist from Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks (8-2).

Crist, who has already committed to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, threw for 2,121 yards and 16 touchdowns in the regular season, while being intercepted just once.

The six-foot-five, 225-pound senior has also rushed for 450 yards and four touchdowns. Crist completed 17 of 25 passes for 253 yards in his most productive performance this season, a 33-6 win over St. Francis on Oct. 12.

The Knights’ leading receiver, senior Jeff Dickmann, is only 5-8, but the 170-pounder has 54 receptions for 787 yards and eight touchdowns.

 Costa Mesa made it to the playoffs and is Orange Coast League co-champion despite being outscored, 47-29, in its three Orange Coast League games.

The Mustangs scored eight points in both of their league wins, against Laguna Beach and Calvary Chapel.

“It looks like eight is our lucky number,” Osso said.

 Sage Hill (8-2) ranked No. 6 in the final CIF Southern Section Northeast Division poll, will face a familiar foe when it plays host to Linfield Christian (7-3) Friday at 7:30.

The Lightning defeated Linfield Christian earlier this season, and are 2-1 all-time against the Lions.

Linfield dealt Sage Hill a 32-8 loss in the first round of the playoffs in Lightning senior quarterback Jamie McGee’s freshman season.

The Lions spent the 2006 season in the Academy League, and the team finished 1-9. This season, Linfield Christian moved back to the Big Sky League. Sage Hill defeated the Lions, 36-35, earlier this season and topped them, 37-8, last year.

 Had Estancia made a 25-yard field goal in the second quarter and an extra point in the third, the game would’ve been tied. Instead, the Eagles were playing from behind and the offense fumbled before the fourth quarter.

On the Eagles’ next possession, a holding call nullified a big pass play that would have put them inside Laguna Beach’s 40-yard line.

Estancia punted three plays later, and even though junior safety Michael Arciga returned an interception 14 yards to the Breakers’ 44 with 6 minutes, 22 seconds left, Estancia turned the ball over on downs on the 30.

It got worse. With an opportunity to get the ball back, the defense jumped offside on a fourth-and-one situation near midfield with 1:34 left, giving the Breakers a first down and the game.

“It was ours for the taking and we kind of squandered that opportunity,” Bargas said. “Now we’ve just got to pick up the pieces and show some character and play hard [this] week.”

 The Eagles will try to avoid losing for the eighth straight time in the first round. The last time the school won a playoff opener was 1980, when Estancia beat Neff, 34-21.

Estancia then lost, 42-32, to Esperanza in the quarterfinals to finish 7-5 under Coach Ed Blanton. It was the second straight year the Eagles were eliminated after the first round by Esperanza.

 Costa Mesa will face Pacifica at Bolsa Grande High Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Southern Division playoffs.

Pacifica is a member of the Garden Grove Unified School District and spent most of its existence in the Garden Grove League.

Costa Mesa has played two Garden Grove League schools this season. The Mustangs lost to Rancho Alamitos, 26-0, on Sept. 7, though the Vaqueros later forfeited the game because they used an ineligible player.

In their only other game at Bolsa Grande this season, Mesa lost to the host Matadors, 22-6, on Sept. 21.

 Friday’s win over Calvary Chapel was a sweet one for Osso, who was Mesa’s offensive coordinator the last time the Mustangs made the playoffs five years ago. That was also the last time Mesa won the league title.

The Mustangs share this year’s league crown with cross-town rival Estancia.

Osso was also the co-offensive coordinator at Corona del Mar High in 2005. And, after beating Calvary Chapel Friday, he shook hands with CdM Coach Dick Freeman and Calvary Chapel Coach Lyle Lansdell on the field.

But Freeman was probably rooting for his other former offensive coordinator, Lansdell, who coached at CdM from 1994 through 2001. The two are best friends.

It was Lansdell who helped Freeman during CdM’s 44-40 win over Estancia in the first round of last year’s CIF Southern Section Southern Division playoffs, drawing the ire of then-Estancia Coach Brian Barnes.

“We were just talking,” Osso said. “Lyle’s a great guy, a class guy, and so is Freeman. He was walking off the field, so I just went over to say ‘Hi’ to him.”

— From staff reports