Foothill Upsets Villa Park With Fourth-Quarter Rally

TUSTIN — After three quarters of tight, defensive football, Foothill and Villa Park high schools scored 32 fourth-quarter points Friday night, and Foothill came away with a 25-17 upset of the playoff-bound Spartans.

Foothill (2-8, 1-4 in league), which forced six Villa Park turnovers, scored the game’s final 18 points, rallying from a 17-7 fourth-quarter deficit.

With 7 minutes 40 seconds to play, Villa Park took a 17-7 lead on Brad Creagan’s fumble recovery in the end zone. But the Knights took the ensuing kickoff and drove 76 yards in six plays for a touchdown.

Quarterback Tim Chaix started the drive with a 33-yard completion to tight end Mike Urbanski, and tailback Sean Saunders finished it with a six-yard touchdown run, his second of the game.

The play cut Villa Park’s lead to 17-13, and Foothill shaved that to 17-15 when Chaix scored a two-point conversion on a bootleg with 5:45 to play.

After Villa Park (6-4, 3-2) mishandled a Foothill onside kick, Chaix took the Knights the last 42 yards for the game-winning score. Urbanski caught a 26-yard touchdown pass from Chaix.

“We’ve had the tools all along,” Foothill Coach Martin McWhinney said, “it was just a matter of putting it all together tonight. We finally put four quarters together.”