Football: Mission Viejo 55, Tesoro 32

An observation from Friday night's football action? Misson Viejo can wear a target on its back pretty well.

In its first weekend as the No. 1 team in Orange County, the Diablos played from behind for more than a half, but when they got ahead, they left sixth-ranked Tesoro in the dust.

Mission Viejo scored 28 points in the third quarter and pulled out a 55-32 South Coast League victory over the home team.

Mission Viejo (8-0, 2-0) will play host to Trabuco Hills (4-4, 0-2) next week before closing the season against third-ranked El Toro (9-0, 3-0).

The Diablos aren't just highly ranked in Orange Cointy; they are No. 4 in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, and No. 25 in the nation by ESPN.

Tesoro (6-2, 1-2), which finished third in the South Coast League last year before making a semifinal run in the Southern Section Pac-5 playoffs, looks like that's the best it will do this season. The Titans have a league game next week against San Clemente (4-4, 0-2) before finishing the season with a nonleague game against Chula Vista from the San Diego Section.

Alex Suchesk scored three touchdowns for Mission Viejo, which lived off of big plays. Suchesk scored on runs of 34, 56 and 80 yards. He finished with 17 carries for 203 yards.

The Diablos trailed heading into the third quarter, 21-14, but were ignited on the first play when Max Redfield collected a long pass from Ian Fieber and scored from 80 yards.

Tesoro retook the lead, 24-21, on Zach Schottenfeld 29-yard field goal midway through the quarter, but 12 seconds later Suchesk scored on his 80-yard run to give Mission a 28-24 lead at the 5:11 mark.

In the final 70 seconds of the quarter, Ryan Pesak returned an interception 12 yards for a score, and Andrew Schuurs caught a 20-yard pass from Fieber after the Diablos recovered a fumble.

The two turnovers killed the Titans, who had already lost to El Toro but was hoping to create a situation that could lead to a three-way tie for first place.

Nate Tago, who scored on runs of 5 and 4 yards in the first half, added a 9-yarder with 32 seconds remaining. Sandwiched around Tago's TD were scoring runs of 2 and 9 yards by Mission Viejo's Daniel Marx and Marcus Collins, respectively.

Tago, coming off a 320-yard performance against El Toro, netted 9 yards against Mission. Matt Adam, who passed for 166 yards—including a 53-yarder to Forrest Dunivin for a 14-7 lead—also rushed for 58 yards.

Fieber passed for 199 yards