What goes around comes around.
A week ago, San Clemente stunned Tesoro with three touchdowns in the last four minutes to steal a victory.
On Friday, San Clemente felt Tesoro's pain.
Trying to get out of last place in the South Coast League, Trabuco Hills scored twice in the fourth quarter—the last with 19 seconds left—to beat 10th-ranked San Clemente, 21-14.
J.T. Land's 19-yard run in the closing seconds gave Trabuco Hills its first lead of the night at Thalassa Stadium in San Clemente.
The victory by Trabuco technically gives it—along with the Tritons and Tesoro—a slugger's chance of making the playoffs as an at-large entry, but it's unlikely.
It created a three-way tie for third place in the South Coast League behind playoff-bound Mission Viejo and El Toro. Trabuco Hills (5-5), San Clemente (5-5) and Tesoro (7-3) all finish the season with 1-3 league records. A week after beating Tesoro, San Clemente needed a victory over Trabuco to make its case as a deserving team in the Southern Section Pac-5 playoffs.
The likely at-large playoff teams are La Puente Bishop Amat (7-2-1) and Encino Crespi (8-2) from the Serra League.
Landon Cook gave San Clemente the early lead on a 1-yard run less than two minutes into the second quarter. Cook made it 14-0 when he caught a 10-yard pass from Sam Darnold with 3:09 left in the first half.
Trabuco salvaged the half on Nathan Perry's 19-yard scoring pass to Alex Staff with five seconds left.
The Mustangs defense shut out San Clemente in the second half, and tied the score on Perry's 20-yard run on third-and-goal. That gave both teams 9:06 to determine a winner.
The Mustangs used nearly all of it when Land made the play that counted.
