Susan Shelley: Why Steve Hilton is California’s best path forward

• October 3, 2026

In California, unions control the state government. Yet only about 14.9% of employed wage and salary workers are union members. A little more than half of those are public employees.

On the debate stage Wednesday night, candidate for governor Xavier Becerra campaigned directly to the 14.9% and the union leaders who control vital campaign cash and on-the-ground support.

Becerra practically punctuated his sentences with shout-outs to powerful unions. He referred to “the teacher or the firefighter” trying to buy a home. He described tax rates for “billionaires” as “lower than a teacher, a firefighter, a nurse.” He mentioned “carpenters” and “construction workers,” as well as “our peace officers and our carpenters and our teachers.” He didn’t leave out “farm workers,” who were granted collective bargaining rights in California in 1975.

It was epic pandering, with a puppet show thrown in. It’s not hard to figure out who was really speaking when Becerra declared that teachers were “underpaid compared to professionals with similar education levels.” Or when he vowed to ensure that “taxpayer dollars stay in our public schools” and never help low-income parents who desperately want to put their kids in a school that will teach them to read.

Connoisseurs of the COVID lockdowns will remember that the teachers’ unions fought fiercely to keep schools closed and Becerra, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, presided over the CDC “guidance” that served to let state and county officials enforce the unions’ wish list. Children were harmed by school closures, social distancing, mask mandates and other “guidance” that Becerra enabled.

But union power elects the state’s officeholders or, alternatively, runs a candidate against them to end their careers. Only the puppets and panderers survive.

For the roughly 85% of employed Californians who are not members of a labor union, Becerra offers high taxes and high prices to pay for whatever employs union members. The bullet train is probably the most spectacular boondoggle in the category, but government-funded housing projects and subsidized green energy projects are high on the list.

Thankfully, there’s another candidate in the race for governor, and it’s not too late for a majority of voters to snap out of the hopeless moping and vote for him.

Steve Hilton has spent years talking with people throughout California about the problems they’re facing and how the state’s actions have caused or worsened them. He’s offering voters something other than the continuation of the same failing policies.

For example, the state has discouraged oil production and harassed oil companies into closing much-needed refineries, instead of producing oil in Bakersfield and reliably refining it in California.

Today California depends on costly imported oil to a degree that would make the 1980s blink in disbelief. In 1982, California’s in-state production accounted for 61.4% of the oil sent to California refineries. In 2025, it was just 22.9%, with foreign sources of oil supplying 61.1%.

Hilton has vowed to use the power of the governor’s office to restore in-state energy production, bringing high-paying jobs in that industry back to California. Hilton’s wider plan calls for eliminating pointless regulations that have caused California to have higher electricity rates and gasoline prices than other states.

On housing, Hilton’s plan calls for enabling single-family home construction in areas where land is available but state regulations bar “sprawl.” He said during the debate that he would cap government fees on the construction of a new home at $50,000, down from the current level averaging four times that amount.

Hilton called out Becerra for giving Gov. Gavin Newsom a grade of “A” on homelessness. Hilton’s plan calls for more shelters, treatment for mental illness and substance abuse, and enforcing the law against public encampments. He would end “housing first” and “harm reduction” policies that enable addicts to stay addicted.

Hilton has said he would cut income taxes and vehicle registration fees, replacing bureaucracies like the DMV with online services, as some other states have. 

These ideas, if implemented, could make California more affordable and improve the quality of life for the state’s 39.6 million residents. Could Hilton, a first-time candidate for public office, get any of this done? None of it is easy.

But Becerra’s record as an “experienced” government executive is horrendous. On his watch as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration, the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement loosened the vetting and screening of sponsors who apply to care for unaccompanied migrant children. Among other failures, the Office of Inspector General documented a disturbing lack of sponsor safety checks in 16 percent of children’s case files. Nineteen percent of children were released to sponsors before a check was completed to see if they were on a state child abuse and neglect registry.

Becerra’s successor at HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has said Becerra reduced an 80-person staff to just six people to oversee “program integrity” – anti-fraud – for more than $2 trillion in annual HHS payments for Medicaid and Medicare.

Becerra’s HHS engaged in arguably the worst First Amendment violations in U.S. history as the Surgeon General and the CDC pressured social media companies to censor and deplatform respected medical experts and others who questioned the government’s COVID policies and narrative.

Becerra insists he knew nothing when three people conspired to drain his state campaign account of $7,500 to $10,000 per month over more than two years, a total of about $225,000, to supplement the income of his chief of staff after he moved to Washington. While prosecutors haven’t accused him of criminal wrongdoing, he repeatedly signed the campaign finance reports showing the uncommonly high “fees” for managing an account with no campaign activity.

The three individuals – Becerra’s chief of staff Sean McCluskie, Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson and lobbyist Greg Campbell – have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. They await sentencing.

If elected governor, Becerra will bring his blinders and puppet strings to the state’s highest office. Nothing will get better. 

Californians have a chance to avoid that fate. Vote for Steve Hilton.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley

​ Orange County Register 

5 things you need to know about required minimum distributions this year

• October 3, 2026

By CHRISTINE BENZ of Morningstar

Required minimum distributions are unwelcome for many high-income retirees because of the implications for their tax bills. RMDs are taxed as ordinary income and can have knock-on tax effects, leading to more tax on Social Security benefits and higher Medicare costs.

The good news is that the RMD starting age has been sliding upward. It was stuck at 70.5 through 2019, but the original Secure Act moved it to 72 in 2020. Secure 2.0 extended the starting RMD age to 73 in 2023, and the RMD age will move up to 75 starting in 2033.

Here’s what RMD-subject investors should have on their radars now.

1. RMDs will be high again this year

If you need to take an RMD for the 2026 tax year, your RMD amount was effectively “cooked” at the end of 2025. That’s because you look back to your Dec. 31 balance from the previous year to determine the RMD amount for the current year. 2025 was an excellent year for nearly every major investment type. Moreover, RMD percentages adjust upward as we age, also contributing to higher withdrawal amounts. The only time your RMD amount won’t be higher than the previous year’s will be if your portfolio has lost value.

2. But they won’t cause you to overspend

Many retirees worry that RMDs could cause them to prematurely deplete their portfolios. Required minimum distributions start comfortingly low at age 73 — dividing portfolio value by a life expectancy of 26.5 years translates into a 3.77% withdrawal when RMDs commence. But then RMDs ramp up: RMDs for 80-year-olds are close to 5%, and they’re 6% for people age 85.

That’s well above the 4% guideline, but retirees shouldn’t be fearful that RMDs will cause them to overspend for a few key reasons. The main one is that older adults can reasonably spend a higher percentage of their portfolios as they age without fear of running out: In our 2025 retirement spending research, we put safe withdrawal rates for people with 20-year time horizons (for example, 75-year-olds) at 5.3%, and our safe withdrawal rate was nearly 7% for people with 15-year time horizons (for example, 80-year-olds).

3. You can always reinvest RMDs

You don’t have to spend your RMDs. You do need to withdraw the correct amount from your tax-deferred accounts and pay taxes on those withdrawals, but you can reinvest the funds. Most RMD-subject investors are no longer working, but if you or your spouse happen to be, you can reinvest all or part of the withdrawal back into an IRA, up to the contribution limit ($8,600 in 2026 for people over 50) or your amount of earned income, whichever is lower. If you don’t have earned income, you could always plow the money into a taxable brokerage account.

4. You can use your RMDs to improve your portfolio

If you’re subject to RMDs in 2026, one strategy that should be a priority is using your withdrawals to improve your portfolio. By targeting specific holdings for withdrawals rather than pulling your RMDs pro rata from all of your positions, you can address any number of portfolio problem spots, especially overconcentration in specific asset classes, sectors, or holdings.

5. You can employ strategies to reduce RMDs

There are ways to help reduce RMDs — or at least the taxes that you’ll owe on them.

If you’re still contributing to your retirement accounts, you might consider directing new money to Roth rather than traditional tax-deferred accounts; Roth accounts don’t have RMDs. The trouble is, if you’re in the late stages of your career and in your peak earning years, it might be better to take the tax break on traditional tax-deferred contributions rather than prioritizing Roth. Ask your adviser.

If you’re retired but not yet subject to RMDs, explore strategies to reduce your future RMDs, like converting traditional IRA assets to Roth in the postretirement, pre-RMD years, when incomes are low in many households because working income has stopped but RMDs haven’t started.

If you’ve started taking RMDs, take advantage of the qualified charitable distribution, which enables you to steer a portion of your traditional tax-deferred account — up to $111,000 per person in 2026 — to a qualified charity. You won’t owe taxes on the QCD amount, the QCD funds can help satisfy your RMD obligations for that year, and those amounts will also reduce your RMD-subject balances going forward.

This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more retirement content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/retirement.

Christine Benz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and co-host of The Long View podcast. Subscribe to her free newsletter, Improving Your Finances.

Related links:

Our Best Investment Portfolio Examples for Savers and Retirees

https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/best-investment-portfolio-examples-savers-retirees

Your Retirement Countdown

https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/your-retirement-countdown-with-christine-benz

If You’re Worried About Your Bond Portfolio, You’re Missing the Point

https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/if-youre-worried-about-your-bond-portfolio-youre-missing-point

​ Orange County Register 

Larry Wilson: Italy’s fast trains arrive on time. What’s California’s excuse?

• October 3, 2026

VENICE, Italy —  For whatever Yankee, Puritan reasons, Americans’ view of Italian efficiency is that it isn’t: that the nation required a Mussolini, referenced in this space last week, for the trains to run on time.

This misconception is cleared up 80 years after the demise of Il Duce by standing on a rail platform in the middle of nowhere in the Italian peninsula in the sleepy hamlet of Caldiero and watching, and feeling, half a dozen high-speed needle-nosed locomotives whoosh by on their way from Milano to Venezia and vice-versa while you wait for your milk train to arrive to take you to little Vicenza, where, in the name of efficiency, the fast trains don’t stop.

They don’t make any big deal about it, the Italians. There are no safety barriers keeping you away from the wild danger roaring by every few minutes. There’s just a recorded announcement on the loudspeaker, warning you, in English, to stay behind the yellow line. A swift, heavy piece of efficient public transit is about to pass through your station in seconds—and just because you can’t see it yet doesn’t mean it won’t blow you back with a blast of machine-made wind.

The Italian version of high-speed rail is not as supersonic as the Japanese bullet trains, which reach regular top speeds of 200 mph. The Italian jobs are only going on the order of 160 mph. But they do so up and down and across the Italian peninsula all day and all night long, and, for a Californian — with our similar-sized territory — every time they go by, they bring shame about how miserable our transit culture has been at building anything like it.

Special tracks and rights-of-way? Nothing doing. They’re using the same rail corridors, and mostly the same rails, as the regional carriers do. So far over budget that they are breaking the taxpayer bank without having yet laid down a single mile of track? Nope. For the equivalent of a few billion dollars annually, they’re connecting new regions of the country every year.

Only made possible by Euro-socialism, taxing the little guy to within an inch of his life?

Quite the opposite. While it is true that fastish trains — up to 120 mph — first appeared in Italy in 1938, during the Fascist era, with passenger service provided here by the precursor of today’s government-run Trenitalia, since 2012 the independent company Italo has been allowed to compete with the state-owned former monopoly.

In the same rail corridors. With different pricing and timetables, so long as they don’t run into each other, the government trains and the private trains run on the same tracks. Consumers can choose which ones they want to ride at their convenience. The competition has been good for both. They even have high-speed freight trains up and down the peninsula.

Italy is, sadly for Californians’ self-esteem, a perfect comparison for our inept effort over the last two decades to get a choo-choo to go from L.A. to San Francisco — er, from Bakersfield to Merced. The country is about the same size and shape as our state, with big cities dotted into vast rural, agricultural areas. But when fast trains became our goal, the ridiculous powers that be in California, rather than using existing rail lines or even just taking over the median of Interstate 5, decided that we needed an entirely separate right-of-way that savvy farmers set high prices for the purchase of. We can’t get out of our own way. It may never happen.

One weird Italian inefficiency: We’ve boarded half a dozen trains here, and there are no conductors, and no one has ever checked our tickets. Honor system, I guess. Beats no system at all.

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.

​ Orange County Register 

Why ‘influencer’ in real estate is secondary to leadership

• October 3, 2026

Last week, I spent a glorious three days in Savannah, Georgia.

You see, “working out loud,” a phrase we discussed last week, rewarded me with the title Commercial Real Estate Influencer, or CREi for short.

You might wonder why the “i” is lowercase. As CREi founder Ken Ashley of Cushman & Wakefield explained, it’s intentional. The “I” is secondary to the greater goals of servant leadership and using that leadership to create great content for our industry.

So, what exactly is a commercial real estate influencer, and why does it matter to you as an owner or occupant of commercial real estate? Or, for that matter, as one who serves as a CRE professional?

Stick with me here as i elaborate.

See what i did there?

When most of us hear the word “influencer,” we probably envision someone with millions of followers, a carefully curated Instagram account and a company willing to pay handsomely for a mention.

But commercial real estate influence is quite different.

In our world, influence is less about how many people follow you and more about whether what you share is useful to those who do.

Think about the amount of information a commercial real estate professional encounters during the course of a normal week.

We tour buildings, negotiate leases, review purchase agreements, discuss financing, analyze market trends, talk with business owners, meet with investors and hear firsthand why companies expand, contract, relocate, buy, sell or simply stay put.

We see what works. We also see what doesn’t.

And therein lies the opportunity.

For most of my career, that experience resided largely between my ears. I might share it with a client, discuss it with a colleague or use it to solve the next assignment. Then, in 2009, my wife Carla suggested I do something different.

Work out loud.

Take what I was already doing every day and digitize it.

So, I started writing. Then came video. Social media followed. Eventually, a weekly newspaper column, speaking engagements, training sessions and a book became part of the mix.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was creating a library of experience.

Consider an owner of a manufacturing building contemplating a sale. Should he sell the building vacant or lease it first? What happens to value if interest rates move? Should he consider a sale leaseback? How does the timing of a company sale affect the real estate?

Or consider an occupant whose lease expires in 18 months. When should the search for alternatives begin? What happens if suitable buildings are scarce? Is renewing the best answer? Would purchasing make more sense?

These are questions commercial real estate practitioners encounter every day.

By sharing the answers publicly, however, one conversation can help hundreds or thousands of people who may be wrestling with the same issue.

That, to me, is influence.

It also explains why this matters to those who serve our industry.

Commercial real estate has traditionally been an apprenticeship business. We learned by sitting next to someone who had been doing it longer than we had. We listened to phone calls, rode along on tours, watched negotiations unfold and occasionally learned painful lessons when things went sideways.

Much of that still happens, and it should.

But today we possess an extraordinary ability to scale that experience.

A young practitioner in Savannah can learn from a veteran broker in Southern California. An industrial owner in Orange County can benefit from something a broker in Chicago encountered last week. A tenant facing a lease expiration can understand the process long before sitting across the table from a landlord.

The barriers to sharing knowledge have largely disappeared.

Which brings me back to that lowercase “i.”

The point isn’t the influencer.

The point is the influence.

If something I learned during 42 years in commercial real estate can help an owner avoid a mistake, an occupant ask a better question or a young professional navigate a difficult assignment, then sharing it has value.

And perhaps that is the best definition of working out loud.

Do the work. Learn from it. Share what you learned.

Then get up tomorrow and do it again.

Turns out Carla was onto something.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at abuchanan@lee-associates.com or 714.564.7104.

​ Orange County Register 

Trabuco Hills football tops Brea Olinda with boost from long scoring drive

• October 3, 2026

MISSION VIEJO — Players on one side thought it was pass interference. Players on the other side thought it wasn’t. And those in the press box? Well, it was sketchy enough to write about.

Taking advantage of a controversial pass interference penalty on fourth down, Trabuco Hills scored after time ran out in the first half and used the boost for a 28-14 victory over Brea Olinda in an Epsilon League opener Friday night.

It was a heck of a way to begin league play, especially for Brea. The Wildcats hadn’t played for three weeks — since Sept. 11 — because of a forfeit victory and a bye week.

Brea gave a good account of itself, scoring on its first possession and pulling within 21-14 in the fourth quarter.

But Trabuco Hills — one of the few Orange County teams that actually played a game last week — was sharper, maybe luckier, and certainly more opportunistic.

Luke Hoffman ran for two touchdowns, and sophomore quarterback Jackson Verplancke passed for two more to lead Trabuco, which improved to 3-2 overall, 1-0 in league.

Hoffman rushed 21 times for 123 yards, and Verplancke completed 14 of 30 passes for 136 yards and touchdowns to Nate Davis of 23 yards and Julian Downs of 26 with 1:45 remaining.

It was the pass to Davis that was so crucial.

It capped a 91-yard scoring drive that used up the quarter’s last 4:36 — and then some.

With five seconds left in the half on a fourth-and-20 situation, Verplancke had all kinds of time on the key play, eventually rolling to the right side of the field against a three-man rush before throwing the ball to the back of the end zone. There, alone, was Nate Davis. Owen Bailey’s kick made it 14-7.

“Wide open,” Davis said. “Jackson has great vision, I know he’s going to see me.”

But the drive was more than a half-ending prayer. The Mustangs began at their 9, lost four yards on the first play, and then benefited from a pass interference penalty on fourth-and-8 from the 50.

Brea wasn’t happy with the call, and for apparent good reason. The Wildcats could have had the ball at midfield with 1:15 to go. Instead of roughing up Trabuco’s defense, the Wildcats roughed the quarterback two plays later.

It was a sloppy ending to the half. The 12-play drive included six incompletions in a seven-play span before the Hail Mary.

But it didn’t matter to Trabuco. The Mustangs took what was there.

“It was horrible,” Brea coach Justin Villasenor said after his team fell to 4-2 overall, 0-1 in league. “Our guys were playing tough all night, but (Trabuco Hills) got bailed out on that drive. Running around for 10 seconds, that was tough to cover. But hats off to them, they executed and played a hell of a game.”

Trabuco Hills coach Mark Nolan thought the officiating evened out. He heaped praise on Brea for its effort despite not playing for three weeks because of circumstances beyond its control.

“Big plays on fourth down for our defense, big plays on fourth down for our offense …” Nolan said. “We had some no calls, but we did get some calls. It all evens out in the end.”

Brea Olinda’s Tristan Kim scored on the game’s first possession, a 10-yard run, as the Wildcats took a 7-0 lead. Trabuco answered immediately, with Hoffman scoring five plays later with the first of two 1-yard scores.

Brea missed a field goal attempt near the end of the first quarter on the ensuing possession. Then came the action at the end of the half.

Neither team scored in the third quarter, but another Hoffman TD made it 21-7 with 10:59 remaining.

With the game clock winding down, Brea made it 21-14 with a sweet three-play, 63-yard drive capped by a 23-yard scoring pass from Gavyn Nicholson to Kim.

Trabuco showed its ability to finish. After recovering an onside kick at its 48, Hoffman ran for 26 yards, and a couple of plays later, Verplancke passed 26 yards to Julian Downs.

Nicholson passed for 98 yards and rushed 11 tims for 108 yards in a losing effort. Brea outgained Trabuco, 319 yards to 292.

Trabuco’s defense recorded four sacks, including three by Logan Zack.

“The late touchdown at the end of the first half, and the late one at the end of the second half,” Nolan said. “That’s the game right there.”

​ Orange County Register 

OCVarsity’s football wrap-up: Stories, scores, photos from Friday’s games

• October 3, 2026

All of OCVarsity’s game stories, photos, scores and more from the Week 6 high school football games Thursday and Friday.

Look for our extensive football roundup on Saturday morning and we’ll publish Orange County’s weekly and season stat leaders early next week.

FRIDAY’S GAMES

SCORES

High school football: All of the scores from Friday’s Week 6 games

PHOTOS

Photos: Top shots from Friday’s high school football games in Week 6

GAME STORIES

Santa Margarita football fends off Mater Dei with late interception

Orange Lutheran football overwhelms Servite in Trinity League opener

St. John Bosco football starts fast in big victory over JSerra

San Clemente football roughs up Yorba Linda in Alpha League debut

Huntington Beach football pulls out victory over El Modena with late TD

Corona del Mar football shuts down Villa Park with its stout defense

Orange football knocks off El Dorado with big game from Star Thomas III

Trabuco Hills football tops Brea Olinda with boost from long scoring drive

Football: Mission Viejo, Capistrano Valley and Crean Lutheran win league battles

THURDAY’S GAMES

High school football: Scores from all of Thursday’s games, Oct. 1

Laguna Beach football overcomes injuries to beat Troy in league opener

Canyon football edges St. Margaret’s with help from Kayden Phillips

Two late TDs carry Westminster football to victory over Valencia

DID YOU SEE THIS?

Orange County football Top 25: No. 1 Santa Margarita heads into league play

Yorba Linda football forfeits four wins due to CIF-SS violations

All-female football officiating crew from OC to make CIF-SS history Thursday

Sonora football sparks turnaround season with internal competition

​ Orange County Register 

Football: Mission Viejo, Capistrano Valley and Crean Lutheran win league battles

• October 3, 2026

Mission Viejo’s football scored 28 unanswered points to finish the game for a 42-14 win over Edison on Friday night in the Alpha League at Mission Viejo High.

Jack Junker had a 40-yard touchdown run and a 95-yard kick return for a touchdown for Mission Viejo (5-1, 1-0). Carson Vandermade had three rushing touchdowns for the Diablos and Brett Burnor threw a touchdown pass to Luke Karby.

Mission Viejo’s defense had five sacks with Maddox Mataele getting two of them. Stephen Smith, Kyle Gerrish, Desmond Maxwell and Anthony Ajaltouni also added sacks.

Edison (2-4, 0-1) scored first when Sam Thomson threw a touchdown pass to Ashton Godley after a blocked punt by Maverick Hernandez. Kaden Moore recovered the ball after the blocked punt.

McKennon Pierce had an interception for Edison and had a touchdown reception to tie the game at 14 in the second quarter.

Mission Viejo will play Yorba Linda on the road Thursday, Oct. 8, in the Alpha League.

Edison will host San Juan Hills at Huntington Beach High on Friday, Oct. 9.

In another Alpha League game:

San Juan Hills 61, Los Alamitos 10: San Juan Hills had a big passing game in a rout of Los Alamitos.

Eiler King completed 24 of 29 passes for a career-high 473 yards with seven touchdowns. King has 24 touchdown passes this season with zero interceptions for San Juan Hills (5-1, 1-0).

Texas State commit Luke Frith caught eight passes for 197 yards with three touchdowns. Chayden Cadam, Max Nuernberg, Caleb Rubin and Jackson Simoneaux also had touchdown receptions.

Los Alamitos (0-6, 0-1) will host San Clemente on Friday, Oct. 9. The Griffins beat San Clemente for the CIF-SS Division 2 championship last season.

In the Bravo League:

Capistrano Valley 42, La Habra 20: Capistrano Valley scored 28 unanswered points in its league opener to start a season 6-0 for the first time since 2023.

Quarterback Talon Spencer had two rushing touchdowns and two passing touchdowns for Capo Valley (6-0, 1-0). The senior has 13 passing touchdowns and 10 rushing touchdowns this season.

Cartyr Quartucy and Sam Plosker had touchdown receptions for the Cougars. Zadyn Hall had a 90-yard kick return for a touchdown to open the second half and added a rushing touchdown.

DJ Mitchell had a rushing touchdown and threw a touchdown pass to Ethan Raphiel for La Habra (5-1, 0-1). Southern Utah commit Blake Rogers returned a kickoff for a touchdown for the Highlanders.

Crean Lutheran 21, Tustin 7: Caleb Bey Jr. had three rushing touchdowns for Crean Lutheran in a road win over Tustin.

Bey had a 10-yard touchdown run in the first half and Crean Lutheran (4-2, 1-0) led 7-0 at halftime.

The senior had two rushing touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Troy Roberts had an interception for the Saints.

Jeremiah Salvant had a long touchdown run for Tustin (4-2, 0-1).

NOTE: The Orange County football roundup will be published at its regular time Saturday morning. 

​ Orange County Register 

Huntington Beach football pulls out victory over El Modena with late TD

• October 3, 2026

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Huntington Beach quarterback Brady Edmunds always seems to find a way to make plays during crunch time for the Oilers.

Edmunds connected with Dylan Bruce for a 5-yard touchdown with 15 seconds remaining, giving the Oilers a 24-21 victory over El Modena in the Delta League opener for both teams Friday at Huntington Beach High School.

The Oilers (6-0, 1-0), ranked No. 10 in Orange County, and the No. 22 Vanguards (5-1, 0-1) both entered the contest undefeated.

Almost three minutes earlier, Aiden Sullivan’s 1-yard touchdown run capped an eight-minute, 13-play drive that gave the Vanguards a 21-17 lead.

El Modena’s assistant coaches, after seeing a replay of Bruce’s touchdown on a tablet, said the pass skipped off the turf in the end zone before Bruce cradled it.

After the officials conferred, the initial touchdown call was confirmed.

“The pass looked like it bounced,” El Modena coach Matt Mitchell said. “It is what it is. It’s a game and we’ve got to deal with it.”

Bruce said he made the catch.

“Great play by Brucey there at the end,” Huntington Beach coach Matthew Hatchette said. “If this was the NFL, we would have had instant replays. This is high school, so we get the benefit of the doubt on that call.”

Hatchette credited his players for being in the game-winning situation to begin with, and he praised Bruce for a 40-yard kickoff return that gave the Oilers possession at the 50 after El Modena’s touchdown.

The clutch finish mirrored the Oilers’ 29-25 victory over Yorba Linda on Sept. 19, when Edmunds connected with Bruce for a 26-yard touchdown in the game’s final seconds.

“I think our players are starting to understand that it’s not just go up and down the field and score touchdowns,” Hatchette said. “You have to play in a football game. You just never know what situation you are going to be in.”

On the game’s first play from scrimmage, Edmunds’ pass was intercepted — only the third interception of the season for the Ohio State commit — by Isaac Perez.

One play later, El Modena quarterback Ethan Sorenson ran for a 75-yard touchdown, giving the Vanguards a 7-0 lead 20 seconds into the contest.

On the ensuing possession, Edmunds led the Oilers on one of his signature drives, a 10-play, 69-yard march capped by his 6-yard scoring pass to Dallas Miller to tie the score.

It was 14-14 at halftime, and the score remained that way until a 25-yard field goal by Malachi Newmaster gave the Oilers a 17-14 lead early in the fourth.

The field goal capped a nine-minute, 20-play drive that started at the Huntington Beach 8.

Sullivan broke up and nearly intercepted a third-down pass, forcing the Oilers to settle for the field goal.

Sorenson rushed for 105 yards and a touchdown and threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to Jason Ramos.

“We’ve been in the Delta League, so we kind of know what to expect,” Mitchell said of the tight battle. “We played hard and played as a team tonight, and that is the most important part.”

​ Orange County Register