Ailing John Carroll, still not fully back from a late-season health scare,  wasn’t about to go hyperbolic.

After all, Carroll has won 233 games  in  25 seasons at Oceanside.

U-T San Diego writer Don Norcross wanted to know if the Pirates’ rally from 23 points behind at the half to a 33-30 Open Division playoff victory over Eastlake was the greatest..

“No, thank God, we’ve done it before,” said Carroll, “but (it was) the best this year.  Fantastic!”

History and tradition must mean something.

TITANS COULDN’T FINISH

In boxing parlance Eastlake had the Pirates on the ropes. Sawdust was removed from their gloves after several knockdowns, and a roaring Eastlake home crowd was screaming what amounted to a standing 8 count.

It was 30-7 at halftime, but the Titans eventually surrendered and Oceanside knocked out the state’s 13^th-ranked team and the pride of San Diego’s South Bay.

The decisive blow was a benign, 19-yard field goal but it  brought an end to the semifinal barnburner in the closing seconds.

Oceanside had allowed the run-oriented Titans to amass more than 200 yards rushing in the first half,  mostly by Isaiah Strayhorn and Isiah Olave.

But Strayhorn and Olave were slowed by injuries in the second half and Oceanside quarterback Matthew Romero, who completed 19 of 34 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns, fueled a Pirates comeback.

Carroll, his voice still weak, according to Norcross, didn’t  join his team’s on-field celebration, but said, “I’m so proud of our kids right now…what an incredible comeback.”

Oceanside now meets Mission Hills, a 30-6 winner over Carroll’s club in  Week 6, in the Open championship Dec. 2 in Qualcomm Stadium.

Romero put it in context for writer Steve Brand:  “To tell you the truth, this means more than winning the Section championship last year (when the game was at Escondido High), because we get to go back to the Q.”

GRIZZLIES STOP HIGHLANDERS

Mission Hills overcame a 14-10 Helix lead to eliminate the Scots with an offense of three yards and kicked-up tufts of artificial turf.

Grizzlies coach Christ Hauser moved 210-pound linebacker Ricky Liuchan to offense and, in the spirit of Bronko Nagurski, Lichuan plowed straight  ahead.

Lichuan gained 25 yards in seven carries and scored on a three-yard run to give  the San Marcos squad a 17-14 lead in the third quarter and that touchdown was followed by a 10-yard Connor Wynn-to Scott Higgins touchdown pass for a 24-14 lead.

SWEETWATER’S LONGEST IN 27 YEARS

Before the game Sweetwater’s Brian Hay and his staff couldn’t agree on when was the last Sweetwater playoff victory, 1997 or ’99.

It was 1999, but more impressive is that the 35-0 victory over Clairemont in Division IV was the seventh in a row for the Red Devils and their longest winning streak since Gene Alim’s 1986 squad opened the season with nine wins in a row.

ANOTHER EIGHT TOPS NO. 1

Mission Bay’s upset of Madison wasn’t the only instance of the lowest bracket seed beating the highest.

No. 8 Granite Hills defeated unbeaten, No. 1 Francis Parker, 27-16,  in D-III, toppling the Lancers from the playoffs but also assuredly blowing them out of the No. 1 position in Cal-Hi Sports’ State Bowl series ratings.

Note:  All playoff results and pairings can be accessed via “Scores” on the home page and choosing “Football, By year” on the drop-down menu, then 2013.

Props to the Open Division, which delivered the games the CIF hoped for in a terrific week of San Diego Section playoffs.

But Oceanside’s stunning comeback, which ousted Eastlake, 33-30, and Mission Hills’ grinding, 24-21 win over Helix were just part of  competitive, late November action.

And at most venues there was the accompaniment of a calendar visitor,  rain and chill.

It started Thursday night with  Divisions I and II quarterfinals.

BUCCANEERS SAIL ON MATSON LINE

–Mission Bay, now 11-1 but the No. 8 seed in D-II, rallied in the last three minutes, then weathered a last-second field goal attempt to knock out Madison, the No. 1 seed and the state’s defending D-III champion.

The 21-18 victory, coming on Andre Petties-Wilson’s 12-yard touchdown  catch of Nicholas Plum’s pass with 2:50 remaining, was the 161st in coach Willie  Matson’s 24-season career as a head coach.

Matson, a Kearny graduate, was head coach at Mission Bay from 1984-85 (5-15), then served from 1987-93 at Kearny (49-32-1) and logged  logged six seasons, 1996-2001,  at Hoover (38-28-2).

His  last nine years have been Mission Bay redux (69-35-3)  and few, if any, of the coach’s 161 victories (including one San Diego Section title), were more dramatic or satisfying.

Only six weeks before the Buccaneers were on the short end of a 42-7 score against Madison in the teams’ Western League opener.

FREEMAN FREES IMPERIAL

–El Capitan  took its 10-1 record and 44-point scoring average over the mountains to the Imperial Valley and became Imperial’s 11^th straight victim, 49-42.

The Tigers’ Royce Freeman rushed for 218 yards in 36 carries and scored three touchdowns to raise his season total to 43.

Imperial, undefeated and with an average winning margin of 46-14, was behind 35-21 at halftime.

Freeman finally put the Tigers ahead for the first time with a 13-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-three with 5:52 remaining in the game.

The Tigers, the 3 seed, now take on No. 2 St. Augustine in the semifinals at Mesa College next Wednesday.

RBV RETURNS TO PROMINENCE

–It took awhile for people to start taking notice of Rancho Buena Vista, which was 4-35-1 from 2007-11.

The Longhorns, seeded fifth in D-II, showed some unexpected muscle in blowing out 4 seed Mount Miguel, an 8-2 team, 50-10, and this followed a regular-season, 38-36 win over San Pasqual, top seed in D-I.

The Vista school’s comeback began when Paul Gomes, who was 59-37-7 in nine years at Escondido, took over the program in 2012 and immediately improved the Longhorns from 0-10 to 6-6.

Gomes had left Escondido after the 2009 campaign to take a job on the staff of Rancho Santa Margarita’s Harry Welch.

Note: results and pairings for next week’s games can be accessed by going  to the  “Scores” link on the home page, then visiting the drop-down menu “by year”.