El Dorado is still a mystery to me

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The coaches above the press box filed out with more than nine minutes left in the game. They had seen enough.

Yet, I’m not sure I have. El Dorado’s 42-6 victory over Anaheim Canyon (6-0, 1-1) is more than an hour in the books, and yet I am more intrigued than ever. The Golden Hawks (6-1, 2-0) are clearly the class of the Century League, even though they have a game next week against their only other challenger for the league title, El Modena.

But should this unbeaten team -- a Southern Section division champion, no less -- take its place among the others that we come to appreciate year after year -- Mater Dei, Edison, Mission Viejo. Among programs that are rock-solid and can be competitive night in and out at the highest levels in the Southland?

The only two games El Dorado has lost the past two seasons were to the one program that anyone thought had a legitimate chance to beat it, Esperanza. And so I wonder. And I asked.

Do the Golden Hawks know how good they really are?

‘The kids play hard, kids really try to work hard and get better every week,’ Coach Jeff Bailey said. ‘We have a young team because we lost a lot of seniors last year. The talent was there, they just had to jell into a group that was playing as a team. The key was a team effort.’

Didn’t exactly provide the definitive answer, did he?

Bailey gave more coach-speak about it still being early, that there are still games to play, that this is a tough division and there are ‘tremendous teams that can beat any division.’

Then I reminded him that he just beat the No. 2 team in the division by 36 points.

‘We’ll let all that ranking stuff go to the end and we’ll figure out how good we are at the end of the season,’ he said.

And so that’s where we’re left, it seems. El Dorado may be an exceptional team, may be head and shoulders above the best teams in the Southwest Division and we may still not know how good the Golden Hawks really are, even at the end of the season.

It’s any body’s guess.

- Martin Henderson

- Editor Bob: Yeah, I could’ve run another picture of a hawk, but they can’t talk. Maybe Tony Hawk can answer your question, Martin.