When offense shines, defense is secondary

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I wish I had seen Servite’s 54-43 victory over San Clemente in the first round of the Southern Section Pac-5 playoffs. I kind of had a feeling that San Clemente had been peaking at season’s end.

That was a season-high 43 scored by the Tritons, whose Brad Curtis passed for five touchdowns, arguably against the best defense San Clemente has faced. According to the Southern Section Record Book, his 37 pass completions (out of 54 attempts) is third all-time.

In the end, Servite tailback D.J. Shoemate proved a little too much, with a hand in six touchdowns (including a reception and a pass).

It sounded like a great game, along the lines of a few other classics: Santa Margarita’s 55-42 victory over Tustin in the 1997 Division V title championship, the one in which Carson Palmer faced off against Deshaun Foster, and Loyola’s 49-42 back-and-forth victory over Esperanza for the Division I title two seasons ago in which lightly-regarded Henry Burge passed for a career-high 386 yards and six touchdowns. Another game that fit that description was Mater Dei’s epic 51-37 victory over Corona Centennial earlier this season, the one that pitted Matt Barkley against Ryan Bass.

When two teams live up to expectations, leave everything on the field, and put a lot of points on the board to boot, I’m not sure there’s a better fan experience.

Certainly, championships are most often won by defense, but the ones that give way to offense usually have everyone smiling on the way home.

Except for one night a couple of years ago. Redlands East Valley was playing Colton in the last game of the season to determine the Citrus Belt League title. Colton, which had Allen Bradford at the time, had been in control most of the game but REV outscored the Yellowjackets in the fourth quarter, 20-8. The game dragged on on and on and on ...

Past the first deadline. Then it bordered on the drop-dead point of no return, not-gonna-get-in-the-paper deadline.

And as Lance Evbuomwan, the big tight end for REV, hauled in a pass from the backup quarterback with one second left, and then caught the two-point conversion for a 41-40 victory, I was trying frantically to get a story to Editor Bob. When I finally did, your erstwhile editor said something that implied I should have got the story to him sooner somehow.

That was the night that I cussed out Editor Bob, and amazingly got the last word.

Not everyone went home with a smile that night. But most everyone else did.

-- Martin Henderson

-- Editor Bob: And with employee reviews coming up, not everyone will go home with a smile.

-- Image from www.wwhsalumni.org