Football: Venice about to take on Oaks Christian

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The last time I covered a game at Venice High, the Gondoliers blew out Crenshaw, 53-0, in the 2003 City Section playoffs.

More entertaining than the blowout was a postgame tirade by Crenshaw Coach Robert Garrett, whose handshake exchange with Venice counterpart Angelo Gasca quickly deteriorated when Garrett said, ‘You’ve got great facilities here. Great facilities. If I had your money, I’d have great facilities too!’

I’m hoping that the lopsided result I last witnessed here isn’t repeated tonight when Oaks Christian, ranked No. 2 in the Southland by The Times, takes on undefeated Venice. An interesting side note is that Gasca was one of the instructors at the Air 7 quarterback camp over the summer attended by Oaks Christian’s Nick Montana.

‘He’s incredible,’ Gasca said of Montana. ‘He’s going to get better and better. He’s just scratching the surface of what he’s going to be.’

Maybe Gasca will wish he had been a little less effective mentor by the end of the evening. I’’ll have blog scoring updates throughout the evening.

--Ben Bolch