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Football: Ugly ending to Narbonne victory

Los Angeles Times staff writer Ben Bolch
By Ben Bolch
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Things got ugly when Venice Coach Angelo Gasca prevented his team from going through the handshake line following the Gondoliers’ 48-32 loss to Narbonne in a City Section Division I quarterfinal.

Gasca, realizing his players were upset following the defeat and some scoreboard-pointing by Gauchos running back Melvin Davis, decided it would be better if the teams didn’t interact afterward because fights might break out.

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‘I just didn’t think it was a good idea to shake at the end,’ Gasca said.

Several Venice players had to be restrained as they walked off the field and coaches from both teams exchanged verbal jabs. Narbonne coach Manuel Douglas said a Venice player shouted a racial epithet at him late in the game.

‘We should have gotten them together and quashed it,’ Douglas said of the postgame tensions.

--Ben Bolch

Varsity Times Insider
Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

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