Taft Stops Durr, Not Canoga Park

Taft High coach Tom Stevenson figured the way to stop Canoga Park tailback Kenny Durr from showboating was to keep him out of the end zone.

The Toreadors accomplished that Friday night at Taft, but they forgot about a couple other Canoga players, and it cost them a 13-9 defeat to the Hunters.

Canoga improved to 5-1 and 2-0 in the Sunset League with the victory. Taft fell to 3-3 and 0-2.

Durr, who has a penchant for taunting his opponents en route to a touchdown, was bottled up all night by the Toreadors. The Hunter running back, who has now beaten all three of his former high schools--Taft, El Camino and Cleveland--was held to 68 yards on 16 carries, and no touchdowns.

Taft, in fact, outplayed Canoga offensively, limiting the Hunters to 138 yards. But the Toreadors were hurt on two big plays--Danny Arrias’ 45-yard touchdown pass from Tony Cantrell in the first period and Junior Delgado’s 64-yard punt return in the fourth quarter.

Taft broke a 7-7 tie by nailing Mike Conover for a safety with 5:54 left in the third period. The score remained 9-7 until Delgado broke free on his 64-yard punt return with 10:12 left in the game.

From there, it was up to the Canoga defense, which stopped a potential game-winning Taft drive at the Hunters’ 23 with 2:38 left to play.

“Quite frankly, they played better football offensively than we did tonight,” Canoga Coach Ed McCarthy said. “But we played when it counted. The kids are fighters. They don’t give up.”

Other than the two big plays, Taft controlled the tempo, running off 62 plays to Canoga’s 37 and ringing up 52 more yards than the Hunters.