They’re Always Rough and Ready : The special teams players--the Wedge busters and kickoff experts--may not get the attention, but when they enter a game, they make the most of the seconds they play. : The Smurfs: Little Guys Who Play Very Big Roles

They’re scoring more touchdowns at Marina High School these days, and that is good news for the guys who have come to be known as the Smurf Patrol.

In the last four games, the Vikings have scored an average of 34.7 points, including 19 touchdowns. More touchdowns have meant more kickoffs. And the more kickoffs there are in a game, the more chances the members of the Smurf Patrol have to get their uniforms dirty.

The Smurf Patrol is the name that has been given to a group of diminutive defensive backs that have formed the heart of the Vikings’ kickoff unit.

If it weren’t for their work on the specialty teams, these Smurfs would be watching from the sidelines, awaiting the time when Marina builds a big enough lead to warrant sending in the reserves.

But the fact that their playing time is limited is one of the reasons the Smurfs have been such a smash.

“We don’t get in that much,” said Brian Bosse, who at 5-foot-10, 170 pounds, is one of your more sizeable Smurfs. “So we go all-out.”

The Smurf Patrol lineup, with a warning from Marina Coach Dave Thompson (“Those heights and weights may be a little inflated”): Mike Cross (5-7, 145), Nick Stratton (5-8, 155), Mark Guedea (5-10, 155), Russ Kibota (5-8, 162), Dean Loghry (5-6, 140), Brian Bosse (5-10, 170), Billy Dunn (5-10, 170) and Bob Dunn (5-9, 175).

Running back/defensive end Scott Frangente (5-9, 185) used to be a Smurf. “Not any more,” he laughed. “I was too big.”

Bill Craft (6-0, 190), an All-Orange County defensive back for the Vikings last season, is the safety on the kickoff team, on hand should the Smurfs fail in their patrol. And Sean Barbosa, a starting defensive back, is the “hit man” of the unit. It’s his job to follow the ball, whereas the Smurfs have specific lanes to patrol. “He’s Papa Smurf, because he’s the hit man,” Kibota explained.

Barbosa doesn’t seem to mind being looked up to by the Smurfs. “They’re fun,” he said. “We joke around with them a lot, but they do the job. When you see them out there, you don’t think they can hurt anybody. But they put some good licks on people.”

The Smurfs will tell you that opposing teams tend to chuckle when they see the Marina kickoff team take the field. “Westminster was laughing at us on the sidelines,” Loghry said. “They were saying, ‘Who are these little guys?’ ”

But the Smurf Patrol usually has the last laugh. According to statistics kept by the Marina coaching staff, the Vikings have given up an average of only 13.5 yards per kickoff return. The longest return against the Smurfs this season is 38 yards.

More than anything else, the Smurf Patrol is symbolic of Thompson’s philosophy of “finding a place for good kids to play.” Thompson, like many coaches, views the special teams as an opportunity for players who might otherwise never have to wash their uniforms a chance to make a contribution.

“That’s a good place for a kid to get on the field,” Thompson said. “If he’s a junior, he’ll get a lot of hits and gain a lot of confidence. If he’s a senior, he’ll at least feel like he’s contributed to the team.”

Said Villa Park Coach Pat Mahoney: “You like to reward kids who work hard and have a good attitude and are excited about football. If they’re excited, they may do a better job than a starter who thinks he’s too good to play special teams.

“A lot of players see it as a chance to get in a good hit or tackle.”

This is not to suggest that coaches fail to recognize the importance of special teams in prep football. At Newport Harbor, the special teams player of the week one week is one of the team co-captains the next. “We try to tell our kids that there’s more yardage (at stake) on one special teams plays than on two or three offensive plays,” Sailor Coach Mike Giddings said.

“We start with the idea of, ‘Let’s be sound here. Let’s not lose 70 yards in one play.’ And that’s what you’re talking about on a blocked punt.”

Numbers such as those have convinced El Modena Coach Bob Lester that there is too much at stake to risk putting his Smurfs on the specialty teams.

“Those who do will get in a lot of trouble for doing so,” Lester said. “Everything is so sophisticated now. If you’re going to reward a kid for coming to practice every day, you better give him a 10-dollar bill instead of rewarding him by playing him on the special teams.”

Russ Kibota is the Marina Smurf responsible for taking on the wedge, the wall of blockers on the opposing team’s kickoff return unit. He takes pride in that. “I get thumped on the most, because I go up the wedge,” Kibota said. “I get my share of it every game.”

The art of busting the wedge has changed a little at the prep level. The days of rolling body blocks designed to up-end two or three wedge blockers are gone. They went out with the advent of a 15-yard penalty for blocking below the waist.

Giddings, himself a former wedge-buster, yearns for the old days.

“The (new) high school rules have kind of taken some of the fun out of that,” he said. “Where else could you get a 40-yard free shot at somebody? I used to love that. But then, I used to love to surf those big waves in Hawaii, too.”

Interesting that Giddings should draw a parallel between breaking up the wedge and dropping in on a the face of a 20-foot wave on the North Shore of Oahu. Both require a certain disregard for one’s limbs.

Special teams aren’t called “suicide squads” for nothing.

Said Tustin Coach Marijon Ancich: “It’s kind of an honor to be a wedge breaker, even if you might have started the season at 6-foot and ended up 5-9 by the end of the year.”