City 2-A Championship : Roosevelt Gives the Boot to Bell and Guerra, 21-18

Waldir Guerra stood politely on the sideline after the City 2-A championship game Thursday night at East Los Angeles College, taking questions from reporters and looking to one of his coaches, Bill Albano, for someone to lean on.

Four hours earlier, Guerra had kicked seven goals for the Bell High School soccer team, making his three-year total 114, a national high school record.

Guerra wasn’t thinking or talking much about soccer after Roosevelt High School’s 21-18 upset win over Bell, giving the Rough Riders their second consecutive 2-A title. He instead looked at Albano, his soccer coach, and talked about the one swing of the right leg that just wasn’t right.

“I don’t really know what happened,” Guerra said of a 35-yard field-goal attempt in the third quarter that would have put Bell ahead, 13-7, but instead sailed wide right. The miss didn’t appear to be of paramount importance at the time, but that wasn’t the case later.

Behind the consistent running of slotback Ramon Galindo and quarterback Danny Hernandez, Roosevelt scored 14 fourth-quarter points and then withstood a late Bell rally to preserve the win. The Rough Riders controlled the line of scrimmage enough in the first half to allow Guerra only one chance at a field goal, a 20-yarder he punched through with one step.

But Guerra, more a victim of circumstance than anything else, was admittedly not in top form in either half. The El Salvador native had sprained an ankle in the 12-1 soccer win over Jordan earlier in the day, then made it though rush-hour traffic for the football game.

“When you play soccer,” Guerra said, “you don’t know if you’re going to get hurt.”

Did the ankle affect the third-quarter attempt?

“A little,” Guerra said, then added, “Yes, it did.”

The miss seemed to spark Roosevelt, which had opened the game with a six-minute, 11-play drive that fizzled at the Bell 37. On fourth and 14, the ball was snapped at least three feet over the outstretched arms of Roosevelt punter Jose Damian, ending up on the Roosevelt 21.

Bell drove to the Roosevelt three-yard line before Guerra made his lone field goal. Roosevelt then resumed its first-half pattern, driving to the Bell 45. On third and two, Galindo ran around the right side untouched for a 45-yard touchdown.

Bell scored late in the first half on a Lino Ramirez 17-yard touchdown run after a delay handoff fooled the Roosevelt defense, but the same play would prove costly later.

With the ball on the Bell 10, Eagle quarterback Eluid Pacheco tried the delay handoff to Ramirez on the last play of the third quarter. But the ball never made it into Ramirez’s hands. Roosevelt’s Art Ramirez recovered the fumble at the nine, and Hernandez ran it in from six yards out two plays later.

Hernandez later scored on a two-yard run following a 46-yard drive. Bell’s final score came on a five-yard Pacheco pass to Sal Garcia, but the ensuing on-side kick did not travel the full 10 yards.

Bell entered the game with an 11-0 record, including a 24-15 win over Roosevelt in Eastern League play. Roosevelt (9-2-1) won the title in 1984 with a 17-14 win over Belmont.