THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Bonds’ Pass at a Record Falls Short, but Hart Is a Natural on Fake Turf

After a sluggish week of practice, members of the Hart High football team sought inspiration as they prepared for Foothill League game Friday against Alhambra. The Indians found it, but their inspiration came in a strange form--a hard, rubbery, petroleum-based product that’s as fake as a bad toupee.

The floor of the East L.A. College stadium is covered with an artificial surface called Superturf that is neither turf nor very super. But don’t tell that to the Indians. They took one look at the fake grass and went nuts.

“We’d never played on turf before and we were really excited,” Hart quarterback Jim Bonds said Saturday. “You see the pros playing on it all the time. Being out there made us feel like we were college players or like the pros.”

Bonds played like he was a level or two ahead of the Alhambra defense. He slipped into his Nike high-top sneakers--the same ones he’ll wear on the Hart basketball team--and played the best half of his high school career. In the first two quarters, Bonds threw for six touchdowns and passed for 272 yards to lead Hart to a 42-0 halftime lead.

Bonds, a senior, also flirted with a Southern Section record, completing 16 straight passes in the first half. The record is 20, set by Paul Gagliardi of La Canada in 1978, but Bonds didn’t know that Friday night. Assistant coach Dean Herrington told him the record was 17. As Bonds took the field for the team’s first series of the third quarter, he thought he needed one more completion to tie the record.

“When Dean told me I said, ‘Thanks a lot, Coach,’ but I didn’t think about it--until I threw an incompletion,” Bonds said. “I saw the ball go out of bounds and I realized what I did. I looked over at Dean on the sidelines and put my hands around my neck like I choked, and we both laughed.”

Bonds left the game after the first series of the second half with 20 completions in 24 attempts for 317 yards and 6 touchdowns, two short of the Southern Section record set by Mike Smith of Los Altos in 1982. And Hart went on to a 49-7 win.

“We were really clicking,” Bonds said about Friday’s game. “Your confidence level is way up there and you feel on top of the world. Six touchdowns. That’s hard to believe. I can’t even believe it now. But we really had fun. It was a blast.”

It was a big night of first halves for Santa Clarita Valley quarterbacks Friday. While Bonds was shooting up Alhambra, Ken Sollom helped put Canyon in the record book. Canyon tied the Southern Section record with its 46th straight win, 45-13, over Quartz Hill.

Sollom helped give Canyon a 31-7 lead at halftime, completing 10 of 16 for 260 yards and four touchdowns. He finished 11 of 20 for 267 yards and four touchdowns to hold onto his lead over Bonds as the Valley’s leading passer. Sollom has passed for 1,854 yards and 19 touchdowns, completing 100 of 170 passes (58.8%).

Friday also marked the return of Sollom’s favorite target and cousin, Chad Zeigler, who had missed three games after suffering a concussion against Notre Dame. Zeigler, whose football career was in jeopardy, experienced memory loss for several days after the injury, but showed Friday that he hadn’t forgotten how to play football.

In his first quarter back on the field, he caught three passes for 84 yards and two touchdowns. He finished with four catches for 90 yards.

“I was really nervous. It was like another first game of the season for me,” Zeigler said. “But then I started to relax and it felt great to be back, especially with Kenny throwing to me.”

Friday’s wild finish may have zapped the nervous system of Calabasas Coach Larry Edwards, but the results have brought his team the first league football championship in the school’s 11-year history.

Marty Garron’s 33-yard field goal with 3:12 left in the game gave Calabasas a 15-14 Frontier League win over Santa Paula. Calabasas (4-3-1, 3-0 in league) has clinched at least a share of the league championship. A win next week over Nordhoff will give Calabasas the title outright.

Edwards hopes the team’s next victory is less nerve-racking than Friday’s. Santa Paula kicker Joe Magdaleno missed two field-goal attempts in the second half, but Calabasas gave him one more chance to win the game when quarterback Darren Del’Andrae fumbled at the Calabasas 33 with 56 seconds left.

But Magdaleno never got a chance to kick the game-winning field goal. As he lined up for a 37-yard kick, the snap sailed over everyone’s head and Calabasas had escaped.

“From a fan’s standpoint, I guess it was an exciting game, but I ran out of my Maalox,” Edwards said. “After we fumbled I was looking for the nearest place to hide. I couldn’t believe we were going to blow it. The team had opportunities to fold but they didn’t. Afterward there was bedlam on the field. The kids were delirious.”