Grant’s Woes Appear to Be Tailor-Made

Grant Coach Bill Foster can pin the blame for at least one of the problems the Lancers had Saturday in a 7-6 loss to Monroe on the team’s tailor.

Before the season began, Foster ordered jerseys bearing his players’ names. The uniforms were supposed to be delivered before kickoff, but the team’s visiting white uniforms arrived instead.

When Monroe showed up wearing its visiting white uniforms, Foster quickly ran to the locker room to search for last year’s varsity uniforms. The game was delayed 10 minutes before Grant returned to the field with its old, home-brown uniforms. Some players were in such a rush, they wore the jerseys backward.

Foster will have time to iron out his uniform situation--Grant is on the road the next two weeks. But there are plenty of on-field problems to consider.

Grant lost three fumbles, including one in the end zone that Monroe linebacker Scott Reisbord recovered for the winning touchdown. “It just bounced around and they jumped on it,” Foster said.

Piling it on: Cleveland Coach Steve Landress has been criticized for calling a timeout with a 7-6 lead and three seconds left in Saturday’s game against Chatsworth. After the timeout, running back Mark Mooney scored on the game’s last play for a 13-6 Cavalier victory.

When Landress and Chatsworth Coach Myron Gibford met on the field afterward, they didn’t exactly exchange pleasantries. Landress maintained there was an injured Cleveland lineman on the field. Gibford replied with a disparaging comment and Landress answered with something equally colorful.

“We took possession of the ball with a one-point lead and six minutes left in the game,” Landress said Monday. “We proceed to march down the field, with Mooney running left, running right, running all over the place. With the clock running down, I see one of our linemen raise his hand and I thought he was hurt, so I called the timeout. To tell you the truth, I would have called it anyway. We owed that touchdown to our fans, to our linemen and especially to Mooney.”

The Cleveland drive started on the Chatsworth 34. Mooney, a junior, ran the ball nine times during the 10-play drive. Gibford declined to comment on the timeout. But Landress kept talking.

“If Mark Mooney has the opportunity to make any all-league or All-Valley team, I want to give him every chance to do it,” Landress said. “I want to see him make it.”

Site scramble: Thursday night’s game between Crespi and Taft will be played at Crespi but not by choice. The Celts’ home field wasn’t one of the top three choices.

Because of the expected interest in the game--a rare meeting between schools that draw from overlapping neighborhoods--Crespi administrators sought to move the game to a larger stadium.

Valley and Pierce colleges granted Crespi approval to play at their respective stadiums months ago but later reneged because of probable traffic and parking conflicts with college night school students. Birmingham High was another alternative, but a game between Grant and Birmingham was moved to Thursday because of Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.

A last-minute move to Taft also was considered, but the Toreadors already have five home games scheduled this year.

“The stands here seat about 2,800 people,” Crespi Athletic Director Paul Muff said. “With standing room we can handle about 3,000. We figure we’ll have that many and possibly more.”

Staff writer Steve Elling contributed to this notebook.