Orange County Prep Review / Tom Hamilton : Underdogs Cypress and Katella Break Their Ties With Tradition

Question: Can a tie game be considered an upset? Answer: Technically, no. But don’t try selling that to members of Cypress or Katella high school’s football teams.

Both surprised perennial powers Esperanza and El Dorado in the opening week of Empire League play with 13-13 ties. Granted, these weren’t victories. But in both cases, they were moral victories.

Esperanza had won every game against Cypress since 1981, and only three years ago crushed the Centurions, 59-0. There was little to suggest that this year would be any different with Cypress stumbling into league play against Esperanza on Thursday night winless in five games.

“Prior to the game, I would have called the tie an upset,” said John Selbe, Cypress coach. “You figure a team like ours would have to scratch and crawl to tie a team with Esperanza’s great tradition.

“But it was Esperanza that had to scratch and crawl at the end to get a tie. The game was ours. I had a hard time trying not to show my disappointment when the game was over. But the kids feel good about themselves.”

Esperanza (3-2-1) needed a 20-yard field goal by Kevin Leon with 30 seconds remaining to gain the tie.

“On paper, everyone looked at us as the doormat of the league. But I don’t believe the tie with Esperanza was a fluke. At the end of practice Wednesday when the kids were running sprints, they honestly thought they had a chance to win the game.”

Katella, which has experienced 17 consecutive losing seasons, followed Cypress’ lead and tied El Dorado, 13-13, on Friday night. El Dorado came into the game with a 5-0 record and ranked seventh in the Orange County Sportswriters’ Assn. prep poll.

And it was El Dorado that needed a 26-yard field goal by Phillip Nevin with 1:07 left to gain a tie. Katella outgained the Golden Hawks, 277-235, in total offense.

The Knights (4-1-1) are off to a fine start under first-year Coach Larry Anderson. Anderson became the Knights’ coach last May after compiling a 47-10-2 record in five years at Lynwood.

He lost only one game in the San Gabriel Valley League in five years.

More Upsets: Santa Ana Valley surprised Foothill, 7-0, in its Century League opener. The Falcons (2-4) scored when tailback Ralph Henderson caught a 48-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Steve Calhoun with 24 seconds remaining in the third quarter.

The Falcons limited Foothill tailback Johnny Mountain, the second leading rusher in the county with 865 yards, to just 17 yards in 14 carries.

Double Duty: Los Alamitos’ Tim Wynn played a dual role Friday night in the Griffins’ 31-0 homecoming victory over Loara. Wynn started at defensive end and helped Los Alamitos gain its fifth shutout of the season, the best mark in the Southern Section.

After the game, Wynn joined his rock group, “Close Quarters”, playing guitar and singing lead vocals at the school’s homecoming dance.

“Coach (John) Barnes thought I might have a bad game, but I think I proved him wrong,” Wynn said.

St. Paul would appear to have Servite’s number if the last three games between the schools are any indication. The Swordsmen (2-4) opened play in the Angelus League with a stunning 31-21 victory over previously unbeaten Servite (4-1-1) Saturday night.

St. Paul has now scored 30 or more points against Servite in three straight seasons. Servite, a traditionally strong defensive team, had allowed only 24 points and recorded three shutouts in five previous games.

Trabuco Hills fell from the ranks of the unbeaten Saturday after a 23-0 loss to Woodbridge, but the Mustangs can still make a claim for having one of the classiest game programs in the county.

Each player, coach, administrator and the cheerleading squads are featured in color, making the souvenir worth the $2 that Trabuco Hills (and most schools) charge for programs in these inflationary days.

Power of the Press: In the Corona del Mar High School’s weekly newspaper, The Trident, an Oct. 9 editorial by Eric Antebi revealed student-body dissention over the amount of extra attention the Sea King football program receives in contrast to its minor sports.

The headline read: “Football, Basketball Grab Attention; Lesser Sports Lack School Recognition.”

Basically, the article noted that the school’s football team, (then 0-4, now 1-5), has reaped the benefit of scheduled student body pep rallies and cheerleader participation for too long. In contrast, the “lesser”, yet more successful sports programs seem to get very little, if any, attention from the school.

Said Trident sports editor Jeff Mercer: “We have the top-ranked (in Southern Section 4-A) boys’ cross-country team; second-ranked water polo and girls’ volleyball teams, and we’re ranked third in girls’ tennis. But there’s never any pep rallies for them or cheerleaders at their games . . . I think the student body’s feeling is there’s too much attention focused on those sports (football and basketball).”

Mercer is on the basketball team.

And the Winner Is: An estimated 2,500 people showed up to either watch or compete in the 21st annual Orange County cross-country championships at Irvine Park in Orange Saturday.

The meet, which scheduled 17 races in five hours, ran smoothly, although there was some debate regarding the overall combined time difference between the boys’ teams of Corona del Mar and Dana Hills.

Some calculated the Sea Kings had won by four seconds, others figured it at 11 seconds. Then, at the awards ceremonies, meet director Jerry Whitaker of Foothill announced, to the oohs and aahs of the crowd, that top-ranked Corona del Mar had defeated second-ranked Dana Hills by a mere 1/8 of a second.

The actual times were: Corona del Mar 78 minutes 27.6 seconds; Dana Hills 78:29.1. A 1.5 second difference.

Youth is Served: Three freshmen girls recorded some of the fastest times of the day. Martha Pinto of Katella ran the fastest overall time (18 minutes, 24 seconds); Heather Killeen of Valencia was fourth (18:43), and Shannon Liddy of El Toro (18:47) was sixth overall.

Over Hill and Dale: Despite Dana Hills’ oh-so-close loss to the top-ranked Corona del Mar boys Saturday, some of the Dolphin runners say they have high hopes for this week’s showdown against the Sea Kings on the hilly course at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational Saturday.

“We’re a much better team on hilly courses,” Dana Hills’ Mike Tansley said. “We can probably beat them there because they’re better on flatter courses.”

Said Corona del Mar’s Paul Scott: “We should be a lot better on the hills. They’re (Dana Hills) really better on flats.”

Prep Notes

The fall meeting of the Orange County Athletic Directors’ Assn. is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, in the Anaheim Stadium Club. The group will honor local merchants who have helped support high school athletic programs. The group will stage its 10th Orange County Basketball Coaches Clinic 8 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 17, in UC Irvine’s Bren Center. Schedule speakers include Lou Henson (University of Illinois), Mike Montgomery (Stanford University), Bill Mulligan (UC Irvine) and Charlie Spoonhour (SW Missouri State University). The clinic, sponsored by Coca-Cola, Lamppost Pizza and Converse, is free to all coaches. . . . Applications are being accepted for the position of sophomore boys basketball coach at La Quinta. Interested parties should contact athletic director Jim Perry at 663-6372.

The Orange County Cross-Country Coaches Assn. will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Tustin to discuss the coaches’ poll, reports on teams and leagues and the upcoming Southern Section and State meets. All high school and college coaches are invited. For further information, call Tustin Coach Tom Coffey at 963-4701 . . . Former Servite and Westminster football Coach Myles Corrigan is an assistant at the University of Washington where he coaches the tight ends and the school’s junior varsity team . . . Former Times’ all-county basketball player Mike Moore has been named an assistant at Cypress under new Coach Kevin Loftus. Moore starred for two seasons (1978-79, 1979-80) at Los Alamitos and later played at San Jose State and Westmont College.