One-Handed Catches by DeSchryver Are a Routine Part of His Act

Early in the first quarter of Hart’s 19-0 Foothill League win over Burroughs on Friday night, Hart quarterback Darren Renfro dropped back to pass on third down at the Burroughs’ 29-yard line. Under a savage Burroughs rush, Renfro unloaded the ball toward the left sideline. Defensive back Sean Perry had wide receiver Joe DeSchryver well-covered as the pass appeared overthrown.

“I was coming off my break when I saw it,” DeSchryver said. “I thought I could catch it. I just stuck out my hand.”

Arms and legs outstretched, DeSchryver pulled in the pass with the fingertips of his right hand, cradled the ball against the No. 86 on his jersey and landed on the 10-yard line.

First down.

Collective “oohs” and “ahs” rippled through the stands. Hart’s players and coaches, however, had caught DeSchryver’s act before.

“He makes those catches all day long in practice,” Hart Coach Rick Scott said. “For him to make a one-handed grab is pretty ho-hum.”

The Renfro-DeSchryver connection has been routine this season. Renfro has completed 125 passes in 191 attempts for 1,654 yards to lead all Valley-area quarterbacks. DeSchryver has 31 receptions--second in the Valley area--for 518 yards and 3 touchdowns.

“He’s awesome,” Renfro said of his primary receiver. “A lot of the time when I’m under pressure, I just throw it up and he catches it.”

Said Scott: “Darren and Joe are kind of a match made in heaven--the soft touch and the soft hands.”

Fired up by DeSchryver’s catch, Hart turned what was expected to be a close game into a runaway. Nine times Renfro dropped back to pass on third down and seven times Renfro moved the chains with a completion.

Renfro’s third-down heroics produced gains of 19, 28, 14, 36, 25, 18 and 25 yards. Four of those completions were to DeSchryver, who entertained the crowd with his acrobatic catches while aggravating Burroughs Coach Butch McElwee.

“That one-handed catch was a great play,” McElwee said. “But that touchdown catch broke us apart.”

On third and 11, Renfro again was blitzed. Again he zipped the ball to DeSchryver and again Perry stuck to the 6-1, 170-pound end like flypaper. This time DeSchryver made a midair reception for a touchdown.

“The guy was in his shorts,” Scott said. “But Joe took it away from him.”

Renfro finished with 15 completions in 21 attempts for 251 yards. DeSchryver’s five leaping grabs accounted for 100 yards.

“I try catching it with one hand in practice,” DeSchryver said. “But I don’t try catching with one hand in a game. Most of the time Darren lays it right in there.”

Earlier this season, DeSchryver made a one-handed grab at midfield against Arroyo and raced untouched for a touchdown. When DeSchryver shags spirals, he reminds coaches of the way he plays left field for the school baseball team.

“The last time I dropped a ball, it was during a baseball game and it was at Burroughs,” DeSchryver. “I lost it in the lights.”

Not the top dogs: With Burroughs having lost to Hart, Burbank (5-2, 2-0) suddenly finds itself in a two-way tie for first place in the Foothill League with Hart.

Coach Dave Carson’s Bulldogs, considered a longshot, have quietly won five in a row. They don’t mind being overlooked.

“We like it just fine,” said Carson, who isn’t optimistic about challenging Hart.

“I don’t see anybody in our league--anybody in our conference--beating Hart,” he said. “They just have too much talent.”

Burbank plays Schurr on Friday night then Hart and Burroughs.

“We’ll be playing for second place,” Carson said. “That’s the way I thought it would be from the beginning of the season.”

Confused Reisbord: Monroe co-Coach Howard Reisbord was still puzzled three days after being ejected from the game during Friday’s 21-0 Sunset League loss to Taft.

“I still don’t know what happened,” Reisbord said Monday. “I was protesting to one official about a chop block when the head official came over and threw me out. I still don’t know the exact reason.”

Reisbord was called for unsportsmanlike conduct, his second penalty of the game, an automatic ejection for a coach. He was penalized minutes earlier for being on the field during Kelvin Byrd’s 12-yard touchdown run for Taft in the third quarter.

“It’s over and done with as far as I’m concerned,” Reisbord said. “It didn’t have any bearing on the outcome of the game. That’s not why we lost.”

Crespi inquiry: Crespi Coach Bill Redell admits the Celts have scored more points, showed more balance and played as well defensively as they did last season when they finished 13-1 and won the Big Five Championship. They are ranked No. 1 in the Valley area by The Times and No. 8 in the nation by USA Today. Yet each night when the Celts leave the locker room, Redell is uncertain what he has tracing his footsteps onto the field.

Even on the heels of a 52-14 win over Notre Dame.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know how good we are,” Redell said. “I mean, we’ve scored a ton of points--we could have scored 60 or 70 Friday--and the defense is playing pretty well. But I just don’t know.”

Redell’s concerns center on the fact that the Celts haven’t played a team that passes well.

Redell worries that could throw the Celts for a loss. Friday night, Crespi (6-0-1) plays at Alemany, which has two quarterbacks--Joey Rosselli and Roy Talavera--who have passed for a combined 1,409 yards and 8 touchdowns.

“That’s probably a part of it, I guess,” Redell said. “We haven’t really faced a passing team. Friday’s game should show me a lot.”

Crespi better prove itself in the eyes of its coach because next week the Celts play Loyola--ranked No. 14 by USA Today--at Birmingham High. And about 11,000 pairs of eyes will be watching.

Defensive Crusaders: With a 2-0 record in league play, Village Christian is one of the surprising teams in the Alpha League.

The Crusaders have gained only 237 yards in total offense in the two games, but their defense has allowed only 15 points.

In Saturday’s 18-15 upset of Montclair Prep in overtime, Village Christian recovered three fumbles during regulation and one in the California tiebreaker.

“Our kids just wanted it more than they did,” Village Christian Coach Mike Plaisance said. “They were bigger than us. They were faster than us. They had better athletes than we had. But we just outhustled them.”

Turnaround: With his team losing, 7-0, to St. Genevieve at halftime three weeks ago, Chaminade Coach Rich Lawson let his team have it in the locker room.

“I was extremely disappointed,” Lawson said. “We were playing lousy. I told them, ‘You guys don’t deserve to even be on this field.’ ”

Lawson’s tirade fired up the Eagles. Not only did they return to the field to record a 21-7 victory, but they haven’t been scored on since. Chaminade followed with wins over Santa Fe League opponents Salesian (47-0) and Bell-Jeff (38-0). The Eagles have outscored their opponents, 106-0, in the past 10 quarters.

“It was just a matter of letting them understand that we have an awful lot of talent and we’re just about unstoppable if everybody plays as a unit,” Lawson said. “We got a pretty good thing going right now.”

A sore point: When Sylmar took a 26-7 lead into the third quarter against Reseda, it looked as though the Spartans would pull off a Pac 8 League upset and beat Reseda for the fourth consecutive year.

“We were playing really well,” Sylmar Coach Jeff Engilman said. “Unfortunately, the injuries started to catch up to us.”

Sylmar lost James McGee and Oscar Romo, starting outside linebackers and key players on Sylmar’s special teams, to injuries. And with three other starters already sidelined with assorted aches and pains, Sylmar allowed Reseda to score 29 consecutive points in the last 13 minutes to win, 36-26.

Chris Parker and staff writers Steve Elling and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.