Streak Talk Puts Canyon Right at Home

It was the right call. Or was it?

“I don’t know,” Canyon Coach Harry Welch said. “If I had to do it five different times, I’d probably call five different plays.”

Entering tonight’s Golden League game against visiting Antelope Valley, Canyon puts its 27-game home-field winning streak on the line. The game, however, immediately brings to mind the Cowboys’ 46-game winning streak, which came to an end the last time Canyon played Antelope Valley. One year later, Welch remembers vividly the play that brought to an end what is known in Canyon Country as “The Streak.”

With 16 seconds to play, Canyon trailed, 21-20, and needed a two-point conversion to tie Santa Rosa Cardinal Newman for the state’s longest streak and break Temple City’s Southern Section record.

“I don’t know about my coaching sometimes,” Welch said. “I’ve been criticized for not making more sense with my play calling. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

That Canyon had a chance to win at all was an accomplishment in itself. With the Cowboys trailing, 21-0, after three quarters, quarterback Ken Sollom led a fourth-quarter comeback. Sollom, now redshirting at Michigan, threw two touchdown passes and tailback Lance Cross ran eight yards for another to bring the Cowboys back. Sollom’s second touchdown pass, a 13-yard strike to Ernie Figueroa, pulled the Cowboys to within a point.

A conversion kick would have tied the score, but Welch never considered it.

“It was a quick decision. We were out of timeouts,” he said. “We just went for it.”

Sollom rolled left behind fullback Paul Chadwell with Cross trailing. “It was a speed option,” Welch said. “Chadwell blocks a fella into Ken and Ken spins. That spin let the pursuit make the tackle.”

Said tackle Sean Sweetnam: “Ken made the right decision. The pitch was taken away. He tried to turn upfield like he was coached to do.”

Linebacker Tommie Smith hit Sollom and the quarterback went down beneath a swarm of tacklers.

“We were waiting for what seemed like an eternity for them to unpile,” guard Dom Spainhower said. “Ain’t nothin’ worse than waiting for the ref’s call.”

After the pile had been pried apart, Canyon’s streak was dead by the measure of less than a yard.

“It was an emotional moment,” Welch said “Cheerleaders cried. People who had never had sons on the team cried. I was a little sad. I wished it could have continued for the rest of the people.”

Antelope Valley supporters shed no tears.

“It put us on the map,” Coach Brent Newcomb said. “We’d never gotten that much ink. I had Len Berman from NBC calling me and USA Today; Channel 4, Channel 7. It was all because of Canyon.”

The Antelopes won the league title. Canyon finished second and was eliminated by Muir, 22-14, in the third round of the Coastal Conference playoffs. Antelope Valley was crushed by Muir, 37-0, in the championship game.

This season’s meeting again is an important one. Canyon (6-2, 3-0), in a first-place tie with Palmdale, is almost assured of a playoff berth. Antelope Valley (2-1 in league) cannot afford another loss.

“This year it’s an even bigger game for us,” Newcomb said. “Canyon’s in the playoffs; we’re not.”

Bad flashbacks: Memories of last season’s Loyola-Crespi game haunt running back Russell White, who was held to a season-low 96 yards rushing in Crespi’s 21-14 victory. He also lost two fumbles and seemed rattled in the first half.

“That was a hard night and I’ve been hearing about it all week,” he said at practice. “Ninety-six yards, I’m never going to forget that.”

White, who averages 186 yards a game and 11.3 a carry this season, promises to give Loyola a night to remember when the teams meet Saturday at 8 p.m. at Birmingham High. A crowd of about 11,000 is expected for the Del Rey League showdown between two nationally ranked teams.

Crespi (7-0-1, 3-0 in the league) is ranked No. 8 in the nation by USA Today and Loyola (8-0, 3-0) is ranked No. 14.

“I guarantee I won’t have another 96-yard game,” he said. “Another 96-yard game would be ugly.”

White confidently predicted a 200-yard game, then reconsidered.

“I just want to play as well as I can and get as many yards as I can,” he said. “I just want to have fun.”

Add Crespi: Crespi has guaranteed that at least 5,000 tickets for Saturday’s Loyola game have been set aside for game-day sale beginning at 4:30 p.m.

“Tickets are moving, but we don’t want to give anybody the impression that there won’t be any tickets left,” Crespi Athletic Director Paul Muff said. “We’ll be holding 5,000 of them for Saturday and possibly more depending on how the pre-sale goes.”

Pre-sale tickets are available at the Loyola activities office and at the Crespi athletic office between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. today. Muff said pre-sale ticket holders will hold no advantage, because all tickets are general admission.

Playoff possibilities: Alemany (0-2-1) is winless in Del Rey League play after three games, but the Indians still have a chance at the playoffs. The top three teams from the league advance to postseason play, and if the Indians win tonight at St. Francis and next week against Notre Dame, they could move into a tie for third with St. John Bosco, which they tied, 21-21, in the league opener.

The Indians need some help from their Valley friends, however. If St. John Bosco (1-1-1) loses to Notre Dame tonight or Crespi next week, the Braves could tie Alemany for third with a 2-2-1 record.

The league constitution calls for a playoff in case of a tie between third-place teams, except in football, where a coin toss is used.

If that’s sounds slightly complicated, consider the task of Del Rey secretary Marty Dusserre.

“It seems like no matter what I do, something else happens,” he said with a laugh. “It seems like whatever I figure out, somebody always calls to ask ‘What if?’ ”

Dusserre said the loser of a coin toss--if it comes to that--would still be eligible for the lone Big Five Conference wild-card berth. The wild-card team is selected from the strongest of the five leagues in the conference.

Wary Warriors: Westlake might be on the verge of its first playoff berth in five years, but George Contreras has the celebration on hold. The Warriors, on a five-game winning streak, are 4-0 in the Marmonte League and 6-2 overall but have crucial games remaining against Camarillo (4-4, 2-2) and Channel Islands (7-1, 4-0).

“We’re in a situation where everybody thinks we’re going great,” Contreras said. “But if we lose these last two games and Camarillo wins its last two, then we miss the playoffs.”

Camarillo plays at Royal (1-6-1, 0-4) in its final game. The Scorpions have won three of their past four games. The only defeat was a 24-21 decision to Channel Islands.

Royal coup: Eric Anhalt, Royal’s best lineman on both sides of the ball, might also be one of the Valley’s top tight ends. You would never know it by his statistics or playing time.

The 6-4, 240-pound senior has only five catches for 131 yards and a touchdown in two games at tight end, but Royal Coach Tom West contends that Anhalt is a major college prospect at the position.

“We would have liked to have had him at tight end from the start,” West said, “but our priorities were different at the beginning of the season. We needed help on the line.”

Double time: Sylmar running back Jerome Casey is fourth among Valley City Section running backs with 685 yards and first with an average of 8.5 yards a carry. Yet, he is averaging only 13 carries a game.

Sylmar Coach Jeff Engilman wants to use Casey more often on offense, but injuries have depleted Sylmar’s secondary, forcing Casey to play cornerback. “He goes both ways and his defensive position is just as important as his offensive position,” Engilman said.

Chris Parker and Times staff writers Tim Brown, Steve Elling and John Lynch contributed to this notebook.