From 0-4 Starts to Playoff Finishes, These Are Comeback Teams of Year

It was a tough job. A dirty job. Not a task for the squeamish or faint of heart. It was a job for the Mafia.

Seven weeks ago, a group known as “the Mafia” went to work at Corona del Mar High School, taking on a mission that might seem impossible to the less determined.

The job? To turn Corona del Mar High School’s football team around, from an 0-4 disappointment to Sea View League champion.

And the “Mafia”? It’s a group of Sea King seniors--Mitch Melbon, Todd Katovsich, Kevin Mass, Kurt Ehmann, Matt Patterson, Scott Sullivan, Jeff Thomason and Scott McCarter--selected by their teammates with the instruction to trouble-shoot whenever necessary.

The result?

Last week, the Sea Kings won their fourth straight game, defeating Newport Harbor to win the league championship. Tonight, they will face Troy (at Orange Coast College, 7:30 p.m.) in the first round of the Central Conference playoffs.

All football seasons have peaks and valleys, as Corona del Mar vividly illustrated. And this season, the Sea Kings weren’t the only ones to have them. Three other Orange County teams--Troy, Fullerton and Fountain Valley--got off to 0-4 starts before recovering to make the playoffs. Fullerton, in fact, started 0-6.

Back in October, these teams were frustrated, pitied by opponents and scorned by fellow students.

But now they are in the playoffs, the big men on campus, the conquering heroes.

“You can’t let your team go home thinking they’re losers,” said Dave Holland, Corona del Mar coach. “There’s a lot involved in keeping the team together.”

Years ago, Holland decided to share that responsibility with his seniors and created the Mafia. Selected before each season by the team, the Mafia has the authority to meet with players without the coaching staff around, to institute disciplinary measures, to be the watchdog for team unity.

“We saw it as our responsibility to turn the season around,” said McCarter, an outside linebacker. “We knew it would take a lot of work, but we were going to find a way to win.”

Corona del Mar lost nonleague games to Huntington Beach, San Clemente, Capistrano Valley and Woodbridge. The Saturday morning after the Woodbridge loss, the Mafia met with the team and laid down the law.

“We told the players that if they didn’t want to be here, they could leave,” quarterback Melbon said. “If they weren’t hustling, we were going to kick them off the field. It’s one thing if a coach says it, but it’s different when another player says it.”

Said Mass: “Coach calls it walking your talk. You can’t just talk a lot; you have to execute on the field.”

The Mafia made its point very clear to the rest of the team.

“We told them we were going to kick their butts,” said Sullivan, an offensive tackle and defensive end. “But we didn’t have to. We got through to them that we meant business.”

A lot of Corona del Mar players call the post-Woodbridge meeting the turning point of their season. The next week, the Sea Kings got their first victory, in a game against Costa Mesa. They lost one more game--a 14-13 defeat to Tustin--but haven’t lost since.

The players say they felt all along that Corona del Mar had the potential to get to the playoffs, even if their fans didn’t believe it.

“We took a lot of heat at school,” McCarter said. “But now it’s nice. We’ve accomplished something for the school.”

For Melbon, the turning point was the Capistrano Valley game, when the Sea Kings kept the game close going into the fourth quarter, before losing, 22-7.

“I knew then that we could play with anyone,” Melbon said. “We just had to stop making mistakes.”

And keep players healthy.

“If people don’t understand the spiritual things that keep a team together, I can give them practical reasons,” Holland said. “We had seven starters who missed at least one game because of injuries. But now all those guys are back.”

For Fountain Valley, a tough nonleague schedule put the team in a hole. The team’s four opening losses came against Mission Viejo, El Toro, Mater Dei and Servite--all playoff teams.

But Coach Mike Milner knew the Barons could come back. In 1984, they lost their first five games yet rebounded to win the Sunset League championship.

“Kids have tremendous resiliency,” Milner said. “They suffer with it on Saturday and Sunday, but on Monday, they’re ready to go again. Losing stays with coaches a lot longer.”

For Fullerton Coach Steve Nishimoto, the season’s turning point surprisingly came with the Indians’ 36-0 drubbing by Sunny Hills, their sixth straight loss of the season.

“We played them really hard but turned the ball over seven times,” Nishimoto said. “After that I was confident that we could win some games if we stopped making mistakes.”

Fullerton and Troy were both helped into the playoffs by the misfortunes of La Habra. First, the Highlanders were forced to forfeit four games for using an ineligible player. Then, in a three-way coin flip to decide the Freeway League’s final two playoff berths, La Habra lost.

So Fullerton (3-7) and Troy (4-8) got to the playoffs as the league’s second- and third-place teams.

“It took a couple of days to sink in,” Troy Coach John Turek said. Troy lost its last game of the season to Fullerton.

“We’ve been on an emotional roller coaster all year,” Turek said. “But now we feel excited to be in the playoffs.”

All the teams are looking at the playoffs as a new season.

“We deserve to be in here,” Nishimoto said. “And now we’re in a great position. No one expects us to be any good.”

“I can’t wait to get out there and prove ourselves,” said Corona del Mar’s Melbon. “We’re on a roll now.”