Fontana’s 2 Scores in Final 9 Minutes Defeat Crespi, 12-7

Three hours before game time, lines outside Steeler Stadium stretched about 50 yards. Thirty-five minutes prior to kickoff, thunder and lightning rocked the sky. Soon enough the rain poured down in sheets, which had to be pretty strong to drown out the pregame taunting between two of the best high school football teams in the state.

Not to be outdone, Fontana and Crespi put on a show that will be remembered much longer than the rain or the wind or the cold, and there was plenty of each. The Steelers, the top-seeded team in the Big Five Conference playoffs, scored twice in the final 9:15 of the game to win, 12-7, before a raucous crowd of 11,000 and advance to the title game next Friday at Anaheim Stadium.

Fontana plays Fountain Valley, which defeated Long Beach Wilson, 31-6.

Not surprisingly, the weather had a lot to do with the outcome. Fontana (13-0) trailed for most of the game, and pulled within a point, 7-6, on Derrick Malone’s nine-yard burst up the middle with 9:15 left in the game. But the Steelers missed the extra point and a chance to tie when the snap short-hopped holder Kurt Bruich, whose desperation pass into the end zone fell incomplete.

Crespi got the ball back for all of one play, when Russell White, having his typically outstanding game, had the ball pop out of his arms and Fontana’s Bruich recovered at the Celt 48.

A 23-yard run by Edrian Oliver and a 17-yard run by Oliver on a reverse with a nice cut upfield in the middle of the line set up Malone’s four-yard score over left tackle for the 12-7 lead with 5:24 to play.

“I don’t know who hit him, but it just sort of popped out,” Bruich said of White’s fumble. “I was going for the tackle and I just jumped out at it. I knew it was mine. No one was going to get that from me.”

Thus, Fontana continued its reign over the Big Five in the rain. An undefeated 1987 continued after reaching the semifinals last season and the championship game in 1984, losing to Mark Green-led Riverside Poly at the Coliseum.

“I thought the game, with these conditions, 7-0 may win it,” said Crespi Coach Bill Redell, whose Celts won the 1986 championship and finished 10-2-1 this season.

For a while--a long while--it looked that way.

White, who had 251 yards last week against Anaheim Servite and 348 in the first round against Riverside Poly, had 82 in the first half Friday. Fifty-eight of those came on the opening drive on back-to-back carries and gave the Celts their 7-0 lead.

Starting from the Fontana 41, he went around right end on Crespi’s first play and gained 17. It was impressive considering the field conditions, but merely a setup for what followed--a 41-yard romp around the left side for the score. Bill Gould hit the extra point.

By that time, with 9:04 left in the first quarter, the driving rains had transformed the field into the land of 10,000 puddles, at best.

White hydroplaned his way to 155 yards in 22 carries, including 7 rushes in the second half worth 7 yards or more. Malone finished with 103 in 26.

White, who rushed for 2,337 yards in 1986, finished the season with 2,269 yards and 38 touchdowns.