Northview’s Goal Is a Game Away

It was a bit surprising to see Coach Brian Beveridge at a luncheon Monday honoring the Southern Section football teams that reached this week’s championship games.

It wasn’t that Beveridge and Covina Northview don’t deserve to be playing Los Altos of Hacienda Heights for the Eastern Conference title next Saturday night at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, just that it was hard to believe this was the same program that was 1-8-1 in 1984 and 3-7 in ’85 and has worked primarily with only a three-man coaching staff.

One more win this season and the turn-around is complete.

“I hope so,” said Beveridge, whose Vikings went 10-0 last season before losing in the first round of the playoffs. “We’ve been Cinderella for two years, so one more game would be nice.”

The way Cinderella started 1987, an invitation to the ball--the playoffs--was almost gone a month into the season. Northview opened 0-1-1 and then began losing key players to injuries, four by the end of the regular season.

The Vikings, however, started the playoffs as the fourth-seeded team with an 8-1-1 record and have since beaten Bell Gardens, Ramona and, last week, top-seeded and previously undefeated Montebello.

Their keys have been the same for three years, even in 1985 when the team was filled with sophomores and losing: Quarterback Bill Gallis and linebacker Angel Chavez, two of the top players in the Valle Vista League two years in a row, tight end-defensive tackle Sean Hutchinson and tackle Rodney Hudson.

There also was a bit of a coaching change last season. Mark Pasquarella became defensive coordinator and since, Northview has held 17 of 23 opponents to 10 points or fewer. There have been seven shutouts.

Los Altos will counter with a potent offense led by running back Larry Verdugo, who has gained 905 yards rushing despite having missed four games because of an injury, and a coach, Dwayne DeSpain, who is 6-0 in championship games.

“It would be a dream come true,” Beveridge, in his eighth year with the Vikings, said of winning the title. “It’s been a lot of years coming. A lot of people have stuck with us at school for a long time.”

After winning the state Division I cross-country title Nov. 28, the undefeated Arroyo boys’ team turned its attention to new business last week on two fronts: Shaving Coach Tim O’Rourke’s head, including his five-year-old beard, as payment for the Knights’ win at Fresno and then going for the mythical national championship and time record. Both took place Wednesday, one for fun and the other for posterity.

O’Rourke went first, at a school assembly, no less, with several television cameras on hand to record the moment. Off went the blond hair, off went the thick beard, and he was left to walk around with the feeling he had a big “Kick Me!” sign on his back.

“What’s funny is the people who don’t know you,” he said. “They walk by and stare, but they don’t start laughing until they’ve passed you. . . . After about a week and a half, the laughter should die, but I’m still stuck with a bald head.”

His new look was displayed on several local TV stations that night--Channel 5 made it the play-of-the-day segment--and even nationally on Cable News Network.

Arroyo’s quest for a spot in the record book came up short later that night. Shooting for the 13-year-old speed mark of 74 minutes 13 seconds by York High of Elmhurst, Ill., Jeff Gilkey, Jaime Ortega, Derrick Powers, Gerardo Puentes and Mike Deitch each ran three miles at the same time on the track at Cal State Los Angeles and finished with a combined time of 74:21.

Since cross-country courses vary so in terrain, speed record-attempts are run on tracks, where the conditions are reasonably similar.

That run might get them the mythical national championship according to the Missouri-based Cross Country Journal--the results should be know by January--but the Lancers may take another shot at York and the national record early next week at Birmingham High in Van Nuys, since all times must be submitted by Dec. 15.

They might get a little help this time, too. According to O’Rourke, who officially can have nothing to do with the runs since they are being done after the season, Granada Hills standout Ian Alsen and some of the other Highlanders might also run, if only to push Arroyo.

“It’s another thing to be able to claim what a great season it was,” O’Rourke said of the record pursuit. “We have a lot of feathers in our cap and accomplished everything we set out to do. Winning the state meet and running as fast as we did, that was the main goal. This would be some more shining on the armor. It’s another thing to point at.”

The Santa Monica Crossroads basketball team, the defending Southern Section 1-A and state Division III champions, will take a step up in competition this month and go national, maybe not for the last time. The Roadrunners, with guard Mike Arnold the only returning starter off a team that went 26-5, will compete in the 16-team King of Bluegrass tournament Dec. 17-23 in Louisville, Ky.

“Perhaps the tournament would have been better suited for last year’s team, in terms of success, but this group could also be very good,” second-year Coach Dave Benezra said. “We want to expand the program, so we wanted to go out and do something on a national level. . . . I think the program can be at a level where we take one big trip a year. We’re not going to lower our academic standards at the school, but we want to be able to attract players who can and want to play on a big-time level.”

Crossroads, a private school with an enrollment of 420, has reached the Southern Section 1-A or Small School title game six straight years and won four times.

This season, the Roadrunners add Rudy Henry, a 6-foot 8-inch junior who would have started in 1986-87 but instead sat out with injuries; Joe Perkovich, a 6-7 off-guard who transferred from Palos Verdes after sitting out all of last season with tendinitis, and promising sophomore Brandon Wilkerson.

Prep Notes

Of the 16 times Wilmington Banning has made the football playoffs since 1960, Reseda Cleveland, with a 17-14 win last Friday, is the first team to knock the Pilots out in the first round. . . . Quincy Watts, the state track champion at 100 and 200 meters last season, is off to a great start in basketball, after sitting out most of last year with an injury. The 6-foot 3-inch, 197-pound senior made 13 of 14 field goals and finished with 27 points in the season opener for Woodland Hills Taft and followed that by sinking 11 of 18 shots and scoring 23 points in the next game.

El Toro quarterback Bret Johnson has won 22 of his last 23 starts, losing only to Capistrano Valley of Mission Viejo in a game El Toro later won on a forfeit. Johnson and El Toro scored their latest victory in the Southern Conference semifinal against top-seeded Santa Ana last Friday, with a 51-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass to Adam Brass with no time remaining. Johnson, who missed part of the regular season with a knee injury, has also thrown scoring passes in 12 of 13 games. Hawthorne, in the quarterfinals, was the only team to shut him out through the air this season.