Humiliating Loss Left Canyon With Egos and Limbs Bent, Bloodied

As Canyon fell behind Channel Islands, 27-0, early in the third quarter of Friday night’s Coastal Conference semifinal-round playoff game, few Cowboys were willing to admit the game was out of reach. But they knew things looked bleak.

Tailback Chris Peery was on the bench with a severely sprained ankle. Quarterback Rod Baltau was fighting off an assault by Channel Islands’ defenders, who sacked him five times for minus-25 yards. And Channel Islands’ complex running attack was punching holes in Canyon’s defense, which surrendered a season-high 318 yards.

When Canyon failed to move the ball on its next possession, it became apparent that not only was a loss imminent but that the school that had won three Southern Section championships in the past five years was being blown out.

Coach Harry Welch, the architect of Canyon’s much-lauded 46-game winning streak, was suddenly seeing things from the other side of the field.

“I thought it was a tough time,” said Welch, whose team battled injuries all season. “The last three weeks we’d been running on reserve and we just ran out of gas. But I felt worse for the players.”

Linebacker Kevin Doss, who Welch called “the most courageous young man I’ve ever coached,” took the loss hard.

“I was thinking about it when Peery first went down,” Doss said. “And when it became obvious, I just thought, ‘God, we’re going to lose.’ It was the most horrible feeling ever.”

The turn of events was difficult for the rest of the Cowboys to handle, also. Doss, Canyon’s team captain and an intense player, butted helmets with teammates on the sideline. Other players locked face masks and shouted at one another.

“The intensity, the getting in people’s faces--that’s normal,” Doss said. “Everybody does it, not just me. Coaches do it and players do it whenever someone isn’t giving an effort they’re going to be proud of.”

Some Cowboys succumbed to frustration.

“They kept running that same play, that tackle trap,” Doss said. “They had an offense we’d never seen before.”

Channel Islands, which will play Thousand Oaks for the championship, continually crossed up Canyon with deceptive blocking and misdirection plays. John Johnson led the Raiders with 223 yards and had breakaway touchdown runs of 68, 57, 24 and 50 yards.

“Halfback counter,” Johnson said. “It was working. Our offensive line was knocking people on their butts.”

Said Canyon defensive end Justin Fix: “It was pretty bad. They were doing some stuff that we weren’t prepared for. We tried to get each other up, but it was hard. It’s hard to watch when you put a year into something and then it snaps.”

Fix pounded his helmet on the ground after being ejected for committing a personal foul in the third quarter. With Fix, Peery and four other starters on the sideline because of injuries, Canyon was spent.

“It was a wrenching feeling,” Doss said. “It was like someone was in there with a knife twisting and turning.

“But I think it was meant to be. We went as far as we could with what we had.”

The place to be: City and Southern Section playoff sites have been finalized for Friday and Saturday playoff games. All games are scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m.

Channel Islands will play at Thousand Oaks in the Coastal Conference championship game on Friday, and Chaminade plays Woodbridge at Irvine High in the Desert-Mountain Conference final Friday.

On Saturday, Arroyo Grande plays at Burroughs in the Northwestern Conference final.

In City games, all of which are scheduled for Friday at 7:30 p.m., San Fernando plays Carson at Long Beach Veterans Stadium in a 4-A semifinal game; Cleveland plays at Granada Hills in a 4-A semifinal; Chatsworth plays Franklin at Wilson High in a 3-A semifinal; Taft plays at Palisades in a 3-A semifinal; and Huntington Park plays at Reseda in a 2-A semifinal.

Good ink, bad ink: Granada Hills quarterback Jeremy Leach passed for 274 yards and three touchdowns in a 21-0 win over Crenshaw in the first round of the City Section 4-A playoffs. Afterward, Leach admitted that the team was a little sluggish and that his own performance--he completed 17 of 29 passes--wasn’t his best of the year.

Inquiring minds will be awaiting Leach’s printed assessment of what took place. Leach--who reports on the games for Highlander Highlights, the school newspaper--is becoming a pro with his prose and throws.

In last week’s edition, Leach authored two stories about the football team. In one, he criticized himself for a lackluster 2-of-11 completion rate in the first half of the team’s 33-9 win over Kennedy.

In the adjoining preview story about the Crenshaw game, Leach referred to himself as the “premier passer in the City this year.”

In journalistic terms, that’s called balance. Some might even call the latter statement a fact: Leach has 2,252 yards and 28 touchdowns in 10 games this season.

One for the books: When Cleveland knocked Banning out of the City 4-A playoffs with a 17-14 win at Harbor College last Friday, the team was so excited about the win that Coach Steve Landress had pictures taken in front of the scoreboard.

Maybe the photos will be used as proof of the win, because Landress still has a hard time believing it actually happened. Cleveland played without 15 regulars who were sidelined by academic eligibility rules. Banning also had history on its side--no Valley team had ever defeated Banning at home.

“We were so beat after the game I was afraid the kids would drop me in the mud when they tried to carry me off the field,” Landress said.

The Cleveland win also put a big dent in the Banning mystique. For the first time in five years, Banning and Carson won’t meet in the 4-A final. It is the first time since 1974 that the Pilots--who have won eight of the past 11 4-A titles--fell in the first round.

“We had guys learning new positions on Thursday afternoon,” Landress said. “I’m always pretty optimistic, but reality-wise, I didn’t think we had much of a prayer. We just weren’t intimidated.”

The win also avenged a tough 27-26 loss in the regular season. In that game, Landress said Banning was given four timeouts, and that Pilot quarterback John Maae was down before he fell across the goal line with the winning touchdown in the game’s final seconds.

Running low: San Fernando, favored to win the Northwest Valley League basketball title, will have a tough time playing at a championship level until football season is over. Coach Dick Crowell then will inherit five football players, including Joe Mauldin, Sean Williams and Michael Wynn, to bolster his thinning roster.

San Fernando, which fell to Van Nuys, 62-55, in its first game, has been left with only seven players after Steve Leos broke his arm last week. Leos, a substitute guard, will be out at least four weeks.

Staff writers John Ortega, John Lynch and Steve Elling contributed to this notebook.