2-A Football Final : After 9 Years, a Dream Comes True for Coaches

It’s no coincidence that San Pasqual and San Marcos high schools are playing for the San Diego Section 2-A football championship tonight. At least two people have been planning it for the past nine years.

San Pasqual Coach Mike Dolan and San Marcos Coach Ken Broach have been best friends since they worked together as assistants to Bob Woodhouse at San Marcos in 1970. Each year they get together for camping trips and water skiing outings.

And the talk always turns to playing against one another for the championship in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Tonight at 5, their longtime plan will be put in motion when the Avocado League rivals play for the section 2-A title.

“We’ve talked about this for years,” Dolan said. “We camped together in the summer, and our wives are best friends. . . . And every year we have talked about the possibility of meeting in the stadium. It has just always been a dream of ours, and to see that fulfilled is really just amazing.”

Amazing is right. Neither team had the kind of season that spelled section championship. San Pasqual (8-4) opened with four losses. In each of those losses, San Pasqual had five turnovers.

San Marcos (6-4-3), which was expected to be the strongest team in the league, had two ties in its first three games and lost the other.

The teams met in the final regular-season game, with San Pasqual winning, 6-0, on two field goals by Chris Nottoli. San Pasqual finished as the league champion, and San Marcos finished fourth.

Dolan accompanied Broach to the section playoff seeding meeting, in which both coaches urged the committee to award San Marcos one of four 2-A at-large berths.

“Our second season came with that rebirth, so to speak,” Broach said of the at-large berth. “We lit up after that, and our kids started playing relaxed. There was not so much pressure inflicted on them.”

But in the final playoff games for both teams, pressure was the key. San Marcos was tied, 6-6, with La Jolla before it won in overtime in a driving rainstorm. San Pasqual made a surprising comeback from a 20-7 deficit to beat two-time defending champion Lincoln, 28-27, in the final seconds of that game.

Although tonight’s game may be a dream for the coaches, the players are readying themselves for a battle against a team toward which they harbor no warm feelings.

“Well, there’s no other team I would rather play,” said Andy Loveland, San Pasqual’s quarterback. “But this game (against San Marcos) is always a little harder, a little faster and a little nastier. It’s always pretty intense out on the field when we play them.”

Said Broach: “I think the coaches’ personalities are out of it. The kids will focus on what they have to do to win and not my relationship with Mike.”

Broach added that he and Dolan will probably get together sometime early next week and discuss tonight’s outcome. In all of the years they have planned on meeting in the stadium, neither coach has mentioned which team will win.

“We’ve never got that far,” Broach said.

Said Dolan: “Sometimes in the coaching profession . . . you are so aware of beating (a) school . . . but this relationship has worked out so well for us, and it brings us back to earth.

“And, hey, it’s just another high school football team. Win or lose, the sun will rise--it just comes up two days late, that’s all.”

2-A CHAMPIONSHIP

GAME FACTS

Who: San Marcos vs. San Pasqual.

Where: San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

When: 5 p.m.

Records: San Marcos 6-4-3, San Pasqual 8-4.

Last meeting: San Pasqual 6, San Marcos 0 (1987).

Players to watch: SAN MARCOS: Jess Berrelleza (6-0, 190, Sr., FB), Matt Herr (6-3, 230, Jr., OT), Travis Beasley (6-0, 175, Sr., WR-DB). SAN PASQUAL: Chris Nottoli (6-1, 174, Sr., SE), Andy Loveland (6-0, 178, Jr., QB-DB), Rick Aschbrenner (5-10, 175, Sr., LB-OG).