High School Football : Point Loma’s Dominating Days Over for Now; El Camino Wins, 27-19

The Point Loma High School football team entered Saturday night’s nonleague game against El Camino with a lot of questions.

Could Coach Bennie Edens field the same type of team that went 14-0 last year and won the San Diego Section 3-A title? Could it duplicate the defense that slowed even the most potent offenses of a year ago? Could it continue to rely on a disciplined, ground-oriented running attack that wasn’t flashy but was successful?

If the 27-19 beating that El Camino--a 2-A team--gave the defending champs is any indication, the answer to all of the above is no.

“We’ll be OK,” Edens said. “We are very young and we have a lot of juniors on our team. It will take a while for them to learn what they are supposed to do. I wasn’t embarrassed by them at all.”

For El Camino, the question was is this team better than the mediocre team that made the playoffs last year?

The answer for Coach Herb Meyer, who was winning his 199th career game, seems to be yes.

El Camino quarterback Eric Robinson did most of the damage. He ran for two touchdowns and passed for another and didn’t stop there. Robinson scrambled out of what seemed to be sacks for first downs, ran from the tailback position and threw twice from punt formation, the second time setting up El Camino’s final touchdown.

El Camino took just three plays to score. Jerry Avery returned the opening kickoff 42 yards to the Point Loma 45. Robinson passed 11 yards to Reggie Carter to the Point Loma 44. After an incomplete pass, Robinson took two steps back into the pocket and took off running, off left tackle into open field. No one came close to catching him. John Castro kicked the extra point and El Camino led, 7-0.

Point Loma answered with a 12-yard scoring pass from Danny White to J.J. Stokes to make it 7-6. After a penalty, the extra point attempt was blocked.

To start the second half, El Camino linebacker Ricky Spears intercepted a White pass at the Point Loma 44 and returned it to the seven. Three plays later, second-string quarterback Joe Malek swept left 4 yards for the touchdown. Castro failed on the extra point attempt.