The High Schools : League Opener Could Set Tone for Hart’s Year

Is there any reason to believe Hart will not capture its sixth consecutive Foothill League title?

First-year Coach Dave Carson, who leads his team into league play against Burroughs tonight, cannot find one.

“We want to get this one down and set the tone for the rest of the league and say, ‘Hart’s gonna kick your butt!’ We’re better than everybody so we should kick their butts,” he said.

Hart has won 20 consecutive league games, dating to 1983. “This should be 21,” Carson said. “We’re better than they are on paper . . . if we don’t screw it up.”

That’s a possibility. Despite Hart’s apparent talent, there is reason to question whether the team will continue to dominate. Hart (3-2) began the season with an impressive 33-28 win over Canyon. Since then, the Indians have been inconsistent, losing to Colton and Palmdale, then struggling to beat Saugus, 17-7.

In Hart’s 29-13 win over Quartz Hill last week, the Indians were penalized 10 times--4 for pass interference--for 100 yards. Hart rushed for only 69 yards and is averaging 85.2 yards rushing a game.

Upset time? Said Burroughs Coach Butch McElwee: “They’re beatable.”

For openers: St. Francis opens Del Rey League play tonight, playing host to Loyola (5-0), ranked No. 2 in the nation by USA Today. Rather than causing himself a migraine over his team’s bad luck in drawing the Cubs, St. Francis Coach Terry Terrazone is trying to take the game with a grain of salt.

“We have to look at this as a fun kind of game,” Terrazone said. “They’re a good football team. It’s not that often that we get to play a team this good.”

Because Loyola plays most of its games on Saturday nights, Terrazone has had plenty of opportunities to scout the Cubs, who have allowed 21 points this season.

Running to the top: Camarillo’s cross-country team has moved to No. 1 in the Southern Section 4-A Division after wins at the Stanford and Palos Verdes invitationals.

Camarillo scored 90 points at the Stanford meet in Palo Alto last week to defeat Bend High of Oregon (133) and Corona del Mar (153), the Southern Section’s top-ranked team at the time. Upon returning to Southern California, Camarillo won the Palos Verdes invitational Saturday.

Shannon Brusca gave a surprising performance in the Scorpions’ victory at Stanford. Brusca, a sophomore transfer from Japan, where his dad was stationed in the Navy, ran 17 minutes, 10 seconds over the difficult 5,000-meter course to place 32nd as Camarillo’s fourth runner.

Junior Shawn Goetzinger was Camarillo’s top runner in both races, placing fifth at Stanford (16:10) and first at Palos Verdes (11:26 for 2.2 miles).

Add Camarillo: Three of Camarillo’s top 7 runners, including Brusca, have transferred to the school in the past 2 years.

Junior Abe Valdez, the Scorpions’ top runner last season, attended Rio Mesa as a freshman before moving into Camarillo’s attendance district in the summer of 1987. Senior John Schnell attended high school in Pennsylvania before moving to Camarillo prior to his junior year.

Clawing to the top: The Newbury Park girls’ volleyball team wanted to start its match at Thousand Oaks last Saturday on a positive note, but the first game sounded more like an echo of previous matches between the Marmonte League rivals.

The Panthers lost the first game, 16-14, despite being ahead, 13-8, and serving at game point 8 times. For a team that had lost 5 consecutive matches to Thousand Oaks, including the Southern Section 2-A Division championship last season, the first-game loss could have been devastating.

Instead it just confirmed the Panthers’ belief that they could beat Thousand Oaks.

“Thousand Oaks was playing tremendously,” Coach Joe Wortmann said. “But I thought they were playing above their heads.”

Newbury Park won the next 3 games and the match for the Panthers’ first victory over Thousand Oaks in 3 years.

Staff writers Steve Elling, John Ortega, Chris J. Parker and Vince Kowalick contributed to this notebook.