The High Schools : Marmonte Backs Run Low on Experience

Knee injuries to tailbacks Mike Lindsay and Kris Kirksey have turned a typical Marmonte League glut into a distinct shortage.

For the first time in recent memory, no league team will have an established game-breaker in its backfield when the season opens. This, after all, is a league that in the 1980s has produced the likes of Marc Monestime, John Johnson, M. J. Nelson, Bill Bell, Jerry Williams and Gary Wellman, among others.

Lindsay, from Thousand Oaks High, rushed for 1,046 yards as a junior, but arthroscopic surgery will delay his season for at least a month. As a sophomore, Camarillo’s Kirksey gained 670 yards in seven games before tearing ligaments in his right knee. His status for the Scorpions’ opener next week against Oxnard is day to day.

That leaves Kirksey’s blocking back--fullback Greg Exler--as the league’s top returning ground-gainer with 333 yards in 73 carries last season. Both Thousand Oaks Coach Bob Richards and Channel Islands Coach Joel Gershon brushed aside the possibility of a downward trend.

“There’s good potential out there,” Richards said. “I think we’ll know best when we get into pads.”

Said Gershon, who lost two 1,000-yard gainers--Johnson and Williams--to graduation: “It’s just one of those things. Next year at this time, we’ll probably be talking about all the great young running backs. I don’t think there’s a trend developing.”

Lindsay and Kirksey aside, a look at the top returnees:

* Camarillo: Exler.

* Channel Islands: Renard Carn (27 carries, 132 yards).

* Newbury Park: Jason Sands (33 carries, 92 yards).

* Royal: Robbie Smith (26 carries, 134 yards).

* Simi Valley: Eric Hale (71 carries, 205 yards).

* Thousand Oaks: Chris Foster (11 carries, 46 yards) and Steve Rudisill (10 carries, 45 yards).

* Westlake: Seamus Gibbons (32 carries, 134 yards) and Luke Crawford (31 carries, 111 yards).

Add Marmonte League: Channel Islands and Camarillo were unable to fill bye dates in their league schedules and therefore will have unplanned and unwanted midseason vacations.

“We called four different sections--San Diego, Central, L. A. City and Southern,” Gershon said. “We’re just going to have to live with it. What can you say?”

Channel Islands originally had a contract to play Santa Barbara of the Channel League on Oct. 20, but the Dons reneged when Dos Pueblos did not close down as expected. That left the Channel League with its original eight members and no bye dates on the schedule.

Gershon, entering his 17th year as coach of the Raiders, said that this is his first midseason bye. Camarillo Coach Carl Thompson, in his seventh season, said the same.

Thompson is not sure how an Oct. 27 bye will affect his team. “It will depend on how we are at the time,” he said. “If we’re banged up, it’ll give us a chance to get well. We might also have to get back some lost intensity.”

So long and good luck: Saugus junior quarterback Rob Weeg has quit the team, leaving the Centurions with no certain successor less than two weeks before the season starts. He left the team last week during the second day of two-a-day workouts.

Saugus Coach Dick Flaherty said that Weeg was as talented as Hart quarterback Rob Westervelt, who passed for 2,130 yards last year.

“He’s a real nice kid,” Flaherty said. “He just wasn’t having fun and he was having a lot of problems. He said that he’s been playing football all his life for everyone but himself. I don’t know if he was pressured, but he felt that he was playing because his parents wanted him to play and his friends wanted him to play.

“I said, ‘Then you shouldn’t be out here.’ ”

Flaherty admittedly had spent so much time working with Weeg that junior Jeff Hickman (5-11, 185), Weeg’s probable replacement, is unprepared. Hickman played backup on the sophomore team last season.

“I sort of neglected Jeff,” Flaherty said.

Junior Rob Davidson (5-8, 135), a converted wide receiver, also is a candidate, leaving the Centurions, already lagging behind league competitors in the talent department, severely depleted.

While acknowledging that Weeg’s talent will be missed, Flaherty averred that “it was a good decision all the way around.”

Bad break: As managers go, Village Christian’s Mark Anderson was a good one.

Oh, sure, he might have been a good team manager. He might have folded the team towels neatly and kept the water bottles full. But this guy was more than a good manager--he was a good football player .

Rarity of rarities, Anderson had retired from the world of collecting dirty uniforms to join the team for his senior season. And Anderson had so impressed Coach Mike Plaisance that Anderson was listed as the team’s No. 1 wide receiver.

But Anderson never got a chance to play. He was hit in a seven-on-seven drill, broke his humerus bone and will be lost for the season.

Add bad break: Antelope Valley fullback Oko Hoskins has been declared academically ineligible, leaving the starting job to linebacker Les Williams.

Hard luck at Harvard: Saracen quarterback Scott Collins, who returns after undergoing knee surgery three games into last season, will have to wait a while for his Harvard debut. He pulled a hamstring while leaping for a ball in a defensive backs drill last week.

Last season, Collins completed 33 passes for 420 yards and five touchdowns before sustaining the knee injury.

Initially, Coach Gary Thran thought the situation was more serious. “When he did it, I thought it was torn and he was out for the season, but he’s come back in the last couple of days,” Thran said.

Collins likely will return soon after the Saracens’ opener against Blair on Sept. 7, Thran said. Senior Adam Rowins has moved from receiver to quarterback and will start in his place.

Said Thran of Collins’ defensive aspirations: “He’s seen his last days at defensive back.”

Staff writers Tim Brown, Sam Farmer, Vince Kowalick and Brian Murphy contributed to this notebook.