Sylvester and Fontana Bowl Over San Fernando

Last season, Fontana High’s Bobby Sylvester was an All-Southern Section Division I linebacker. Friday night, at the expense of San Fernando and quarterback Michael Wynn, Sylvester decided to expand his repertoire.

When the 5-foot-11, 190-pound senior wasn’t chasing Wynn all over the field, he was being chased by San Fernando. He rushed for a career-high 184 yards from his fullback position and scored two touchdowns as Fontana defeated the Tigers, 35-9, before 5,000 at Fontana in San Fernando’s opener.

“I’m too small to be a college linebacker,” Sylvester said. “So maybe some college will pick me up as a running back.”

Sylvester spearheaded Fontana--ranked fourth in the state by Cal-Hi Sports--on both sides of the ball. Sylvester led a linebacking corps that limited San Fernando to four yards rushing and 116 yards overall. Wynn spent most of the evening trying to evade Sylvester and Co.

“I couldn’t even get set up,” said Wynn, who completed eight of 21 passes for 112 yards and was intercepted once. “When they send that many guys after you, you can’t do much. And they sent ‘backers after me all night.”

Fontana (2-0), taking advantage of a San Fernando offensive line that included five new starters, stunted and blitzed all night, sacking a harried and hurried Wynn seven times for minus-69 yards. Wynn finished with minus-10 yards rushing in a team-high 15 carries.

How stymied was San Fernando? The Tigers were penalized 13 times--including seven times for personal fouls--for 118 yards, more yardage than the offense could muster. The defense surrendered 360 yards, all but 39 on the ground.

Fontana is a blue-collar town, and it plays black-and-blue football, Sylvester said.

“We’ve probably used the same offense for about 20 years,” he said. “It’s just power, power, power, and then we run somebody around end.”

And to keep Wynn under wraps, Sylvester said the Steelers used their own iron-curtain defense up front.

“He’s a great quarterback, an All-American type,” Sylvester said of Wynn. “That kid was awesome. But we were told that if he started to roll out to any side, to just leave our positions and blitz, that whenever he came your way, to go after him.”

Fontana led, 7-3, but smoked the Tigers with 14 points in each of the third and fourth quarters. Sylvester did most of the damage in the second half, scoring on runs of one and 19 yards and recovering a Wynn fumble in the fourth quarter.

Fontana scored touchdowns on four its first five possessions of the second half.

Running back Junior Vaoifi scored on a 45-yard run that featured the trampling of San Fernando linebackers William Taylor and Dwayne West to give Fontana a 14-3 lead with 10:08 left in the third quarter.

Sylvester gave Fontana a 21-3 lead on a one-yard run with 5:14 left in the quarter, giving the Steelers their second touchdown in a span of nine offensive plays.

Sylvester giveth, and he taketh away, too. On the Tigers’ ensuing possession, Wynn was gang-tackled while scrambling out of the pocket--no isolated incident, by any means--and fumbled, Sylvester recovering. Sylvester scored on the next play on a 19-yard run to give Fontana a 28-3 lead with 4:20 left.

San Fernando’s lone bright spot of the half was sophomore LaKarlos Townsend who returned a kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown after Sylvester’s 19-yard scoring run.

Even though the defeat was about as lopsided as it gets, Wynn remained upbeat. Diplomatic, even, considering the mileage he put in trying to get the Fontana defense off his back.

“Frustrating, no I wouldn’t say that,” Wynn said. “I realize that we have some new guys, that it was our first game and that they are a very good team.

“We knew we had some work to do. But I’m still glad we started with this team. It’s like last year when we started with Banning--you only get better later on.”

He may have a point.

The Tigers had lost their opener six times in the past nine years entering Friday night’s game and rebounded to win their second game each time.

After turning the ball over on its first possession, Fontana slammed the ball inside en route to its first score. Sylvester gained 23 yards on the ground in the Steelers’ 83-yard drive.