Valley-area College Football : Raider Defense Causes Coaches to Dig Deep

With two consecutive shutouts, the Moorpark College defense is hot.

Hot enough to burn holes in the pockets of Raider coaches.

Moorpark coaches treat the team to a barbecue steak dinner when the defense records a shutout. The Raiders blanked Compton, 55-0, Saturday and the $200 dinner bill was split seven ways between coaches.

“It’s getting expensive,” said Jim Bittner, Moorpark’s coach. “I’m going to start cheering for the other team.”

Grounded: Albert Fann, Northridge’s two-time All-Western Football Conference tailback, was held to a season-low 33 yards in 13 carries Saturday night at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Fann, who was averaging 103 yards rushing per game, was grounded to a halt, but Northridge still managed a 13-10 victory.

“You can take (Fann) away if you have good people like they do and put enough of them up there,” said Bob Burt, CSUN’s coach, “but it just opens up something else.”

Sherdrick Bonner, the Matadors’ quarterback, was the team’s leading rusher with 59 yards in 14 carries, including 18 yards in losses from two sacks.

“The fact is, we have a lot of weapons,” Burt said. “Sherdrick’s feet and athletic ability can cause a lot of problems for people.”

Once upon a time: Northridge’s 13-10 victory over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was only its sixth in 29 meetings with the Mustangs. The Matadors had won on San Luis Obispo’s home field only once before, in 1964, when the Mustangs finished 0-10.

Strong-armed Armstrong: Steve Armstrong, who helped Agoura High win a Southern Section Desert-Mountain Conference championship in 1984, has been a college football vagabond.

Armstrong went to West Point out of Agoura, but was cut from Army’s football team. He attended West Point in the fall semester of 1985, then spent three semesters and played one season at Moorpark College. He is now in his third football season at UC Santa Barbara, where his job as quarterback is to keep the Gauchos on the move.

He did just that last Saturday against Cal Lutheran, completing 16 of 29 passes for 184 yards and three touchdowns in a 24-21 UCSB victory.

Armstrong was a surprise starter against Cal Lutheran, replacing Mike Curtius. Armstrong played well enough to earn another start on Saturday against Sonoma State.

Sweet revenge: For four Glendale College players, Saturday’s game against Pierce was more than just another Western State Conference game. It was a chance to perform against their former team.

Quarterback Ronnie Lopez, running back Wes Bender, center Mark Overstreet and defensive end Eric Fiori of Glendale all played at Pierce last season.

John Cicuto, Glendale’s coach, said there wasn’t much love lost between the two sides.

“They were real excited about playing against (Pierce) because I guess they didn’t have a great experience,” Cicuto said “There also, apparently, were some comments from Pierce about their ability. So they were pleased with the way things turned out.”

Lopez and Bender had big games as Glendale defeated Pierce, 43-15. Lopez ran for a touchdown and completed seven of eight passes for 131 yards and another score. Bender had seven carries for 60 yards and two touchdowns.

Scrappy defender: Three weeks after missing a game for “personal reasons,” Reggie Williams had one of the finest games in his three years at a starting cornerback in the Northridge secondary.

Williams, a 5-9, 170-pound senior, had nine unassisted tackles and was credited with four pass breakups Saturday in CSUN’s 13-10 victory over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

“He played like his nickname, Scrap Iron,” said Bob Burt, CSUN’s coach. “He was always in the right position doing exactly what he is supposed to do.”

Tickets available: The wave would have hardly been a ripple among the 1,814 fans rattling around UC Santa Barbara’s 17,000-seat Harder Stadium for the Cal Lutheran game on Saturday.

The stadium attendance record is 11,000, and Harder has only hosted two crowds of 10,000 or more. The university decided to expand the stadium’s capacity from 12,000 to 17,000 in 1968.

Playing to win: Chuck Ferrero, coach of the Valley College football team, had a choice to make--one he said was really no choice at all. Valley could have gone for a field goal in order to tie L. A. Southwest Saturday.

Instead, the Monarchs went for a touchdown and the win. But Mark Mengoli’s 12-yard scoring pass to Sean Brown with no time left was nullified by a holding penalty and Valley fell, 12-9.

Still, Ferrero is convinced he made a popular choice.

“It was a non-division game, so it doesn’t affect where we finish in the standings, “ Ferrero said “I think most people would rather see us go for a win and not make it than go for a tie and get it.

“The players play to win and so do I.”

Gary Klein and staff writers Mike Hiserman, John Ortega and Brendan Healey contributed to this notebook.