HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL ROUNDUP : Helix Settles Matters Quickly

It took Helix High and Mt. Miguel High until the final day of the regular season to determine the Grossmont 3-A League football championship. But once they hit the field Thursday night at Helix, it didn’t take long to find out who would win the title.

No. 7 Helix raced to a huge early lead, then went on to rout Mt. Miguel, 42-14, in front of approximately 1,500 fans to earn its fifth league championship of the 1980s.

The Highlanders improved to 7-1-1 and 4-0 in the league and will go to the first round of the 3-A playoffs as the Grossmont’s No. 1 representative. Mt. Miguel fell to 5-4-1 and 2-2 but likely will make the playoffs as an at-large selection.

Helix, with excellent field position throughout, led 21-0 after nine minutes, 28-0 after 12:08 and 35-0 with 9:17 left in the half.

The coaches’ explanations were a matter of semantics.

Said Helix’s Jim Arnaiz: “Everything went right in the first half.”

Said Mt. Miguel’s Gary Cooper: “Everything that could go wrong in the first half did. You can’t make mistakes against them, and we did.”

After losing a fumble on its first play, Helix scored five touchdowns on its next 16.

Jarrett Parr (nine carries, 72 yards) had two touchdowns, a 51-yard run and a 60-yard pass from Rob Ippolito (six of 12 for 91 yards).

Kenny Carter (19-yard run), Frank Nunez (28-yard run) and Ale Campo (19-yard pass from Ippolito) had the other touchdowns. Carter added a 20-yard run in the fourth quarter.

Helix’ first three touchdowns were set up by junior linebacker Eric Stavola, who intercepted a pass and recovered two fumbles in the first eight minutes.

Mt. Miguel, whose first play was a pass for minus nine yards, was limited to just three yards in the first quarter and 25 in the half. The Matadors did not score until early in the fourth quarter on Corey White’s three-yard run. Their other touchdown was on Jimmy Rodgers’ late one-yard run.

Earl Bryers, with just 10 rushing yards in the first half, finished with 119 on 12 carries.