THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Montclair Prep Patches Up the Passing Lanes

It’s not the way that any coach wants to head into the postseason arena, but Montclair Prep defensive coordinator John Hazelton isn’t panicky. Far from it.

“I’m very confident about it,” Hazelton said. “Absolutely. I’m not worried.”

It would be the suspect performance of the Montclair Prep secondary in Saturday night’s 28-20 squeaker over Village Christian, a .500 team, and its 5-foot-6 sophomore quarterback, Mark Vail. Throwing mostly out of the shotgun, Vail completed 12 of 23 passes for 177 yards and two touchdowns.

Village Christian Coach Mike Plaisance said that the game plan was to attack the Mountie cornerbacks. Hazelton, who coaches them, reacted with conviction.

“We’ve got the top pass defense in the Valley,” he insisted. “(Saturday night) was just a matter of coaching, not playing.”

Hazelton believes that Montclair Prep’s practice field, which measures less than 50 yards, has adversely affected the play of the defensive backs.

Hazelton said that he might take the defensive backs to a regulation-size field before the playoffs to let them get the feel of playing on a full field.

In the meantime, with those final numbers added in, Montclair Prep has surrendered the mantle of best pass defense in the Valley. The Mounties have yielded 559 yards in the air. L. A. Baptist has allowed just 513 yards.

Valley showdown: Camarillo and Canyon won their respective heats in the Southern Section 4-A Division cross-country preliminaries last week at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, setting up a Valley showdown for the team championship Saturday on the same course.

Camarillo is the top-ranked team in the 4-A and Canyon is ranked second. But even though Canyon won its heat, Coach Dave DeLong does not believe that the 4-A final, which will be run over the junior college’s challenging three-mile course, will be as close as some expect.

Canyon outdistanced Santa Ana, 60-81, to win its heat. The Cowboys were paced by senior Dan Berkeland, who sprinted past Hoover’s Creighton Harris in the final 10 yards to win in a personal-best 15 minutes, 32 seconds.

The Scorpions placed all five of their scorers among the top 10 finishers and totaled 32 points, well ahead of second-place Palos Verdes (109).

Camarillo’s runners, though, were not even pushing the pace. Senior Abe Valdez, who timed a personal-best 15:14 in the Mt. SAC Invitational on Oct. 21, posted an easy 15:50 in the prelims to finish second. Senior Shawn Goetzinger (personal record of 15:26 in last year’s 4-A final) clocked 16:03 in fifth place.

Josh Gerry (16:12) and Chad Malesich (16:16), ran 26 and 17 seconds slower than their best performances. Shannon Brusca, who registered a 16:07 mark in the Mt. SAC Invitational, dropped to 16:33 in the prelims.

“We all know we can run faster and we will run faster,” Coach Mike Smith said. “The guys went out and did what they had to do.”

Challenge: The only other time Camarillo, the state’s top-ranked team, went head to head with Canyon this year was in the Mt. SAC Invitational, which the Scorpions won handily over second-ranked Concord De La Salle, 65-117. Canyon, ranked No. 4, finished fourth with 180 points.

Despite DeLong, the Canyon coach, all but conceding the 4-A crown to the Scorpions, Berkeland remains optimistic about his team’s chances of upending Camarillo.

“I think we still got a shot at it,” Berkeland said.

Lost ticket: The Bell-Jeff girls’ cross-country team, ranked third in the state Division III by California Track & Running News, will have to buy a ticket to see the Southern Section finals.

The Guards, season-long favorites to contend for the 1-A title, missed qualifying for the 1-A final in the division preliminaries Friday at Mt. SAC. They placed fifth in the 1-A heat; only the top four teams in each heat advance to the finals.

Eighth-ranked L. A. Marymount (50 points), seventh-ranked Paraclete (71), unranked Fillmore (82) and ninth-ranked Thacher (95) bettered Bell-Jeff (109).

Mike Glaze and staff writer Brian Murphy contributed to this notebook.