Judge Rejects Last-Minute Bid to Halt Ballgame : Courts: The father of a Huntington Beach High football player filed a federal lawsuit in a last-ditch effort to stop a playoff game and reinstate his son’s team.

Two and a half hours before kickoff, the father of a Huntington Beach High School football player filed a federal lawsuit in a last-ditch effort to stop Friday’s playoff game between Fontana and Fountain Valley high schools. A federal judge, however, refused to intervene.

With only 20 seconds to spare before the courthouse closed, Donald Ruskin, his wife and their two lawyers arrived at the building, leaped out of their car and ran inside just as marshals were preparing to lock the doors.

The 5 p.m. filing took place precisely 23 hours after a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal took Huntington Beach out of the playoffs, reversing a lower court order that had reinstated the team. The appeals panel found that the California Interscholastic Federation had the right to bar the team from competition for using an ineligible player, starting tackle David Roman, 17.

Ruskin’s lawsuit contends that the CIF violated the constitutional rights of his son, defensive tackle Walter Ruskin, 17, by improperly depriving him of a shot at the playoffs. He wanted a temporary restraining order halting the game in which Fountain Valley played in place of Huntington Beach.

But U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts, who took the unusual step of hearing the case after hours, rejected the bid. He said the questions of whether CIF rules are fair and whether they are fairly applied are not constitutional issues, so they should not be heard in federal court.

Weighing the impact he would have if he had granted the order, Letts said, “It looks like the choices are to forfeit the game and watch the riot or play it and then not count it.”

Watching the courtroom clock ticking to 6 p.m., CIF attorney Andrew Patterson noted that there was “a real question” of whether the CIF could actually stop the game between Fountain Valley and Fontana at that hour. Fontana won the game, 51-6.

“The school buses have left,” he said. “The field is open to the public. It is expected there will be a crowd of about 8,000 people there. One or more of the teams is probably practicing on the field right now.”

Letts told Ruskin’s attorney, Margaret Thurn, that he would do more harm to more people by issuing the order and causing two teams to give up their game than by granting it and letting Huntington Beach back into the playoffs. Letts sympathized with the team’s dilemma, but said that, legally, Thurn’s case did not hold water.

“As to those completely innocent people, which ones are going to be deprived of their right to play?” Letts said. “They’re all innocent. Hard as it is with an administrative infraction of the rules to mess it up for everyone else, I just don’t think you can get there from here.”

It was a bitter and final defeat for Ruskin, who said, “The children shouldn’t be punished for the mistakes of adults.”

School officials did not realize that Roman was ineligible until last week, after regular-season play had ended and the 8-2 Oilers team was preparing for the playoffs.

CIF officials, who spent many hours in court all week, greeted the last-minute lawsuit with an exhausted sigh and a bit of amazement.

“I’m just surprised,” said Dean Crowley, associate administrator of the CIF’s Southern Section.

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