El Camino Real Uses Recovery to Pick Up Win Over Cleveland

Never play stump-the-coach with El Camino Real High’s Mike Maio, who apparently has seen just about everything in his three decades of high school football.

The referees never had seen a play like it. Cleveland’s Steve Landress said it never had happened in his 15 years as coach. Yet it took Maio, the Conquistadores’ co-coach, all of five seconds to recall when he had seen it.

“It was 1972. I was at Belmont High, we kicked the ball off and our guy picked it up at the two. He didn’t know what to do so he handed it to the ref,” Maio recalled.

Cleveland sophomore Derrick Dumas did not know what to do, either. El Camino Real defeated Cleveland, 10-0, in a Northwest Valley Conference opener Thursday night at Canoga Park High, and Dumas’ failure to field an El Camino Real kickoff was just the break the Conquistadores needed.

After a field goal by Joe La Firenza gave El Camino Real (2-1, 1-0 in league play) a 3-0 lead with 1 minute 10 seconds left in the first half, La Firenza booted the ball over the head of Dumas, one of the deep men on the return.

Perhaps Dumas was a mite confused--La Firenza also is the El Camino Real punter--but he and a trio of Cleveland players watched the ball roll to a stop at the Cleveland one-yard line. El Camino Real’s Sean Boldt, who streaked down the sideline, picked up the ball about six inches from the sideline and stepped in for an apparent touchdown.

“I thought, ‘Yeah, I got me a touchdown,’ ” Boldt said. “The ref even gave me the high sign.”

After a conference among the officials, however, the ball was placed at the Cleveland one. It had traveled the required 10 yards at which point it became a free ball, but it had not been touched by a Cleveland player, so it could not be advanced by Boldt.

On the next play, El Camino Real quarterback Evan Howland scored on a keeper to give the Conquistadores a 10-0 lead. Two seconds had expired since La Firenza booted a 26-yard field goal.

“We’re young,” Landress said. “We made some young mistakes. When you don’t cover a kickoff, you fumble a punt, you don’t score inside the 10. . . . That’s a lot of ifs.”

Cleveland (0-2-1, 0-1) had numerous chances to crawl back into the game. After a third-quarter drive by El Camino Real stalled at the Cleveland one, the Cavaliers moved the ball to the Conquistadore 15. On fourth and eight at the 15, however, Boldt sacked quarterback Delvon McDaniel for an 11-yard loss.

Cleveland drove to the El Camino Real eight in the fourth quarter, but the next three plays netted minus-four yards and McDaniel’s fourth-down pass into the end zone fell incomplete with 6:37 remaining.

Perhaps Cleveland’s ultimate frustration came two plays later when Howland fumbled and Dumas ran 55 yards for an apparent touchdown. It was nullified by a clipping penalty, however.