HIGH SCHOOL NOTEBOOK : Notre Dame to Test Character

Setefano Malieitulua of Notre Dame High will receive today the results of a test performed on a knee that the senior running back injured in last week’s game against Alemany.

Malieitulua, the team’s leading rusher with 575 yards, underwent a Magnetic Resonance Imaging test on his left knee Thursday. He was injured during the second quarter of Notre Dame’s 35-14 win last Friday and will not play in tonight’s Mission League game against St. Paul.

“It just hurts not to have him because he’s an outstanding player and a team leader,” Notre Dame Coach Kevin Rooney said. “It’s a bad break for us because St. Paul is definitely one of the top teams in the league. The character of our team will just have to show through.”

Malieitulua suffered the injury at the end of a 10-yard screen pass against Alemany. He was flipped in the air on the tackle and landed hard on his knee. He continued to play, finishing with 94 yards in 17 carries, but felt soreness in his knee Saturday.

Rooney will use two runners in place of Malieitulua. Senior Justin Mitchell, a starting defensive back, will start at tailback, and Isaac Venegas, the most valuable player on last year’s sophomore team, also will carry the ball. Bobby DaCorsi, who had missed three games because of a sprained knee, will return to the Notre Dame secondary, replacing Malieitulua, who doubled as a defensive back.

Missing for action: Antelope Valley, which played one of the area’s nastiest nonleague schedules, no doubt looks to tonight’s Golden League opener against Palmdale as a chance to show what playing a rough schedule can do for a team.

The Antelopes must do so, however, without tailback Freddy Edwards, a victim of a new league rule instituted in the wake of last season’s Palmdale-Saugus melee. The scoreless game was halted in the fourth quarter when three Palmdale players attacked two of the officials.

Edwards was involved in a shoving match with an El Toro player in last week’s 45-16 El Toro win at Antelope Valley. Edwards was ejected and must sit out the game against Palmdale in accordance with a league rule that imposes a one-game suspension on an ejected player.

Edwards, a junior, is probably the Antelopes’ most talented player. He has 340 yards in 59 carries. Losing Edwards also means losing the big play--he broke touchdown runs of 87 yards against El Toro and 80 yards against Loyola. Both runs came on the first play from scrimmage.

Junior Chelsa Blanks, who leads the team with 367 rushing yards, will move from fullback to tailback.

Return engagement: When Village Christian junior Chad Everett missed last week’s 35-14 win over Southern California Christian because of a hip pointer, wide receiver Myles Brown moved to tailback. He seemed to enjoy the view back there, gaining 148 yards in 19 carries.

“He loved it,” Village Christian Coach Mike Plaisance said. “He said he wants to play there now. But Everett said he wants his job back.”

Plaisance said that he expects Everett to be back at tailback for Saturday’s Alpha League opener against L. A. Baptist.

Add Crusaders: Fullback Rick Nickels remains sidelined because of a knee injury. Tests conducted last week proved inconclusive, and Nickels will be out two more weeks while another test is performed. Nickels might miss the rest of the season, Plaisance said.

Nickels has gained 113 yards and scored five touchdowns for Village Christian (3-1-1).

Glory days: If only the game was as entertaining as the preliminary banter.

The year was 1966. Two linemen named Tom Stevenson and Steve Landress were playing for Birmingham and Cleveland, respectively, battling it out in the trenches.

Years later, it remains unclear who had the upper hand, but the good-natured sparring continues. And with Taft--coached by Stevenson--set to play Cleveland--coached by Landress--tonight, the verbal jousting has resumed.

Stevenson said a couple of seasons ago that Landress was the kind of player who would “bite a guy’s leg in a dog pile” to gain an edge. The Taft coach now says he has people to back his claim that he pushed Landress all over the field.

Stevenson said that Landress’ father Collier was an English teacher at Birmingham.

“I walked into his class after the game and his dad says, “Hey, great game. You kicked my son’s butt.’ ”

Said Landress: “Sometimes I wish it could just be me and him in the middle of the field. We could just leave the teams at home. I think I could take him.”

Replied Stevenson: “He’s getting cranky in his old age. There’s no way, he’s too slow.”

Cleveland has never been Taft’s No. 1 rival, but Stevenson admitted that he looks forward to playing the Cavaliers.

“It’s never been a super big rivalry or anything,” Stevenson said. “But Steve and I always have fun with it. It’s always fun to play against his guys.”

Belmont stakes: El Camino Real co-Coach Mike Maio might be luckier than he realizes. Twice he has been on the receiving end of good fortune, precisely because of some faulty receiving.

In El Camino Real’s 10-0 victory over Cleveland last week, a Cleveland player allowed a Conquistadore kickoff to roll untouched to the goal line. El Camino Real recovered the live ball at the one-foot line and scored one play later.

Maio said that a similar play took place in 1972 while he was coaching at Belmont. And if Maio sometimes has days when he is certain nobody is paying attention. . . .

“We had just spent the week talking about how we didn’t want our players to spike the ball,” Maio recalled. “That was right about the time everyone had started doing that stuff in the end zone. We told everybody that they were just supposed to hand the ball to the official.”

Apparently, most of Maio’s message was received. All except for the part about the end zone.

“We kicked off and (our) kid went down there and picked up the ball at about the five, ran straight to the sideline and handed it to the official.”

Endangered species: The quarterback position is not only the most prestigious position at St. Genevieve, it also might be the most dangerous.

In a 28-14 loss to Calabasas in the second game of the season, St. Genevieve quarterback Joe Gonzales suffered bruised ribs and has not returned.

Because Gonzales’ backup, Bobby Kite, had sustained a broken thumb during preseason practice, St. Genevieve Coach Mark Lovett moved wide receiver Cary Iaccino to backup quarterback.

Kite passed for 445 yards in the next two games, including a 254-yard, four-touchdown performance in a brawl-shortened win over Salesian two weeks ago.

Last Saturday against Montclair Prep, Kite, a senior right-hander, passed for two touchdowns in less than two quarters to give the Valiants a 13-0 lead, but he injured his left elbow while trying to make a tackle on a punt return and could not continue.

Iaccino replaced Kite but St. Genevieve went on to lose, 35-13.

Fortunately for the Valiants, they have a bye this week, but the status of Kite and Gonzales remains uncertain for the Valiants’ game Oct. 19 at El Segundo.

“When Kite went down, I just thought, ‘Oh, no, here we go again,’ ” Lovett said. “We’re going great and then these things just devastate us. It’s not fair.

“I was telling the kids maybe we’re not praying enough.”

Father knows best: Alex Estrada, a junior wide receiver-running back-defensive end on Faith Baptist’s eight-man football team, suffered a broken hip while running sprints during spring drills. Before the injury, Coach Greg Weiss expected Estrada to star on the football field as he had on the basketball court the previous winter, when he averaged 19.1 points and seven assists while helping Faith Baptist win the Southern Section 1-A Division title.

“We were afraid that he might not be able to come back,” Weiss said. “The doctors said he would miss three to six weeks, but we were worried. His father reassured us that Alex would be back.”

After missing four weeks and Faith Baptist’s first two games, Estrada returned and proved quickly he had not lost a stride. He scored four touchdowns in a 43-36 win over Fresno Christian in his return three weeks ago. In a 26-20 loss to Templeton two weeks ago, Estrada had seven catches for 157 yards, carried the ball 14 times for 66 yards, threw a 25-yard touchdown pass and had 10 tackles.

Adam Benson and staff writers Steve Elling, Kirby Lee, John Lynch, Paige A. Leech and Brian Murphy contributed to this notebook.