Edwards Offers Winless Team Big-Play Power

Senior tailback Freddie Edwards is providing excitement at Antelope Valley High even if the team’s won-loss record is not generating any.

Despite the Antelopes’ opening with two losses, Edwards is proving himself one of the area’s most electrifying players. He has gained 195 yards in 21 carries, averaging 9.3 yards.

In Antelope Valley’s 28-24 loss to Bakersfield West, Edwards picked up a lateral that he had dropped and ran 84 yards for a 24-20 Antelope Valley lead.

“He just slingshots it down the sideline,” Coach Brent Newcomb said. “It was great awareness. He’s the only guy on the field who realized it was a lateral.”

With the four-point lead in the fourth quarter, Newcomb said he was thinking, “Well, they have to drive it 80 yards on us.”

“Darn if they didn’t,” Newcomb said. “Rammed it right down our throats.”

Day Shift

San Fernando, considered one of the best football teams in the City Section, probably should have punched the lights out of lightly regarded Jefferson when the teams met Friday afternoon. Yet San Fernando eked out a 14-13 victory only when Jefferson missed a two-point conversion with no time on the clock.

The victory left Coach Tom Hernandez feeling, well, light-headed.

“Day games do that,” he said. “They throw everything off. It’s hot, you have to hurry up to get there, everybody gets out of school real early. . . .”

As Hernandez continued his litany of complaints, including just about everything under the sun, he landed on one that could be construed as positive.

”. . . . and nobody’s at the game. I hate day games,” he said.

Night Moves

Littlerock Coach Jim Bauer has a view, well, that is as different as night and day.

When Littlerock meets Calabasas on Friday, it will mark the fourth time in Littlerock school history that the Lobos have played at night.

The Lobos (2-0), who are playing their first varsity season, are 1-2 in night games below the varsity level since the school opened in 1989.

“I’d like (the game) to be on a Saturday at about 1:30 and about 105 degrees, because that’s what our kids are used to,” Bauer said.

Both night losses have come at the hands of Highland, another Antelope Valley school in its first varsity season that opened the same year as Littlerock.

Up And Comer

Chatsworth quarterback Brian Comer bucked considerable odds by playing in last week’s game against favored Sylmar.

Comer was bedridden with the flu early in the week and missed two days of school. Despite his weakened state, Comer passed for 168 yards and threw scoring passes of 57 and 45 yards as Chatsworth won, 24-22.

Then again, perhaps Comer should have stayed in bed. After the game, Comer tripped over the curb that surrounds the track at Sylmar High and suffered a minor ankle sprain.

Get a Line on This Guy

For the past few seasons, El Camino Real’s strength has been the play of its offensive and defensive lines. For instance, the Conquistadores’ upset of Granada Hills in the 1989 playoffs--El Camino Real’s biggest playoff victory in years--was largely attributable to its standout linemen.

As the saying goes, teams can’t win without the horses. And based on the stable at El Camino Real, don’t expect the trend to change.

Included among the group of future workhorses is sophomore James Romero, who might be one of the largest area players ever to don a helmet and pads.

Romero, a reserve lineman who plays primarily in goal-line and short-yardage situations, is 6-foot-5 and weighs 340 pounds. El Camino Real co-Coach Mike Maio said that Romero, who has no football experience, has the potential to be a “good one,” but needs to first shed about 50 pounds.

“He’s light on his feet, which isn’t the case with lots of players who are that big,” Maio said. “If he lost a few pounds, he could be (a solid player).”

Odd Couple

Junior quarterbacks Cesar Puga and Mike Mariz, competing for the starting position at Channel Islands, are a study in contrasts. “We call those two Felix and Oscar because they have such different personalities,” Coach Joel Gershon said. “(Mariz) is more controlled, and Puga is a little more excitable.”

Mariz earned the start against Hueneme last week and struggled, completing one of 12 passes for 16 yards. Puga relieved late in the second quarter and finished seven of 11 for 164 yards and three touchdowns, leading Channel Islands to a 35-27 win.

Puga might start Friday, when the Raiders play host to Oxnard (2-0). “I’d say they’re right back in the battle, but Puga is in the lead,” Gershon said.

Dial a Prayer

Newbury Park, devastated by injuries a year ago, again is dialing 911. Three team captains, each a returning two-way starter, have been injured during the Panthers’ 0-2 start.

Perhaps the biggest loss is senior Sean McKeown (6-4, 240), a starter at offensive and defensive tackle who sustained a broken tibia on the third play of last week’s 41-14 loss to Ventura.

Also injured in that game was senior Jeff Turner (6-2, 205), a starter at guard and linebacker who sustained a broken right hand and will miss at least four weeks.

Senior Brad Bybee (6-0, 200), a starter at offensive guard and nose guard, might return this week from a shoulder injury he sustained in a 28-21 loss to Chaminade two weeks ago. Scott Umpleby, who rushed for a team-high 77 yards in 17 carries during the opener, missed last week’s game because of a collarbone injury and might return this week.

Of Newbury Park’s 42 varsity players, 18 began the week injured. Add Newbury Park’s 10 turnovers in two games, and Coach George Hurley is looking for the nearest chapel.

“I gotta start going to church or something,” Hurley said.

Summertime Blues

Canyon’s 0-1-1 start was made a bit worse with the news that senior wide receiver/defensive back Jim Zopelis will miss Thursday’s game against Thousand Oaks because of a badly sprained knee. Zopelis leads Canyon with nine catches for 78 yards.

For Canyon Coach Harry Welch, the news about Zopelis is just adding injury to insult.

“It may be that the summer has really damaged these kids,” Welch said, reflecting on his team’s sluggish start. “These kids are emotionally spent.”

The Southern Section alleged that Welch held an illegal practice, prompting a three-month controversy. Welch won an injunction in San Fernando Superior Court on Aug. 19, allowing him to coach. At that hearing, more than 20 Canyon players attended to lend their support.

Routing the Calvary

Proving prophetic over the weekend was L. A. Baptist Coach Mark Bates, who boldly predicted a win over Santa Ana Calvary Chapel, the Southern Section Division X No. 1-rated team.

The Knights raked the ranked, posting a 36-13 victory behind 6-4, 230-pound quarterback Dane Brown, who rushed for three touchdowns and threw for another.

“I think his size is really an advantage when he runs,” Bates said. “On his 29-yard scoring run, it was just he and the safety and Dane makes moves like tectonic plates make moves, but that safety didn’t want to touch him. He just glanced off him and Dane went all the way.”

The Knights’ 2-0 start is the best in Bates’ three-year tenure.

Defense Made Easy

After a scrimmage against Fairfax two weeks ago, Monroe simplified things before the team’s season opener against El Camino Real last week.

“We felt we were giving the kids too many things to do (on defense),” Coach Dave Lertzman said. “So we revamped the entire defense. We went from one defense to another one in the course of one week. We knew if we were going to get hurt (against El Camino Real), it was going to be off tackle and passes in the flats.”

Lertzman was right. The Vikings allowed 334 yards, most of which were runs off tackle and sweeps by sophomore tailback Chris Shinnick, who rushed for 108 yards in 20 carries in a Conquistadore 26-7 victory.

Shinnick, however, learned to respect the Viking defense.

“I was getting hit a lot harder than last week,” he said after the game. “(This was) a big team, a big team.”

Making a Statement

Agoura’s girls’ cross-country team has something to show The Harrier magazine.

Having been dropped from The Harrier’s national top-25 preseason list after graduating three of its top five runners in June, the Chargers reloaded over the summer and stunned second-ranked Escondido San Pasqual, 34-57, Saturday for the medium-schools championship at the Woodbridge cross-country invitational.

Agoura’s top three runners--Kay Nekota, Amy Skieresz and Laura Hayward--cracked the 17:40 barrier on the three-mile course at Woodbridge High and finished ahead of San Pasqual’s No. 2 runner. Agoura’s No. 4 runner, Kristie Camp (18:00), finished seventh and beat the Golden Eagles’ second runner.

Agoura was ranked second in the nation last season to Mountain View of Orem, Utah, this season’s No. 1 team nationally.

Heat Wave

Heat and low water consumption caused several runners at the Woodbridge invitational to suffer dehydration symptoms, prompting meet director George Varvas to temporarily convert a classroom into an emergency room.

“It looked like a MASH unit in there,” said Buena Coach Steve Blum, who rode in an ambulance to Saddleback Medical Center with one of his freshman runners.

Four ambulances and a fire truck were dispatched to Woodbridge High to tend to the fallen runners, most of whom were from schools along the coast, where temperatures are much cooler.

Fast Times

Agoura’s Ryan Wilson and Hoover’s Margarito Casillas are only juniors but already they are performing like potential Kinney national qualifiers.

Wilson (14:45) shattered former Agoura standout Bryan Dameworth’s junior-class record by 18 seconds in the Woodbridge invitational. Casillas also was under Dameworth’s old mark of 15:03, running 14:48.

In addition, Casillas (15:03) was within six seconds of former Hoover star Eliazar Herrera’s school record of 14:57 on the Verdugo Park course. Herrera also ran 14:44 at Woodbridge as a senior in 1989.

Dameworth, now at Wisconsin, and Herrera (UCLA), earned All-American honors in the Kinney national championships in 1989.

Youth Is Served

When Nordhoff’s junior varsity girls’ volleyball team was invited last week to the Calabasas Invitational, the Rangers were expected to merely fill out the 15-team, three-pool field. A junior varsity team competing in a field that included six of the top-ranked varsity teams in the Southern Section and three City Section traditional powers?

Well, there were some embarrassed faces on varsity players when Nordhoff nearly made the quarterfinals.

“When we went out to play our first game against Canyon, I told the team, ‘We’re just going to have fun,’ ” Coach Lisa Rich-Johnson said. “But when Canyon called a timeout at 6-5, I told them, ‘OK, our plan has changed. We’re going to win.’ ”

Nordhoff’s JVs didn’t beat Canyon, a Southern Section 3-A powerhouse ranked No. 7 in its division, losing 15-11, 15-5, but the Rangers did sweep two games from one of the top City 4-A teams, Chatsworth, 17-15, 15-12, and split with Bell-Jeff, 15-8, 3-15, in pool play. After giving La Reina (ranked ninth in the Southern Section 2-A) a scare before losing 15-9, 15-10, the Rangers were eliminated in championship play, 15-9, by Agoura.

David Coulson, Mike Glaze and staff writers Steve Elling, Paige A. Leech, Brian Murphy and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.