THE HIGH SCHOOLS / STEVE ELLING : Saturday Films Turn St. Bonaventure Coach Into Couch Potato

He was mobbed, which was to be expected. He was hugged, which was no surprise. He was slapped on the back, which was well-deserved.

Moments after his team’s thrilling 22-21 upset of previously unbeaten Big Bear High on Friday night, St. Bonaventure football Coach Jon Mack found himself smothered in affection, most of which came from his wife Kathy.

“She’s our biggest fan,” said Mack, 31, a former assistant at Notre Dame, Loyola and Alemany.

Of course, it only follows that Kathy then sent her husband off to spend the night on the couch.

Huh? Is this any way to treat a guy whose team just advanced to the Southern Section Division IX semifinals? A guy who took the Seraphs to the playoffs for the first time in six years?

Rest assured, the couple are not estranged, just victims of a strange arrangement.

The Macks live in Canoga Park, a 50-minute commute from the St. Bonaventure campus when the roads are clear. Sometimes they aren’t, so for the past 12 weeks, Jon has spent Friday nights sacked out on the couch in the school’s faculty lounge.

Each Saturday morning at 9, the team arrives at school to review game film. Mack, in his second year, is up much earlier, raiding the cafeteria refrigerator and guzzling milk for breakfast.

At this week’s screening, Mack was greeted with player grins aplenty. The evening before, St. Bonaventure (8-4) drove 80 yards for the winning score over the final eight minutes, converting four times on fourth down and scoring with 15 seconds remaining.

Seraph running back Gino Nucci, who earlier had lost two fumbles as Big Bear built a 21-7 lead, completed a 38-yard pass to Pat Carey out of punt formation on one fourth-down conversion and quarterback Peter Houston tossed an 11-yard completion to Trevor Haba on another fourth-down play.

Not enough spice? Houston fumbled on a first-and-goal play from the one-yard line, but St. Bonaventure recovered with 17 seconds left. On the next play, sophomore R. J. Kisling (103 yards in 18 carries) scored to pull the Seraphs to within 21-20.

The drive nearly drove Kathy Mack crazy. She was hoarse from screaming her lungs out as she watched the game alongside Notre Dame High assistant Jeff Kraemer, a family friend.

After Kisling scored, Kraemer tried to prepare Kathy for the point-after kick and the nerve-jangling California tiebreaker that would follow. Or so Kraemer assumed.

“He said, ‘OK, Kathy, just calm down, because he’s going to kick it, then go into sudden death,’ ” she said. “Meanwhile, I’m still looking at the field while (Kraemer’s) still talking and looking at me.”

In actuality, Mack called for a pitch around left end to tailback Toby Noblin, who scored on a two-point conversion run that gave the Seraphs the victory.

“Toby was practically in the end zone before (Kraemer) knew what was happening,” Kathy said.

Bedlam ensued. Ditto the couch, which Mack said is rather old and lumpy but not altogether intolerable. Of course, advancing to a semifinal game against Tehachapi on Friday is enough to buttress the toughest mattress.

Mack’s wife said she doesn’t mind the weekly separation. In fact, she would prefer that it lasts two more weeks.

“Just win, baby,” she said.

Putting the game on ice: The temperature at the opening kickoff was 40 degrees and dropping, and wind gusts of 40 m.p.h. made the sideline temperature at Antelope Valley High on Friday night as cold as a Fairbanks flagpole in February and just as hard to lick. Dirt blew in off the desert plains, making playing conditions miserable.

Locked in a tough fight on the road, Long Beach Wilson dusted off a trick play. Afterward, the refrigerator door was closed, the light was off and the butter was getting hard. Wilson, in fact, said, “ Ciao, chiller.”

The game’s pivotal play came midway through the third quarter. Wilson held a 10-6 lead but it was anybody’s game. On fourth down near midfield, Wilson fell into punt formation, but up-back Shelby Nelson fielded the short snap and--in keeping with the climatological conditions--froze in his tracks as Antelope Valley rushed the punter.

After holding his ground for a heartbeat or two, Nelson sped 53 yards for a touchdown that gave Wilson a 17-6 lead.

Wilson Coach John Brennan calls the fake the “Chowchilla play,” which loosely refers to the infamous San Joaquin Valley kidnapping several years ago of a busload of schoolchildren who were buried in an underground room and held for ransom. All were later released unharmed.

In short, Brennan said the play acquired its name because the up-back hides “underneath” the blocking of the offensive line before breaking free.

Brennan said that Wilson has run the play five times in as many seasons and has scored four times.

. . . and a cloud of dust: Thousand Oaks should change its name to Thousand Yards.

The Lancers might have taken a 49-33 beating at the hands of Dominguez in a Division II quarterfinal Friday, but the feet of 1,000-yard running backs Cory Bowen and Quincy Jacobs accomplished an impressive feat. Bowen rushed for 105 yards, Jacobs added 102, and in the process two school records were set.

Bowen’s total of 1,704 yards moved him past Marc Monestime (1,665 yards in 1987) as the single-season rushing leader. Thousand Oaks (10-2) finished with 3,573 rushing yards, breaking the single-season mark of 3,385 set in 1964. Jacobs, a junior fullback, finished with 1,189 yards.