Beverly Hills Uses Strong-Arm Tactics

If you want to see a high-scoring football team with a strong passing attack and a defense that can shut down opposing stars, Beverly Hills is the team to watch.

Under second-year Coach Carter Paysinger, Beverly Hills is 10-2 and Friday will travel to play Temecula Valley in a Southern Section Division VIII playoff semifinal game.

The Normans, who have averaged 37 points a game in the playoffs, are led by the passing combination of quarterback Ziv Gottlieb and wide receiver David Saraf.

Saraf, a 5-foot-10 senior who also plays defensive back, has been virtually unstoppable this season. In 12 games, he has caught 84 passes for 1,580 yards and 19 touchdowns. In the Normans’ 43-40 first-round playoff victory over Torrance, he had 14 catches for 229 yards and three touchdowns.

“A lot of people did not think (Saraf) was one of the top receivers around Southern California before the season, but he has proved them wrong,” Paysinger said. “Even though he has faced double- and triple-team coverages all season, being our go-to guy, he has still come up with his catches.”

In the Normans’ 31-21 victory over Lompoc Cabrillo last Friday night, Saraf suffered a concussion in the first period but returned in the second half and finished with seven catches for 103 yards.

Getting him the ball has been Gottlieb, a 6-3 senior who has passed for 2,497 yards and 25 touchdowns this year and is on a pace to break his own school records in both departments. In two playoff games this season, he has completed 39 of 66 passes for 612 yards and five touchdowns.

“The thing about these two guys is that stats are always secondary to them,” Paysinger said. “They only care about winning.”

While its offense has done its share of scoring, Beverly Hills’ defense has done a great job of thwarting it.

What the Normans do best is take away opponents’ strengths.

Against Culver City, the Normans stopped the versatile Dameron Ricketts. Against Inglewood Morningside, they slowed quarterback Stais Boseman. And in defeating Cabrillo, they held running back Reggie Etheridge, who had rushed for 1,938 yards, to 60.

The defensive leader has been middle linebacker Greg Roach, who is five tackles away from breaking Willie Crawford’s school record for a season of 153.

“People come to see us throw the ball, but the key for us has been our defense,” Paysinger said. “We know we can score, but we have to keep people from going off against us.”

After reaching the City 3-A Division final for three consecutive years and winning 63 games over the last two seasons, Fremont’s basketball team did not look sharp in a season-opening loss to Westchester last week.

Westchester, defending 4-A Division champion, dominated the Pathfinders in the fourth quarter, pulling away to a 58-47 victory. Fremont had only one player in double figures, Eric Wattree, a 6-5 transfer from West Covina, scoring 13 points.

Fremont started the game quickly in taking a nine-point lead, but Westchester took advantage of Fremont’s lack of a consistent scorer and held the Pathfinders to four points in the second quarter.

“I was very pleased with how we came out but we went flat in the second quarter,” Fremont Coach Sam Sullivan said.

When Westchester’s Jason Sanders took over in the second half with 10 of his team-high 12 points, Fremont did not have a player step forward. Finding a replacement for Chris Ford, who was the Pathfinders’ top scorer the last three seasons and is now at UC Santa Barbara, will be a major task for Fremont.

Prep Notes

Although Dorsey is the top-seeded team in the City 4-A Division playoffs, it will play its semifinal game against Sylmar Friday night at Birmingham High in Van Nuys. Sylmar is the designated home team. According to Lee Joseph, district athletic administrator, home teams in the playoffs are decided by league finish. Since Dorsey and Sylmar both won their leagues, the next tiebreaker is conference record. Sylmar finished 7-0 in the Valley Pac-Eight Conference and Dorsey was 6-0-1 in the Southern Pacific Conference. “Maybe next year, we’ll have to add a clause that protects the top-seeded team from such a tiebreaker. Usually this kind of thing doesn’t happen.”

The Santa Ana Mater Dei-Los Angeles Loyola game in the Southern Section Division I semifinals was switched from Saturday to Friday at Santa Ana Stadium.