Mix-and-Match Backfield Works Well for Oxnard

Call it developing the right mix.

Or the right Mix.

Either seems correct in describing the successful backfield combination Oxnard High has found while rolling to a 3-0 start. The Yellowjackets, who have rushed for 809 of their 835 yards in offense, will play Rio Mesa tonight in a Channel League opener.

Larry Bumpus (378 yards), Adrian Wilson (192), Lloyd Mix (151) and Robert Meek (66) have accounted for 787 yards on the ground.

Who plays where? Depends on the situation, according to Coach Jack Davis.

Bumpus, the team’s quarterback the past two seasons, often moves to tailback, allowing Meek, a junior, to move from flanker to quarterback. “He’s taken more snaps than Larry has,” Davis said.

Wilson, a senior transfer from Chula Vista, has emerged as a pleasant surprise, Davis said, filling in ably at tailback and fullback.

Somewhat surprisingly, Mix, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound senior fullback, has emerged as the backfield’s lone constant.

Mix, who rushed for 1,092 yards as a sophomore at Santa Clara, has been plagued by academic ineligibility. Last year, he missed the first seven games before gaining eligibility and rushing for 532 yards.

During the off-season, Mix continued to struggle academically, Davis said, but he has rallied to make the grade.

“He’s a hard-working, hard-practicing kid,” Davis said. “He’s taking five classes, plus football, and has one night class. He also has a part-time job.”

NEW KID IN TOWN

Richard Jaramillo, a 5-foot-11, 165-pound junior transfer from Bakersfield, is the new starting quarterback at Camarillo.

“Jaramillo from Camarillo!” Camarillo Coach Carl Thompson chirped. “His dad called me at the end of last year and said he’d be moving down. Two weeks before school started, his dad called me again (and) said, ‘We’re here.’ ”

Last season, Jaramillo completed 27 of 53 passes for 507 yards and four touchdowns as the quarterback at Arvin High near Bakersfield. After three games, Jaramillo has replaced Jim Hansen, who threw for 639 yards and six touchdowns last season, as the Scorpions’ starter. Jaramillo has completed seven of 31 for 125 yards.

FRIGHT NIGHTS

North Hollywood’s 3-0 Cinderella start is in jeopardy.

The Huskies face Sylmar and Poly in the next two weeks and North Hollywood Coach Gary Gray has no delusions of grandeur.

“Poly scares me because they’re explosive. Sylmar scares me because they’re huge,” Gray said. “If we can get out of those two games healthy, and still have our respect, I would be happy.”

Although Gray is undefeated in his debut varsity season, he knows of what he speaks.

“They should, by all rights, destroy us,” he said. “They have excellent kids, excellent coaching and excellent programs. It’s going to be interesting.”

NEVER A DOUBT

The truth has been ferreted out. Last week it was reported that Crespi football coaches printed on a sideline chalkboard that a Canyon player made a comment in the Newhall Signal regarding the back-to-back shutouts the Cowboys recorded in the teams’ most recent meetings.

Actually, the message was written by a Crespi junior varsity coach, and it was made up as a motivational ploy.

What’s more, the combined score listed by the coach was incorrect. It wasn’t 75-0, it was 81-0, which could serve as fuel for next year’s rematch.

MARKED MAN

Royal tailback Michael Streeter, who rushed for 1,189 yards as a junior, has been held to seven and 17 yards in the past two games. Meanwhile, sophomore Mike Reddington has rushed for team-high totals of 76 and 25 yards.

Streeter, Coach Gene Uebelhardt said, simply is the focus of defenses.

“Streeter is a marked man and Reddington is running crazy,” Uebelhardt said. “Streeter is like a cat in an alley with about 10 dogs.”

However, Streeter has a 51-yard touchdown reception and an 87-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.

STILL HOPING

Notre Dame senior defensive end Brandon Gabriel, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in practice last week, said he still has hope of earning a football scholarship.

“I hope after this is all over, (the recruiters) will see I’m still the same player,” said Gabriel, who will undergo surgery in two weeks to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Gabriel (6-foot-4, 210 pounds) was considered one of the area’s top prospects.

RED-LETTER DAYS

First-year Taft Coach Troy Starr has posted football schedules all over campus. Two games are highlighted in flashy red print--tonight’s game against San Fernando and the Nov. 6 game against Granada Hills.

It is no mistake by the printer.

“Those are the two games that we have to really go after,” said Starr, a former San Fernando assistant. “Those are two teams that Taft hasn’t beaten. Those are the two teams that we have to beat to be taken seriously, to be thought of as a real program.”

SANS JOHNSON

Losing Kris Johnson isn’t so difficult. Replacing him is.

Montclair Prep basketball co-Coaches Howard Abrams and Bob Webb must find a way to replace the 21.5 points and 10.2 rebounds per game they will lose because of Johnson’s decision to transfer to Crenshaw. “That’s a lot to replace,” Webb said. “I’ve got to find a couple (of) people who can do that.”

Webb said Johnson, the son of former Crenshaw, UCLA and NBA standout Marques Johnson, should benefit from the change because Crenshaw faces tougher competition than Montclair Prep. Webb also said that Johnson, a 6-foot-5 junior, will be used as a small forward at Crenshaw, rather than in the post as he was at Montclair Prep.

YOUNG GUNS

Having failed to win a league title in boys’ cross-country during the first 33 years of its existence, Palmdale is favored to win the Golden League title this season.

And in 1993, and ‘94, and maybe even in ’95.

Palmdale’s team consists of a junior, four sophomores and three freshmen. The Falcons’ top four runners are all underclassmen, and their No. 1 runner, Marcus Castro, is a freshman.

“I knew Marcus was going to be good,” Palmdale Coach Rob Fairly said. “But I didn’t know he was going to run as well as he has.”

Castro, the half-brother of Palmdale’s No. 2 runner, sophomore Louie Alvarez, won the freshman division of the Seaside invitational on Sept. 12 and also placed first in the Division I freshman race at the Bell-Jeff invitational in Griffith Park on Saturday.

His time of 15 minutes 36 seconds over the 2.9-mile course at Griffith Park tied the freshman course record. Alvarez won the sophomore race in 15:45.

Castro and Alvarez are one of two pairs of siblings on the team. The other tandem is Antonio and Mario Arce.

Antonio, a sophomore, was the Falcons’ No. 3 runner at the Bell-Jeff meet, and Mario, a freshman, was Palmdale’s No. 5 runner at the Seaside meet. He did not run Saturday because of a lower-back strain.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

Hart has won three consecutive Southern Section cross-country titles and two consecutive state Division I titles, but never have the Indians run as closely bunched as they did in the Bell-Jeff invitational at Griffith Park on Saturday.

Hart, the No. 1-ranked team in the nation, placed five runners in the top eight to win the Division I title with 28 points, scorching second-place Belmont (90).

But the minuscule time gap of 10 seconds between Hart’s No. 1 (sophomore Brett Strahan) and No. 5 runner (senior Jonny Eveleth) was even more impressive than the team’s margin of victory.

The superb depth did not end there, either. The gap between the Indians’ first and sixth runners was 17 seconds and only 25 seconds between the first and seventh runners.

A 30-second gap between a high school team’s first and fifth runners is considered outstanding.

PRESSURE COOKER

For some athletes, success as a junior can lead to performance-hindering pressures as a senior, but not for Margarito Casillas of Hoover. Casillas, the fifth-place finisher in last year’s Kinney national cross-country championships, is the No. 2 returning runner in the nation and is undefeated in four meets this season.

His latest victory came in the Bell-Jeff invitational at Griffith Park on Saturday when he timed 14 minutes 26 seconds over the 2.9-mile course.

“When I’m running and get tired, and start slowing down,” Casillas said, “I just say to myself, ‘Come on, Margo. You’re the No. 2 returning runner in the nation. You’ve got to keep going.’ ”

BREAKING THE JINX

Nordhoff is setting its sights on the lofty heights of a Southern Section championship after exorcising a pair of girls’ volleyball demons in the last two weeks. The Rangers ended four-year losing streaks against La Reina and Agoura.

The Rangers stunned highly touted Agoura in five games without two starters, setter Sami Sawyer and outside hitter Sarah Wright.

GRAND OPENING

After two years as swimming gypsies, the Ventura water polo team moved into a new all-deep pool two weeks ago. “We’d waited so long,” Coach Dale Hahn said. “It was nice to get in it.”

Construction, at the cost of about $500,000, was delayed for nearly eight months in the state planning office, forcing the Cougars to live as nomads with practices at Ventura College and Buena at odd hours.

The facility got a nice christening Thursday as one of two sites for the three-day, 16-team Buena water polo tournament. The new pool is one of only two all-deep pools in the Ventura area and one of only three in Ventura County.

WILL THEIR HELMETS FIT?

Cleveland, which won one football game in 1990 and ’91 combined, is off to a 2-0 start. Last week, Cleveland upset Royal, a respected Southern Section team, 14-6.

It is the Cavaliers’ first 2-0 start since 1986 when the team jumped to a 6-0 mark behind future NCAA Division II All-American running back Albert Fann.

But there will be no swollen egos--or swollen heads, Coach Everett Macy predicted.

“We still reach up to scratch our heads,” Macy said, spreading his arms. “We don’t reach out .”

David Coulson and staff writers Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Vince Kowalick, Paige A. Leech, John Ortega and Jason H. Reid contributed to this notebook.