THE HIGH SCHOOLS / STEVE ELLING : Crescenta Valley Showed Its Resolve to Maintain Control of Game

Some things in football are beautiful in their simplicity. Penn State’s uniforms. Two groups of linemen going nose to nose on fourth and goal at the one. Student-body-right.

For Crescenta Valley High, nothing was more precise, more painstakingly exact than its offensive execution in the second half of its 13-7 upset of Hart in a Southern Section Division II quarterfinal Friday at Glendale High.

It was as simple as basic arithmetic, easy as 1-2-3. Which, incidentally, was virtually the recurring sequence of downs on two near-perfect drives.

“It was like it was destiny,” Crescenta Valley quarterback David Fielder said. “Whenever we needed to convert, we converted. Third-and-18 plays or whatever.”

Not so much whatever but wherever . Crescenta Valley converted every big play. It was Crescenta Valley’s biggest goal of the game: Keep the ball away from Hart and the Falcons had a much better shot at an upset.

Hart entered the game with an offensive portfolio thick enough to make most defenses faint on sight. If the Indians call their offense the run-and-shoot, then the opposition’s defense was typically the run-and-hide. Hart was averaging 38 points and 420 yards a game.

With the score tied, 7-7, Crescenta Valley took the second-half kickoff and started grinding. A handoff here, a pitch there, good for three or four yards a pop. The Falcons burned 8 minutes 52 seconds during the 16-play masterpiece, which Fielder capped with a 39-yard field goal.

“We used all that time and we didn’t even score a touchdown,” Fielder said. “Hard to imagine.”

Fathom the depths of this: Crescenta Valley converted four third-down plays to keep the drive alive.

“It was unbelievable,” Fielder said. “We just kept chipping away, chipping away. The coaches told us all week that we really needed long, sustained drives.”

Mission accomplished, and then came the sequel. It is difficult to call Crescenta Valley’s next possession a drive because the Falcons (11-1) appeared to be stuck in park . Of course, that was the whole idea. Second verse, same as the first.

Hart (11-1) fumbled the ball away six plays after Fielder’s field goal, and Crescenta Valley lumbered back into action at its 28-yard line. The Falcons sauntered downfield, again in no hurry whatsoever, and burned six more minutes.

At one point during the second drive, Crescenta Valley faced third and 16 at the Hart 33. The Falcons seemed to concede the drive had ended when Fielder handed the ball to running back Erik LaCom, who ran off-tackle . . . for 18 yards.

Crescenta Valley converted three third-down plays and one fourth-down play before Fielder capped the drive with a 32-yard field goal with five minutes to play.

Crescenta Valley’s defense then held off a last-minute scoring threat, and bedlam ensued. Improbably, Hart had touched the ball twice the entire half.

While milling about in celebration, Fielder ran into a Crescenta Valley alumnus, who flashed his letterman’s jacket. On the jacket was a patch from 1973, when Crescenta Valley won the 3-A Division championship, the school’s lone division football championship.

“We hear about ’73 all the time,” said Fielder, a junior born in 1975. “We’d like to make people remember us.”

As far as Fielder is concerned, this game also is one for the ages.

“They were a bunch of 16- and 17-year-olds just like us,” Fielder said. “We figured we could go out and beat ‘em with our hearts.”

Hart stoppers they were.

Bell tolls for thee: Bell went down kicking and screaming.

“Especially kicking,” Chatsworth tight end-linebacker Robert Webb said.

In a game marred by penalties, cheap shots and fights, Chatsworth (8-4) routed Bell, 31-6, Wednesday in a City Section 3-A quarterfinal. Webb was on the receiving end of a kick to the groin on what proved to be the final play.

“It was a donnybrook,” Chatsworth Coach Myron Gibford said. “It almost got to the point where I was going to pull the team off the field for a little powwow.”

Webb said top-seeded Bell (10-1-1) seemed shellshocked by Chatsworth’s 17-point outburst in the final minute of the first half--which gave the Chancellors a 31-0 lead--and seemed bent on taking some Chatsworth players down with them.

Three Chatsworth players were intentionally kicked, Gibford said, and officials tried in vain to keep the game under control. At one point, officials ejected Webb, then reversed the decision when the Chatsworth coaching staff argued their players merely were defending themselves.

Bell jumped offside twice in the final moments of the first half as Chatsworth kicker Doug Sidwell lined up for field-goal attempts. Webb believes it was intentional and that Bell meant to injure Chatsworth’s offensive linemen.

“They were really popping off (before that series),” Webb said. “Saying stuff like how they were gonna break some kneecaps.”

The coup de grace came when Webb was kicked with six minutes remaining. After officials met with administrators from both schools, the game was called.

Webb said that Bell players continued to harass him as he lay on the ground in agony.

Said Gibford: “All we were thinking about was survival. From the third quarter on, all I wanted to do was get out without having somebody get seriously injured.”

Clean their clock: If Crescenta Valley’s victory over Hart was unlikely, then Van Nuys’ 36-30 win over top-seeded Locke (7-4-1) in the City 4-A quarterfinals was stupefying.

With the score tied, 30-30, and Van Nuys (8-4) out of timeouts, the Wolves’ defense recovered a fumble at the Locke 40-yard line with 1 1/2 minutes remaining. A 34-yard pass by quarterback John Peterson moved the ball to the Locke six as the clock wound steadily toward quadruple-zero.

Ticktock, ticktock.

Peterson ran for three yards. Tailback Bill Calhoun carried twice but couldn’t get past the one-yard line. “Coach sent in the play and said, ‘Keep giving the ball to Bill until we score or time runs out,’ ” Calhoun said.

Time almost did. Because the Wolves’ kicking game has been lackluster and because Van Nuys couldn’t stop the clock to send the kicking team onto the field--a field-goal attempt was not an option.

Ticktock.

As Van Nuys lined up on fourth and one, a Locke defender feigned injury in a desperate attempt to run out the clock. The officials didn’t buy it, and with everyone in the stadium coming unglued, the Wolves snapped the ball with one second left.

“They were trying to sit there and stall,” Calhoun said. “And I was going, ‘Hey! Get up! ‘ “

Tick.

The slow-motion replay: Peterson handed the ball to Calhoun, who did a Marcus Allen swan dive over the top for his third one-yard score of the night. “It was pandemonium,” Calhoun said. “Except on their side. You could have heard a pin drop over there. “I took three steps and jumped. I jumped before he even handed me the ball. I wanted in.”

The Wolves are in, all right. In the 4-A final four. Next up is Carson, which began the season ranked No. 1 in the state.