THE HIGH SCHOOLS / STEVE ELLING : Sylmar Stubs Toe With Shoe-Inspired Defense on Sideline

Every game, there had been a different buzzword, one tailored for the opponent or the circumstances.

This time, the alignment appropriately was dubbed the “Reebok defense,” since Sylmar High was to appear in the first CIF/Reebok Bowl game.

In the defensive set, a Sylmar lineman was removed in favor of a fifth defensive back. Reebok added more deep help to help prevent Sylmar from taking--and giving up--the deep six.

“Every week, we use that defense,” Sylmar defensive back Robert Camacho said. “We just change the name.”

It was designed to be a defensive dragnet. Yet for Sylmar’s secondary, no soles were saved by Reebok.

Bishop Amat burned the Spartans with bombs for the Lancers’ first two touchdowns en route to a 31-10 rout at Anaheim Stadium. On neither passing play was the Reebok defense in place.

“(Reebok) was supposed to be in on (the first touchdown),” Sylmar Coach Jeff Engilman said. “But we just didn’t get (the extra defensive back) in. Or on the second one, either.”

Sylmar, in essence, Ree-balked and was Ree-buked. Bishop Amat quarterback Mike Smith, who was selected the game’s most valuable player, passed for 194 yards, more than half coming on the two touchdowns.

With the game scoreless in the second quarter, Smith hit Daylon McCutcheon on a 67-yard scoring bomb to give Bishop Amat a 7-0 lead. Playing well on a field festooned with Rams logos is hardly untraveled territory for McCutcheon’s family: his father, Lawrence, was a 1,000-yard rusher for L.A. in the 1970s.

Four minutes later, Smith hit Trevor Woods on a 49-yard pass play to give the Lancers a 14-0 lead. Both receivers easily burned Sylmar’s single coverage.

“When you have great receivers like they have, it pushes you to the limit,” Sylmar defensive coordinator Darryl McIntyre said. “Basically, we thought we could go man-to-man. McCutcheon and the other guy had great moves to get open.”

Receivers were definitely open. Sylmar’s window of opportunity was slammed shut. Not a bad quarter of work for Smith, who had passed for 1,401 yards in his previous 14 games. Do the math.

“Our defensive backs did things they’ve never done,” Engilman said. “We tell them over and over not to lose their cushion. Their receivers just, just blew right by us.”

Sylmar blew a fuse. What’s more, it was obvious in their temperament. The Spartans had allowed an average of 6.1 points a game and no opponent had put more than 14 points on the board all year. Yet Bishop Amat (15-0) scored four times in 10 1/2 minutes for a 24-0 halftime lead.

By the time the Sylmar marching band played Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” during the halftime show, Sylmar was in deep red and had been smoked from the field. Sylmar (13-1) had a mere 11 yards and one first down at halftime.

For ground-based Sylmar, the outcome was essentially determined, and the players knew it. When the team ran onto the field for the second half, only a handful of players trotted through the huge paper sign held by the team cheerleaders. Engilman, normally as lava-lunged and demonstrative as they come, was subdued.

As frustration set in, things unraveled further. Esprit de corps , never particularly high among many Sylmar players, coaches admit, evaporated. At one point, with Sylmar trailing, 31-0, tears streamed down the cheeks of a lineman.

A teammate walked up and roared, “Take your . . . whipping like a man,” and stalked off. Another player berated a teammate with a string of expletives after the latter failed to make a tackle.

“We were fighting apathy all week long,” McIntyre said. “Some realized the significance of this. Some thought it was just another football game.”

When Sylmar walked onto the field in mid-afternoon, an argument broke out between two players. They had to be separated by coaches.

The Spartans scored twice in the fourth quarter--on a 41-yard field goal by Camacho and a 13-yard bootleg by quarterback Deon Price--to make the score respectable.

But for Sylmar, trailing early was a worst-case scenario. Passing is not the team’s forte. Price, who had “God” written on his left shoe and “Mom” on his right, had “Zip” written by his name in the passing statistics. Sylmar attempted three passes and completed none.

“After they were up by 24, we tried to make something happen,” running back Tyrone Crenshaw said. “We tried to go out with a bang, I tried to go down with pride.”

Crenshaw acquitted himself nicely enough, rushing 18 times for a game-high 68 yards before exiting in the second half with a sprained right ankle. The junior tailback, who received acupuncture treatment Thursday, is expected to be fitted for a cast this week to help immobilize the injury.

Losing in blowout fashion, though, was like having pins stuck in his eye. Like most of his teammates, he knew it was over long before the final gun sounded, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.

“It’s already hit me,” Crenshaw said, as tears welled. “It all feels like some kind of dream. A real bad dream.”