Perfect Match : Key Characteristics Turn Up When You Examine a Rivalry

Irvine softball Coach Lisa Baker said it after her team had won a big Sea View League game, and reporters wrote away. It was a good quote.

A very good quote.

“Nothing pleasures us more than to beat Woodbridge. They’re our rival every year, and now that we’re in their league, (the game is) a little more competitive.”

So there.

Woodbridge players clipped Baker’s comments out of the papers and pasted them on a small banner. And they took the banner with them everywhere. To practice. To games. To team meals. For 30 days, they viewed and stewed. And the comments hung on the dugout wall the next time the schools played.

Woodbridge avenged its loss with a 4-0 victory. Irvine was ranked second in the county, had one of the most potent offenses in the section, and couldn’t score a run against a freshman pitcher who didn’t record a single strikeout.

The victory helped Woodbridge continue its string of 11 consecutive league titles and convinced the playoff seeding committee that the Warriors should be the top-seeded team in the Division III playoffs.

In the end, Irvine played for the section title and Woodbridge was upset in the quarterfinals. But it just goes to show that rivalries are not just skin deep. They cut right to the heart at some schools.

The annual football game between Sonora and Brea-Olinda was discontinued after the 1989 contest because the rivalry had become so extreme. In the final minutes, there was a melee in which some fans streamed onto the field to accost players and officials. The game was not completed.

Those are two examples of what takes place when rivals meet. Things happen. Records don’t matter. The rivalry creates an even playing surface. Anything can happen.

In Orange County, there are some rivalries that are more enduring--and maybe more endearing--than others because they embody all the elements of what makes memories 20 years down the road:

--Territorial bragging rights. The schools usually represent neighboring communities; the athletes often know each other and, in many cases, have competed against each other previously.

--Championships. Nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like a game with a league title or playoff spot at stake. Bragging rights are OK, but does a rivalry mean as much if you’re playing for fourth place?

--Excellence. The schools have competitive programs regardless of the sport, and beating a rival is often a barometer of your program. A true rivalry transcends football.

--Attendance/community support. The rivalry acid test: Does a bigger crowd than usual show up to watch the girls’ volleyball match?

Answer yes to all these questions, and that’s something to brag about.

Happenings are what it’s all about when it comes to big games and rivalries. You don’t want to spend your money on the Rams? Try Los Alamitos-Esperanza or Fountain Valley-Edison. Or how about Canyon-El Modena in wrestling?

You want basketball? Capistrano Valley-Mater Dei. Definitely.

Year-in and year-out, these matchups create atmosphere.

But atmosphere thick enough to choke on is created by two of the county’s tiniest schools with what is one of the biggest rivalries. Maybe the biggest rivalry. At Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar, where every meeting is billed as a “Battle of the Bay,” there are plenty of signs, face paint and fans.

The two played each other last week in football. Corona del Mar, then 3-2, defeated No. 8 Newport Harbor, 23-0. The Sailors were unbeaten. Were unbeaten.

“I think these two schools have the best rivalry in the county,” said football Coach Dave Holland, who has been at Corona del Mar since 1964, two years after it opened and started playing its older neighbor.

Others might disagree with Holland’s assessment, but across the board--in all sports--Corona del Mar-Newport Harbor is huge.

In the state rankings for fall sports, the Sea Kings and Sailors are ranked third and second in girls’ volleyball; second and third in Division III girls’ cross-country, and Corona del Mar is ranked 10th in boys’ cross-country.

In their division in the Southern Section polls, Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor are ranked fifth and sixth in boys’ cross-country; first and third in girls’ cross-country; third and second in girls’ tennis; second and first in girls’ volleyball, and second and eighth in water polo. Get the picture?

“It’s a big game, but what makes it good for us is they always do very well in athletics, and we think we do pretty well in athletics,” Newport Harbor Athletic Director Eric Tweit said. “It’s more than just bragging rights; we know we have to beat them to win the league championship or to get into (the playoffs). So, in a lot of sports, the game takes on an added dimension.”

In 1988, The Times listed famous high school graduates from Orange County. Kelly McGillis, still riding the crest of “Top Gun” fame, was listed as a Newport Harbor graduate. The next day, The Times received a call from a Corona del Mar supporter asking how the newspaper “could list her as a graduate of our cross-town rival; she attended Corona del Mar!” Further investigation revealed she attended both schools and graduated from neither.

Football is still king when it comes to measuring a rival, and there have been some doozies. In the 1970s, the big rivalry was Fountain Valley-Edison. It attracted such a large crowd the game was played in Anaheim Stadium from 1975 to 1985. In 1980, 28,969 showed up when they played for the Division I title. Only once during that span was the crowd smaller than 10,000; attendance was usually in the neighborhood of 16,000-plus when the two gathered to decide the Sunset League title.

One of the biggest rivalries of the ‘80s was Mission Viejo-El Toro, teams that play Friday in a South Coast League game. It annually drew overflow crowds wherever it was played, about 5,000 at Mission Viejo High or 8,000 at Orange Coast College during the playoffs.

All those schools were battling for county championships as well as neighborhood titles as king of the mountain.

“The more that is at stake, the more heated it gets,” said Bob Johnson, who coached at El Toro during its heyday but is now an assistant coach at Mission Viejo.

And what is the football rivalry of the 1990s? The consensus is that by decade’s end, people will be talking about the great meetings between Esperanza and Los Alamitos, two Empire League schools that tied for last year’s Division II title. Esperanza was the last team to beat Los Alamitos, 28 games ago in 1991, only to lose to the Griffins in the section championship that year, 8-0.

But not all rivalries are related to schools in the same league. And some are sport-specific. Foothill’s rival is El Modena, except in football. Foothill-Tustin is intense. Tiller Coach Tim Ellis, in his first season, was recently indoctrinated.

“It’s a lot more than I ever thought it was,” Ellis said. “They said ‘Big game’ and I thought, ‘How big could it be?’

“It was fun. It was fun. Being new, I hadn’t taught a day--we played on the second day of school. I didn’t know until the school rally. It was pretty intense.”

Although Foothill--ranked 10th by The Times in its preseason poll--held a 16-8-1 advantage in the series, they had lost four in a row to the Tillers and this was supposed to be the year they got even. They had seven starters back on offense and defense; Tustin had only four. And Tustin won again, 14-0.

Some matchups are so big, it’s not enough to just play for pride, but there must be a tangible spoil to accompany it. A mayor’s trophy is at stake when La Quinta and Westminster meet in football, as is another when Mater Dei and Santa Ana kick off. There’s a three-way battle among Irvine, University and Woodbridge for the Dennis Toohey Fence Post, which is an old, termite-infested, varnished fence post named after an area coach. Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor play for the Bell Trophy. Kennedy and Magnolia play annually in the John Hangartner Bowl, a perpetual trophy named after the man who was Kennedy’s first coach in 1964 and later coached at Magnolia.

In recent years, Rancho Alamitos-Costa Mesa girls’ basketball has developed a healthy playoff rivalry. They have met only three times in the last four years, but each beat the other in a Southern Section Division III-A championship game, and Rancho Alamitos defeated the Mustangs in a semifinal en route to the 1992 section title.

Theirs is proof that not all rivalries revolve around neighborhood boundaries and league schedules, and that the greatest spoil isn’t a trophy or bragging rights or even a fence post. It is a championship.

Remarkable Rivalries

ON THE FOOTBALL FIELD

1. Edison-Fountain Valley

2. Mater Dei-Servite

3. Esperanza-Los Alamitos

4. El Toro-Mission Viejo

5. Tustin-Foothill

6. Corona del Mar-Newport Harbor

7. Orange-Villa Park

8. Mission Viejo-Capistrano Valley

9. Brea-Olinda-Valencia

10. Fullerton-Sunny Hills

OTHER SPECTATOR SPECTACLES

1. El Modena-Canyon wrestling

2. Corona del Mar-Newport Harbor water polo

3. El Dorado-Esperanza baseball

4. Corona del Mar-Newport Harbor volleyball (boys and girls)

5. Mission Viejo-El Toro swimming (boys and girls)

6. Mater Dei-Capistrano Valley boys’ basketball

7. Mission Viejo-Capistrano Valley boys’ swimming

8. El Toro-San Clemente water polo

9. Marina-Huntington Beach girls’ basketball

10. Woodbridge-Irvine softball