El Camino Defense Is No Match for Mt. San Antonio

El Camino College Coach John Featherstone had the perfect remedy to get the Warriors prepared for Saturday night’s game against Mt. San Antonio.

Featherstone took the team to watch the film “Rudy,” a movie about an undersized running back who makes the Notre Dame football team.

Stopping Mt. San Antonio running back Leonard Green and the state’s most productive offense, however, was another thing.

Green rushed for 230 yards and six touchdowns to lift the Mounties to a 63-44 victory in a Mission Conference Northern Division game at El Camino.

The teams combined for 944 yards of offense.

Mt. San Antonio is 6-2, 1-1 in the division. The loss dropped El Camino to 2-7 and 1-2 with one game remaining. El Camino had lost its six previous games by a touchdown or less.

“We kept coming back and we were afraid we were going to have one of these games,” Featherstone said. “After they got ahead, we knew they were in control.”

Green had 85 yards and three touchdowns in 15 carries in the first half to help the Mounties build a 28-14 halftime lead.

A 72-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run by the 6-foot, 180-pound sophomore gave the Mounties a 49-29 lead with 13 minutes 29 seconds to play.

“The line was just awesome for us tonight,” Green said. “There’s not much else to say.”

Mt. San Antonio increased its lead to 56-29 on a 14-yard pass from Merrill to Larry Brown with 10:29 remaining. Green’s final touchdown, a two-yard run with 2:24 to play, provided the final margin.

El Camino closed to 56-43 on a two-yard touchdown run by Robert Jenkins with 7:59 to play and a three-yard touchdown pass from Steve Sarkisian to Darren Smith.

Sarkisian completed 24 of 37 passes for 368 yards. Jenkins added 86 yards in 13 carries.

The Mounties opened a 21-7 lead on Green’s third touchdown, a one-yard run with 1:59 left before halftime.

The teams combined for two touchdowns within 30 seconds in the final two minutes of the first half.

After Green’s touchdown, El Camino’s Smith returned the kickoff a school-record 100 yards to bring the Warriors to 21-14 with 1:44 to play in the second quarter. Smith’s run broke the 1983 record of 98 yards held by Chris Darrington.

Fifteen seconds later, Mt. San Antonio countered with a 93-yard kickoff return by Mark Butler to increase its lead to 28-14.

The Warriors drove 70 yards in five plays on their opening drive to take a 7-0 lead on a 10-yard pass from Sarkisian to Hitosho Ono with 12:16 to play in the first quarter.

Mt. San Antonio tied the score on four-yard run by Green with 13:47 to play in the second quarter and went ahead, 14-7, on a seven-yard run by Green with 5:23 left before halftime.

Mt. San Antonio quarterback Ryan Merrill completed 11 of 25 passes for 162 yards despite misfiring on 10 of his first 12 passes. Steve McHenry had four receptions for 94 yards and defensive back Billy Ivey had two interceptions for the Mounties.

Moorpark 24, Harbor 2--Isaiah Mustafa, who was converted from free safety to wide receiver earlier in the week, caught two touchdown passes to lead the Raiders to a Western State Conference North Division victory at Moorpark.

Mustafa, a 6-foot-3 freshman, caught scoring passes of 37 and 35 yards. Mustafa, a former basketball standout at Santa Clara High and decathlete, never played football until this season.

The victory kept Moorpark (6-2, 6-1 in conference play) undefeated in three division games.

Harbor fell to 3-5 and 2-5.