Antelope Valley Survives Chaotic Week

School board members and principals seldom understand all the intricacies involved in high school sports, which is why they try to hire quality athletic directors and coaches.

Sometimes, though, that lack of understanding can lead to chaos. Such was the case last week when the Antelope Valley Union High School Board took issue with the playoff status of Antelope Valley High’s football team.

The result provided a strange ending to an even stranger week, one that would have made more sense if the school board had spent more time worrying about the curriculum and the budget and less about the football playoffs.

The controversy started last Tuesday when principals of the Golden League, of which Antelope Valley is a member, voted to remove the Antelopes from the Southern Section playoffs for using an ineligible player in three league games. Antelope Valley officials noticed the eligibility matter Monday and turned the school in to the league. The forfeitures dropped the team’s record from 8-2 to 5-5.

Antelope Valley was to have played host to Fontana in a first-round Division I game Friday night. Ridgecrest Burroughs replaced the Antelopes and the game was switched to Saturday night at Fontana.

Five of the six teams in the league are in the Antelope Valley Union School District. So when several board members disagreed with the principals’ decision, the principals were ordered by the board to meet again Thursday to reconsider the issue. On Friday morning, the principals announced that Antelope Valley was back and in and Ridgecrest Burroughs out. The game would remain at Fontana Saturday night.

The principals said they had changed their minds because they felt the original punishment was excessive. The ineligible player, transfer Brian Parks, was a seldom-used substitute.

Ridgecrest Burroughs appealed the decision, but the appeal was denied by the Southern Section. Dean Crowley, the section’s interim commissioner, said he had no choice but to accept the playoff entries submitted by the Golden League principals.

“I was not happy with the situation,” Crowley said. “Believe me, I will quickly introduce legislation to our council that protects playoff teams after a certain point. You cannot be changing the brackets at the last minute like we had to do.”

Burroughs turned out to be a victim, but so did Fontana, which did not know from day to day which team it would be playing. Coach Dick Bruich said his staff met every night until midnight preparing game plans, which changed as the opponents did.

“By the time the game arrived, our kids were emotionally and physically drained by all of these outside events,” Bruich said. “A decision was made and it should have been stuck to.”

Antelope Valley beat Fontana, 24-0, and will play host to top-ranked La Puente Bishop Amat in a quarterfinal game Friday.

The Antelopes are lucky to still be in the playoffs, considering they broke the rules. But rules do not always mean much when school boards and principals become involved. Then, politics tends to take over.

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There were plenty of surprises in the first round of the Southern Section playoffs. Some of the biggest:

San Clemente 45, Quartz Hill 21--Quartz Hill had a 10-0 record and a lofty state ranking. San Clemente, coming off a 38-0 loss to Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley, was making its first playoff appearance since 1979. Running back Allen Vaughan rushed for 248 of San Clemente’s 440 total yards, and Quartz Hill trailed at halftime, 35-14.

Placentia El Dorado 21, Paramount 16--El Dorado was 5-5 and barely made the playoffs before playing the previously undefeated Pirates. Paramount’s come-from-behind bid was stopped with 23 seconds to play when it failed on fourth and one at the Hawks’ 14-yard line. El Dorado Coach Rick Jones played football at Paramount, graduating in 1977.

Riverside Norte Vista 25, La Mirada 20--La Mirada was the only top-seeded team to fall in the first round. Henry Hernandez scored the winning touchdown on a two-yard run with 1:43 to play. Norte Vista Coach Art Sanchez also celebrated his birthday Friday.

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Garfield, one of the largest high schools in the City Section, enjoyed its biggest football victory Friday since the school opened in 1925. The Bulldogs improved to 10-1 by defeating Wilmington Banning, 28-20, in the first round of the Division 4-A playoffs.

Garfield made a name for itself last season when it upset Banning in the first round of the playoffs, 7-6. Many thought the result was a fluke, however.

Rookie Garfield Coach John Aguirre said that Friday’s victory should make believers out of the doubters. The Bulldogs were led by senior Armando Figueroa, who rushed for 189 yards in 22 carries and had a touchdown run of 48 yards.

Garfield led in the second half, 14-0, but fell behind, 20-14, in the third quarter. It scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, including a 28-yard trick pass play from receiver Braulio De La Torre to quarterback David Guerra. Banning finished the season 5-6, its first losing record since 1974. Garfield will play host to Carson in the quarterfinals Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Prep Notes

Highlights from the first round of the football playoffs: Moorpark’s 27-22 victory over South Torrance in Division IX was the school’s first postseason triumph in the 69 years of the program. . . . In the last year, quarterback Brian Shubin has transferred from Camarillo to Thousand Oaks to Canyon Country Canyon to Woodland Hills Taft. A junior, he started Friday, for the first time, and led Taft to a 55-7 victory over Eagle Rock in the City Division 4-A.

Quarterback Mike Kocicka tied a school record with six touchdown passes in Newhall Hart’s 61-25 rout of Pasadena in Division II. . . . Michael-John Rzeznik had two receptions in the fourth quarter, one on an eight-yard touchdown pass with 1:06 to play, to lift Santa Ana Mater Dei to a 17-14 victory over Sante Fe Springs St. Paul in Division I. . . . Los Alamitos extended its unbeaten streak to 32 games with a 24-13 victory over Downey Warren in Division II.

Kwame Cain, a 6-foot-1, 245-pound linebacker, was inserted at running back for one play and ran a yard to a touchdown in the fourth quarter to lead Loyola to a 21-6 victory over Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley. . . . Ricky Oropeza returned an interception 55 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to seal Bell Gardens’ 27-18 upset of Ventura in Division II.

Times’ Top 20 Football Poll

The Times’ top 20 high school football poll, with teams from the City and Southern Sections.

School Sect. Div. Rec. LW 1. Bishop Amat SS I 11-0 1 2. Eisenhower SS I 11-0 2 3. Los Alamitos SS II 11-0 3 4. Newbury Park SS III 11-0 4 5. Hart SS II 10-1 5 6. LB Poly SS I 10-1 7 7. Mater Dei SS I 10-1 10 8. Antelope Valley SS I 6-5* 8 9. Hunt. Beach SS II 11-0 9 10. Hawthorne SS III 10-1 11 11. Norco SS V 11-0 12 12. Irvine SS IV 10-1 13 13. Loyola SS I 8-3 15 14. Sylmar City 4-A 9-1-1 16 15. Edison SS II 9-2 19 16. Taft City 4-A 10-1 18 17. San Clemente SS I 9-2 NR 18. Dominguez SS II 9-1 NR 19. Fountain Valley SS II 9-2 NR 20. Quartz Hill SS I 10-1 6

*--Indicates three defeats by forfeit.