After Flips, It Was Short Trip to Top : Prep football: Newbury Park, which beat Hawthorne for Division III title, played only one of four playoff games on the road.

George Hurley arrived early at the Southern Section office in Cerritos two Saturdays ago to witness the coin flips that would determine the sites of the section’s football championship games last weekend.

Hurley, Newbury Park High’s football coach, wandered into the office of Bill Clark. The section administrator was about to begin when he noticed Hurley.

“Good,” he said. “I needed a witness. Call it.”

“It was me, (Clark) and a secretary, and I called all the flips,” Hurley said. “I guess some guys might be mad at me, but it worked out for us.”

Newbury Park won its flip and played host to Saturday night’s Division III championship game--a 22-14 victory over Hawthorne at Moorpark College.

The victory capped a dream season for the Panthers (14-0), who rallied from 14-0 deficits in the semifinal and championship games.

“They say everybody has their 15 minutes of fame,” Hurley said. “We were good--and lucky.”

The Panthers also won a coin flip for their quarterfinal game against Montebello, a 41-20 victory, and played only one of four playoff games on the road. Newbury Park outscored its playoff opponents, 145-66 (an average of 36.3 to 16.5).

Newbury Park, which won its second consecutive Marmonte League title, set Ventura County records for victories and points scored in a season (555, an average of 39.6). That total is the 11th most in state history. Only twice did the Panthers fail to score at least 36 points.

Newbury Park’s defense, which was overpowered at times last season, gave up 165 points (an average of 11.7) and had consecutive shutouts against Channel Islands, 36-0, and Simi Valley, 41-0. Seven times, the Panthers held opponents under 10 points.

Senior quarterback Keith Smith--The Times’ Ventura County back of the year--led the region’s top offense, which averaged 429 yards a game. He also comprises one half of arguably the greatest passing combination in high school history.

The All-American quarterback is first all-time in the state and second all-time in the nation with 9,971 yards passing. Nationally, Smith trails only Josh Booty of Evangel Christian Academy in Shreveport, La. Booty finished his four-year varsity career with 11,700 yards. Smith, who joined the Panthers’ varsity as a sophomore, is tied for second on the all-time state list with 87 touchdown passes.

With 4,244 yards this year, Smith surpasses the state single-season record of 4,223 yards established by John Walsh of Carson in 1990.

Against Hawthorne, Smith ran 98 yards in the fourth quarter for the game-clinching touchdown that provided the county with its ninth section title and the first since Thousand Oaks won a championship in 1987.

Moreover, Smith came into the game as a defensive back on the final series of the championship game and drove Hawthorne’s Kelvin Hunter out of bounds at the Newbury Park 13-yard line as time expired.