San Clemente Inches Short of Fulfilling Playoff Dream

Some impossible dreams are just that--impossible. But it doesn’t make the journey any less wonderful, the effort no less rewarding.

Fifteen years ago, San Clemente embarked on an amazing trek through the Southern Section football playoffs. The Tritons were a third-place team from the South Coast League, but they came within a first down of perhaps stealing the Central Coast Division title from Esperanza. No San Clemente team had gotten that far before. None has since.

It was a talented but relatively small team that ran out of the wishbone formation under Coach Ally Schaff. The Tritons finished second in the league in total offense, led by all-league running back Geoff Banners (who also made all-league as a defensive back). But they did not figure to be as good as the 1975 and ’78 San Clemente teams, which were favored to win section championships only to be upset each time in the conference semifinals.

“The best team was definitely the 1975 team,” said Schaff, now retired, recalling the squad that was 10-0 and ranked No. 1 in the conference until losing to Sonora, 7-4. “But that 1979 team could put points on the board. And it could play defense. It was a fun team.”

“I had played on the 1978 team,” said Curt Arons, a defensive end, “and going into 1979 I thought we were going to have a real good team. Then we lost a couple of games early and I didn’t know what was going on.” Arons, who now works in the family business selling janitorial supplies in San Clemente, was one of the Triton mainstays. He was part of the defense that topped the South Coast League in fewest yards allowed (782 rushing, 1,028 passing) and fewest points allowed (115). But even with Banners, who rushed for 665 yards and nine touchdowns in the nine regular-season games, the San Clemente offense was inconsistent in a 5-4 regular season. It blew apart teams like University, 28-0, and Laguna Hills, 42-14; then sputtered against El Toro, 29-15, and Mission Viejo, 22-12.

a “We were kinda like the San Diego Chargers back then--get to the important game and not make it,” Banners said.

The first-round game against Paramount was the spark to ignite the Tritons.

e Whatever anxiety the Tritons had dissipated when they discovered that their speed could counter Paramount’s size. “We had a little quickness on them,” Schaff said. Particularly on defense; they held the Pirates to zero yards rushing in the game.

It was a 14-14 tie at the end of regulation. In the tiebreaker system, each team was given the ball on the other’s 10-yard line and given four chances to score. Paramount got the ball first but was stuffed. When it was San Clemente’s turn, Banners--who had scored both Triton touchdowns--swept around right end on San Clemente’s first play and just got into the end zone.

The roll had begun. Next were victories against Costa Mesa, and El Dorado-- the last unbeaten Orange County team still in the playoffs. The Tritons could feel destiny lining up with them.

“We were this Cinderella story,” said Jon Hamro, a tight end who is now an assistant football coach at San Clemente. “When we first got in the playoffs it was ‘What are we doing here?’ But after the Paramount game we believed we could win. And now we had the whole town behind us.”

San Clemente now was poised to become the second consecutive third-place South Coast team to win a section title. (Mission Viejo had done it in 1978, defeating El Dorado in the championship game.) Standing in the Tritons’ way was Esperanza, which featured Mike Keefe, one of the county’s top running backs.

More than 5,000 fans filled Santa Ana Stadium for the final. It was a tight game, but Keefe, who rushed for 121 yards, gave the Aztecs a definite edge. He scored on a three-yard run in the second quarter, and pushed Esperanza’s lead to 14-0 with a nine-yard run five seconds into the fourth quarter.

San Clemente zipped 71 yards for a touchdown, Jim Mounce getting the final 10 yards on a bootleg with 6:58 left to play but got no closer.

“I felt we had done our best,” Banners said. “We had done what no other San Clemente team had done.”

That season marked the Tritons’ sixth straight playoff appearance. It was 14 years before they made it back to the postseason.