His Field of Vision Wasn’t Sylmar : High school football: After dreaming of playing for San Fernando, Marquez has chance to take Spartans to City title.

Greg Marquez’s earliest recollections of football began on a hard, dusty field nine years ago at Sylmar High.

He was 8--and a starting center for the North Valley Little Bears. Like most of his young teammates, Marquez fantasized of someday playing for San Fernando High, football pride of the East Valley in the late 1960s and into the ‘80s.

As a youngster, Marquez dismissed the Sylmar program as a joke. Nothing could be better, he thought, than being a Tiger.

“It was all we thought about,” Marquez said.

Not much changed in the years that followed even though his family moved to the Santa Clarita Valley in the seventh grade.

Marquez and his buddies still practiced on Sylmar’s football field, dreaming of the San Fernando program while enjoying hearty laughs about the futility of Sylmar’s program.

“I used to laugh about (Sylmar) all the time,” Marquez said.

Marquez, who transferred from Saugus to Sylmar in May, isn’t laughing anymore--and neither are his former teammates, many of whom play for Sylmar.

The 6-foot-1, 170-pound quarterback is unbeaten in 12 starts at Sylmar and hopes to increase that streak tonight at 7:30 when the Spartans (12-0) take on Carson (4-8) in a City Section 4-A Division semifinal game at Sylmar.

Marquez’s penchant for getting his passes into the end zone is remarkable. More than 26% of his completions this season have been touchdowns.

Marquez, who has completed 71 of 129 passes (55.0%) for 1,352 yards, has thrown for 19 touchdowns, nearly twice as many as any other Spartan quarterback since Coach Jeff Engilman took over in 1987.

“Our quarterback has never been the big guy in our scheme of things,” said Engilman, whose Sylmar teams have produced at least one 1,000-yard rusher each season. “(But) you go with what you’ve got.”

As a junior at Saugus, Marquez completed 60 of 129 passes (46.5%) for 1,134 yards and 10 touchdowns. The Centurions finished 5-4 and missed the playoffs.

Not six months later, Saugus Coach Jack Bowman heard that Marquez was considering a transfer to Sylmar. Marquez, his mother and stepfather denied the rumors, according to Bowman.

Two days after Marquez’s parents assured Bowman that their son was staying put, Marquez checked out of Saugus, Bowman said.

Marquez contends the transfer was necessary because his stepfather’s job moved from Palmdale to Pico Rivera and he wanted a shorter commute.

Many of his former teammates and friends at Saugus think he transferred because he wanted to play at Sylmar, not because of his stepfather’s job.

“It doesn’t bother me because I know it’s not true,” Marquez said.

With an inexperienced quarterback at the helm, Saugus managed just four touchdown passes during the regular season, the lowest production in the Foothill League.

Said Bowman, whose team this year was 6-4-1 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs: “To be quite honest, I really don’t care. We did fine. We’re happy with what we did (this year). We wouldn’t have done any better that’s for sure.”

Meanwhile, Marquez’s ability to read defenses and throw passes on the run prompted Engilman to change his offense this season, especially inside the opponent’s 20.

For Engilman, Marquez is the response to Sylmar’s 22-21 loss to Carson in the 4-A semifinals last year.

“We needed to be more balanced and it really showed when we weren’t able to throw the ball against Carson last year,” Engilman said. “They played us with nine-man fronts. . . . The plays were there but (quarterback Eddie Lopez) just couldn’t complete ‘em.”

Last week, neither could Marquez.

Under an intense Banning pass-rush, Marquez was sacked five times, threw three interceptions and fumbled twice. The Spartans somehow managed to win, 28-27, in a California tiebreaker.

Engilman pulled Marquez late in the game and went to a wishbone offense in the middle of a drive. Sylmar moved downfield and scored, but it didn’t do much to bolster Marquez’s confidence.

“(Marquez) thought I had lost confidence in him,” Engilman said.

Obbie Brown, a Sylmar assistant coach, pulled Marquez aside at practice Monday and tried to reassure him that everything was status quo in the Spartan camp.

According to Engilman, Brown told Marquez, “Hey, we wouldn’t have you in there if we’d lost confidence in you. We would just be with the wishbone right now. You don’t know Engilman . . . as soon as he loses confidence, you’re no longer around.”

To be sure, Engilman doesn’t want Marquez fearing his removal. To defeat Carson, the defending City champion, Engilman will need Marquez, the wishbone and any other trick he can muster.

Besides, who wouldn’t want to rely on a quarterback who has practiced on the same dusty, weather-beaten field since childhood, compiling a 7-0 record on that field as a high school senior?