Antelope Valley Hopes It Turns Into a Race : High school football: Shrout and his teammates will try to counter Hart’s size with their speed.

Antelope Valley High’s Chad Shrout lived out a defensive lineman’s dream a week ago, stripping the ball from a running back and running for a touchdown.

Tonight, he faces a defensive lineman’s nightmare.

Or so it would seem.

Shrout, along with the rest of the Antelopes’ defensive line, must contend with Hart’s talented, massive offensive line (average size: 6-foot-4, 266 pounds) in the Southern Section Division II championship game.

But no one is calling this a one-sided matchup, and Shrout doesn’t sound particularly worried--just mildly interested.

“It should be a good matchup,” he said. “If we can stop the running game and make them pass it, should be a pretty tight game. But they’re pretty big guys. It will be size vs. speed.”

Shrout is no 98-pound weakling himself. The senior checks in at 6-1, 230 pounds and is fifth on the team in tackles.

And though Antelope Coach Brent Newcomb says Shrout is as good a defensive lineman as there is in the Golden League, Shrout himself regards the position as somewhat of a diversion, a way he can help the team.

His real interest is not popping ballcarriers or getting a blind-side hit on a quarterback. It’s kicking the heck out of the ball.

“Kicking is my passion,” he said. “Defense is just fun, something enjoyable to do. But kicking is something I’ve been doing since I was 8 or 9 years old.”

Surely, he’s one of the biggest--and best--kickers around.

He was named the Cal-Hi Sports magazine’s state punter of the year last season, averaging 46.8 yards a kick. He also made eight field goals in 18 attempts.

In last season’s playoff upset of Bishop Amat, Shrout hit a series of punts that pinned the Lancers at their four, five, seven, eight and 15-yard lines, a major factor in the Antelopes’ victory.

“I can still remember the ball going up above the (stadium) lights,” Newcomb said. “It kind of looked like Jack Nicklaus with a sand wedge. The ball would stop on a dime and give him nine cents change.”

That defeat was the last suffered by Bishop Amat, currently ranked first in the nation by several publications.

Those achievements garnered Shrout major attention. Recruiting letters rolled in from colleges across the country, from places such as Tennessee, Penn State, Notre Dame and Miami.

“I’d never seen anything from those guys before,” said Newcomb, who in his 17 years has coached more than his share of NCAA Division I players.

“Up and down the coast, they know who he is. Hopefully, his leg will get him an education.”

Newcomb and Shrout’s mother, Terry, are making sure of that. Terry insists that her son maintain at least a 3.0 grade-point average. He does. Antelope Valley coaches asked her to make sure he keeps up with his kicking in the off-season. She did.

On a cross-country vacation last summer, in whatever town or city they stayed in, the Shrouts would find an open field and Chad would kick away. Terry would hold for him and help shag balls along with Chad’s younger brother, Derrick.

“We worked out a lot together,” Terry said. “We’ve got to make sure that foot keeps going because that’s his life.”

This season, Shrout’s punting numbers are a bit lower--a 39.8-yard average. But he has made six of 10 field goals, including four in the playoffs.

Newcomb says there’s no telling how good Shrout can be with sufficient rest and practice. In addition to playing on defense, Shrout is the backup center but started on offense last week, all of which affords him little time to work on his kicking in practice.

“We try to rest him but we have to play our best guys,” Newcomb said.

College recruiters understand. He is being recruited by Notre Dame, Nebraska, Washington State, Hawaii and Washington, among others, he said.

And should he kick in college, he will join a long line of Antelope Valley graduates.

Four of the school’s previous five kickers have played at four-year colleges: Peter Holt (San Diego State), Chris Yergenson (Utah), Tim Dewberry (Occidental) and Harold Barkate (UCLA). The fifth, Peter Jensen, was an exchange student from Denmark and set a school record with a 54-yard field goal.

Shrout neared that mark when he kicked a 50-yard field goal last week, along with a 40-yarder, but it’s clear his best kicking is ahead of him.

There should be plenty of other games like the one against Bishop Amat, or against Mater Dei, when he boomed a punt that traveled 74 yards in the air. “It’s fun when it goes real far,” he said. “I just like to watch it. But I still don’t believe how far that one went.”

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