County’s First Family for Quarterbacks : Football: Sam Stremick at Villa Park and younger brother Nick at Mater Dei are guiding unbeaten teams.

So who’s the better quarterback?

Ask Sam and Nick Stremick, and the brothers usually respond with a quick exchange of looks and nervous laughter. It’s a question they will no doubt hear a lot as the prep football season wears on.

Suffice it to say that both have fared pretty well so far.

Sam, 18 and a senior, is Villa Park’s quarterback. Nick, 16 and a junior, plays for Mater Dei.

Sam, who transferred from Mater Dei to Villa Park in 1994 after his sophomore year because many of his friends were there, took over as quarterback on short notice this summer when Coach Pat Mahoney couldn’t find a satisfactory replacement for Sean McMahon, who graduated in June.

It was not an easy decision for Sam. He was an outstanding wide receiver and defensive back last year, leading the county with eight interceptions. He figured the colleges that might be interested in him would like to see him stay there, not start over at the most complicated position on the team.

“I had never played quarterback in a varsity game,” said Sam, who has completed 20 of 35 passes for 321 yards and two touchdowns in helping the Spartans to a 2-0 start. “I had played some in Pop Warner, and as a freshman.

“When asked to do it, I told the coaches no problem. [But] it has forced me to do more thinking about the game. Last year, I didn’t know our offense that well; this year, I’ve had to become a student of football.”

Nick faces a different pressure. Mater Dei is not only the defending Division I champion, but the Monarchs also have the county’s longest winning streak at 16 games. Add to that the unspoken demand for excellence; winning is a given, not a surprise.

Nick, who completed 13 of 28 passes for 181 yards and one touchdown in Mater Dei’s two victories, said it has taken him time to realize he did not have to be John Elway--or John Flynn, who guided the Monarchs to a 14-0 record last season--to be effective.

“I did look up to Flynn and tried to pattern my game after his,” Nick said. “But I learned from him last year that the tough part of this game is the mental part. One week they would criticize him, and the next week put him on a pedestal.”

Born in Yakima, Wash., 16 months apart, Sam and Nick are the middle children of Nancy and Lou Stremick. (Katie is 20 and Megan, a Mater Dei student, is 15.) When they were younger, the boys could pass for twins. They shared a room until junior high school. But they don’t share personalities; Sam is outgoing and Nick tends to be reserved and serious.

“If I go somewhere with Sam, we’d be the last ones to leave,” Nancy said. “If I went somewhere with Nick, he’d be the first one to say, ‘Let’s go, mom.’ ”

Their sporting makeup is a contrast as well. Nick readily admits Sam is the better athlete “with speed and quickness.” Sam describes Nick as “the pure, dropback quarterback” of the two.

What they share is competitiveness, especially around each other. Nancy remembers a time when their grandfather took them to play golf. “When he got back,” she said, “he told me, ‘The next time I take them out, it will be one at a time. They were trying to kill each other out there.’ ”

But that spirit has helped the Stremicks overcome several obstacles to get where they are today.

At Mater Dei, Nick dueled David Castleton for the starting quarterback job during spring practice and summer passing league. The coaches liked Castleton’s athleticism, but Nick’s stronger arm and excellent junior varsity season at quarterback last year gave him an edge. Eventually, the coaches moved Castleton to wide receiver and defensive back, filling two positions they felt were depleted by graduation.

In the opening game against Servite, that decision looked shaky. Nick had a difficult time against the Friars’ constantly shifting and blitzing defense, and the Monarchs needed a 67-yard touchdown run by Byron Schley in the fourth quarter to win, 10-7.

Last week against Long Beach Jordan, however, Nick was more relaxed and ran the offense with near flawless precision. He completed seven of 11 passes for 93 yards and a touchdown in a 35-6 victory.

“We feel Nick has a lot of potential to develop into a fine quarterback,” Monarch Coach Bruce Rollinson said. “A lot of growth potential.

“We did all we could to try and get Nick to realize when you take the step up to varsity, it’s a whole new ball game. Down the road, that first game [against Servite] could prove a positive for Nick in that he won’t see any more than he saw that night in regard to blitzes and front changes. Against Jordan, he kept the car between the lines, didn’t speed it or crash it.”

Besides, Nick said, he worked too hard holding off Castleton in the summer to keep playing badly.

“I told myself it was my job,” Nick said.

At Villa Park, Mahoney had no knowledge of Sam or his abilities when he showed up unannounced for summer league practice. “He said he was a quarterback,” Mahoney said, “But we already had Sean McMahon coming back and he had our system wired. As soon as we saw him run, though, we thought he could help us at some other positions.”

Sam’s all-around abilities were never on better display than in last week’s 20-14 victory over Brea Olinda. He passed for 141 yards and a touchdown, blocked a field-goal attempt and made a game-ending interception. “He just gets better with every game,” Mahoney said.

Although much of Sam’s development will be through on-the-job training, Mahoney said he has not scaled down the playbook.

“Our philosophy is to start slow and keep things simple, so it may limit the offense that way. But as the games go on, he’ll get more comfortable. One thing he has shown is that he’s a better passer during the game than in practice. Grant Pearsall [now a sophomore defensive back at USC] was like that.”

The brothers have tried to help each other’s transition this year. Nick worked with Sam on throwing, and after the Servite game, Sam made sure his brother’s confidence had not waned.

“After that first game we sat in [Nick’s] room,” Sam said. “I told him a lot was expected of him, and that he had to bear down.” But Sam reminded Nick too, that he had the talent to play on the varsity.

Both have goals. Nick wants to be the keeper of the Mater Dei flame, making strong runs at the South Coast League title and playoffs. “Stats are OK, but anyone who knows me knows I’m a team player. I want to do what’s best for the team,” he said.

Sam wants a Century League title and a good playoff run, but for other reasons. He burns at the notion that people might think the quarterback position is Villa Park’s weak link.

“More than anything,” Sam said, “I want to prove people wrong, and show them we have a good team.”