Mending Impatiently : San Clemente Receiver Hoping to Heal in Time to Damage Mater Dei

For the last three weeks, Trevor Insley has gone to the kitchen table on Tuesday mornings, opened the newspaper and watched Tony Hartley’s name creep higher and higher on the list of the county’s leading receivers.

It’s an affront that Insley takes personally because, for the first four weeks of the season, Insley’s name was atop the list. It wasn’t even close.

He had 31 receptions for 566 yards--five more catches than Kennedy’s Garret Sabol, nine more catches and 74 yards more than Los Alamitos’ Hartley.

Then came that punt return against Foothill and that snap, crackle, pop in his left hand.

Three broken bones.

Three lost weeks of offensive production.

Three weeks to watch Hartley and four others surpass him.

Not that Insley has anything against Hartley, who has 49 catches (11 more than anyone else) for 894 yards. He has never met him. But face it--Hartley’s a measuring stick, one of the most notable receivers in the nation, according to SuperPrep magazine. And through four weeks, Insley measured up just fine.

“I don’t know if I’m jealous, “ Insley said. “Hartley’s a great ballplayer. The attention he gets, he deserves. I see it as competition. I just look at the stats each week in the paper and compare how I did with the other guys in the county.”

Nevada, San Diego State, Arizona State, Arizona and Oregon State have looked just as closely at Insley.

Tonight, when he puts on his uniform for the second week in a row, there’s a chance Insley will be something more than a decoy, a blocker at the wide receiver position--as he was last week. There’s a chance for Insley to have an impact against top-ranked Mater Dei (7-0, 2-0 in the South Coast League), which has given up only six touchdowns in seven games .

What kind of difference has Insley made? In the first four games, seventh-ranked San Clemente (5-2, 1-1) averaged 24.8 points against teams with a combined record of 24-4; since, they’ve averaged 21.3--including 40 points in one game--against teams with a combined record of 8-12-1.

But Insley won’t get a chance to make a difference unless he gets the doctor’s OK today.

“If he were 100%, I would tell you he’ll be playing, but he’s not 100%,” San Clemente Coach Mark McElroy said this week. “He’s just starting to get his feet underneath him, just getting his moves back. And he’s a little tentative with his hand. He’s not 100% in his blocking. There are some factors that need to be considered.

“This is a very important game to us, but the last two games [against Dana Hills and Trabuco Hills] are very important to us also. To go to the playoffs, we have to win our last two games, period. . . . I’d rather have Trevor healthy for the playoffs than have another broken hand.”

Consider the credentials Insley brings to McElroy’s dilemma. Insley’s school records include:

* Receptions in a game, 12, set three times--including twice this season.

* Career receptions, 90, which is 14 more than Morgan Bannister (1990-91).

* Receptions in a season, 55, set last year, when he also set the record for single-season yardage, 841.

* Career yardage, 1,511--more than 300 more than Newman.

And Insley, a starter as a sophomore, missed five games that season because of a broken collarbone.

“Every time San Clemente snaps the ball,” El Toro Coach Mike Milner said, “you have to ask yourself, ‘Where’s Insley?’ ”

McElroy said he has never coached a player who worked harder in the off-season than Insley, and that the 6-foot, 170-pound senior has worked as hard to rehabilitate the hand since his Oct. 3 surgery as he did to prepare for the season. Insley played defensive back last week, along with about 10 plays on offense in a 19-10 loss to Capistrano Valley. Not one pass was thrown to him.

“As soon as he could move his finger one bit, he started moving it back and forth a lot,” McElroy said. “He wasn’t one of those kids who said, ‘I hope it comes back’ but who was pushing it to the limit, playing catch with Nerf balls just to get it back.”

Insley has always pushed himself.

“He’s tough, he really is,” said his mother, Sharyn, who cringed when Trevor raced down the family’s hill on a Big Wheel when he was 1 1/2, surfed at 6, rode motorcycles at 9 and did flips on a snowboard at 15.

“He’s not afraid; he doesn’t seem to have that fear.”

And that helps makes him an excellent receiver.

In addition to being elusive and “catching everything,” according to McElroy, one of Insley’s trademarks is that “he will go up for any ball--and usually come down with it.”

Said Insley: “I guess everyone’s given a talent that stands out. I guess I was blessed with hands.”