No Stars for Sylmar’s Marquee Matchups

Finally, the high school football matchups we’ve been dreaming about for years have arrived.

And they’re only 33 weeks away. But perhaps a year too late.

Sylmar High, the winningest football team in the region in the 1990s, has bolstered its nonleague schedule over the next two seasons, adding two of the best teams in the Southern Section.

The Spartans, who play Taft in their first game for the second year in a row, will face Antelope Valley in Week 3 this year and will add Hart for a Week 2 matchup in 1997.

Antelope Valley and Hart played in the Division II championship game in each of the past two seasons. The Antelopes won in 1994, Hart in ’95.

With a schedule of that caliber, it’s no wonder Sylmar Coach Jeff Engilman has decided--once again--to postpone his retirement.

“It looks like [I’m coming back], especially with the schedule we’ve put together,” he said. “What it really came down to was, ‘What am I supposed to do with myself?’ ”

Engilman, who has guided the Spartans to two City Section championships and an 86-17-2 record in nine seasons, has plenty to do now.

Although he expects to have seven returning starters--including four on the offensive line--Engilman, without a blue-chip running back for the first time since he took over at Sylmar in 1987, is ambivalent about ’96 with a team such as Antelope Valley (23-4 the past two years) on the schedule.

“This will be the first year that we don’t have a bona fide running back,” Engilman said. “[But] we’ve got a lot of pluses.”

Considering the talented players from Sylmar (Durell Price and Tyrone Crenshaw), Antelope Valley (Jermaine Lewis and Trymon Redick) and Hart (Ted Iacenda and Steve McKeon) who won’t be on the high school scene in ‘96, a City-Southern Section matchup doesn’t promise the same excitement with marquee names like it would have in any of the past three years.

Still, it is a new frontier for Sylmar, which has not scheduled a non-City team in at least 20 years.

However, the last time Sylmar played a Southern Section team, it ended in disaster for the Spartans. After cruising to a 13-0 record and a City title in 1992, Sylmar played Bishop Amat, the Division I champion, in the Reebok Bowl at Anaheim Stadium and lost, 31-10, in a game that was televised live in the Los Angeles area.

But, win or lose, Engilman is determined to play the best teams.

And he isn’t the first City coach to feel that way. Last season, Kennedy Coach Bob Francola added Quartz Hill for the Golden Cougars’ opener, and last week Taft Coach Troy Starr added Dorsey for a Week 3 matchup.