Football Fever Infects Ventura County as 3 Prep Teams Vie for Titles

Eric Jensen is proof that football fans will go to great lengths to watch the big game.

Jensen, 23, a former defensive tackle for Adolfo Camarillo High School, tried to persuade his fiancee to reschedule their rehearsal dinner so he could watch tonight’s championship game between No. 2-seeded Camarillo and No. 1-ranked Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at Camarillo High’s Ackerman Stadium. Jensen’s fiancee, 23-year-old Lisa Whitley, called a penalty on that play.

“We have a rehearsal dinner at 8 p.m., and Eric was wondering if we could change the time of it. If we couldn’t change the time he wanted to know if we could bring a TV in and watch the game on the local cable channel,” Whitley said. “I just laughed and said, ‘Too bad.’ ”

The dinner will go on as planned today, but a car will be standing by to ensure they make it to the game as soon as rehearsal is over.

They will be married Saturday in the First Lutheran Church of Camarillo.

This weekend promises to be a great one for high school football fans like Jensen, as three teams from Ventura County battle for two divisional titles. In addition to tonight’s 7:30 p.m. Camarillo-Notre Dame clash in the CIF Southern Section Division III final, St. Bonaventure will meet Nordhoff in the Division X final Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Ojai.

Ticket sales for the Camarillo-Notre Dame game have been so brisk that officials brought in 4,500 extra bleacher seats, increasing the capacity of Ackerman Stadium to 8,000.

*

It’s a similar story at Nordhoff High, where officials will add as many as 1,400 seats on the visitors’ side, said principal and former football coach Jack Smith. That will bring the stadium seating up to 4,500.

But ticket sales have been going so well that Smith said he would not be surprised if 6,000 people show up Saturday. If that happens, the overflow crowd will have to sit or stand on a hillside above the field.

“This has the potential to be one of our biggest games,” Smith said. “Two years ago when we played Atascadero in the CIF finals we had a real big crowd.”

And Atascadero, in northern San Luis Obispo County, is a lot farther away from Ojai than the St. Bonaventure Seraphs’ home in Ventura.

Smith, who coached the Rangers football team from 1970 to 1983, said Nordhoff is looking forward to playing their “cross-town rivals” from Ventura. “When we got the No. 1 ranking going into the playoffs, we were looking forward to playing them again. St. Bonaventure is our major rival even though we are not in the same league,” Smith said.

*

Students at each school will be cheering for the home team, though some students may have to choose which home team to root for. Alex Doran, 16, and 15-year-old Mike Hewitt will both be cheering for Nordhoff, even though they attend St. Bonaventure.

“I’ve lived in Ojai all my life, and I’ll be rooting for Nordhoff,” said Mike, a ninth-grader. Alex, a 10th-grader who also lives in Ojai, said, “I don’t pay attention to football too much, but I’m for Nordhoff.”

Another Ojai resident, 16-year-old Peter Walsh, said he will stick with the Seraphs, who lost to Nordhoff earlier this season. All in all, it should be an even contest, said Peter, who played junior varsity football at St. Bonaventure last year.

When it comes to rooting your team on, 47-year-old Gail Bannon of Camarillo is second to none. People call her the true die-hard Scorpions fan, not just because she roots for every player in every sport, but because she supports all sports through her work with the Adolfo Camarillo Booster Club.

“I have a long and varied history with the school,” Bannon said in a bashful tone. Her husband, Mel Bannon, is a former walk-on football coach, and her four children have played on various Camarillo high teams. Her 27-year-old son Chris played wide receiver and defensive back before graduating in 1987, and 23-year-old Kelly Bannon played softball.

Twins Mike and Jeff, 18, play baseball at Camarillo.

“I’ve had children there since 1983. I have watched a lot of football players come and go,” Bannon said.

Bannon remembers the championship football team of 1984, when Scott Cline was the coach and the Scorpions beat the Ventura High School Cougars 16-14 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. “Now he coaches my sons in varsity baseball,” she said.

The town is buzzing with excitement in anticipation of the game, she said. “Wherever you go, everybody is either a relative of a player or related to someone who played against somebody at Camarillo High School,” Bannon said.

* PREVIEW

A look at tonight’s matchup. C10