Happy Campers

The staff at Camp Kilpatrick has little trouble filling out its sports teams, especially in football. And since the sign-up list rarely includes more than a few players with experience, improvement is almost a given.

Indeed, at Kilpatrick, a school for juvenile offenders with an enrollment of about 125 boys, the football team is renowned for its popularity and late-season charges into the playoffs.

“Almost half our kids are involved in football, either on the varsity or the [junior varsity],” said Duane Diffie, Kilpatrick’s athletic director. “If you’re locked up, you want to get outside somehow.”

This season, with their advancement to the Southern Section Division XII title game tonight, the Mustangs have taken a few more trips than originally planned. Kilpatrick (8-5) plays Paraclete (12-1), an Alpha League rival, at 7:30 p.m. at Antelope Valley College.

Such an accomplishment has sent waves of jubilation through the team and livened the atmosphere of the entire camp, said Sid Ware, the Mustangs’ second-year coach.

“It’s real exciting, it’s like they have the whole world in their hands,” said Ware, a former junior college player at Los Angeles Harbor. “Just keeping them focused this week has been hard because they want to play so badly.

“In their lives, with so much heartache and disappointment and gang activity, it’s something real positive for them.”

It will be Kilpatrick’s second appearance in a section title game in nine years. In 1990, a team that included Michael Black, who went on to play for Washington State and the Seattle Seahawks, lost to Montclair Prep in a Division X final.

The Mustangs were ousted by Montclair Prep in the 1994 Division X semifinals. They face an equally formidable opponent in Paraclete, which won the teams’ league meeting earlier this season, 40-14, and is 25-2 during the last two seasons.

Crucial to Kilpatrick’s title hopes will be the smooth operation of its wing-T offense, which was installed after a 1-3 start. Quarterback Ray Gomez, formerly a student at Dominguez, has made a successful transition from directing a pro-set, power-I formation to the backfield intricacies of the wing-T and has passed for 659 yards and three touchdowns while having five passes intercepted.

Wingbacks Albert Youngblood and Kevin White have combined for 2,667 yards and 28 touchdowns. Youngblood, from Verdugo Hills, was a tailback at the start of the season but White was a late addition who has been a surprise.

Dominque Porter and Tuiloma Toafa are standout linebackers for a team Ware said essentially has played for only four months.

“We always begin on the ground floor looking up because only about 10% of our kids have ever played before,” Ware said. “For us it’s much more about teaching and learning the game than physical ability. But teams are kind of afraid of us at the end of the season because they know we can’t help but get better.”

Diffie expects a Kilpatrick cheering section of only about 100 parents and Los Angeles County probation staff members at the game. But he said the effects of the Mustangs’ appearance will be lasting ones.

“These kids have learned that you don’t quit and you don’t say no, even when you want to,” Diffie said. “That’s the best lesson we can teach and it carries over to their academics and their self-esteem.”