Hart: Mission Possible

It’s not about the final score for the Hart High football team. It’s not about margin of victory or Kyle Boller’s final statistics.

After trouncing St. Francis, 51-12, in a quarterfinal game of the Southern Section Division III playoffs Friday night at St. Francis, all anyone from Hart wanted to talk about was winning a championship.

“Because we fell short last year so many guys want it,” Coach Mike Herrington said. “We’ve given them an assignment and they want to complete it.”

Except for a 23-22 loss to Loyola, no team has been within 20 points of the Indians (10-2), who had a forfeit loss to Quartz Hill in their opening game.

Boller, who seems to get better every game, was almost perfect Friday night. He completed his first 14 passes and finished with 29 completions in 34 attempts for 441 yards and five touchdowns.

His season total is now 4,503 yards, breaking the state single-season record of 4,362 set by Chris Czernek of Newbury Park in 1995.

Boller is just 155 yards short of breaking the national record for single-season yardage set by Phillip Deas of Evangel Christian of Shreveport, La.

“It’s neat,” Boller said. “It’s exciting, but I wouldn’t be able to do it without a great offensive line and great receivers.”

Boller, who fell one shy of the school record for consecutive completions, had three of his incomplete passes batted down by linemen near the line of scrimmage.

Boller completed passes to nine different receivers despite the absence of All-American Jerry Owens, who is out for the season with a broken leg. Jared Bazar had eight catches for 138 yards and a touchdown.

“Kyle keeps doing his job and rolling along,” Herrington said. “Right now we are playing well but we could stub our toe. We’ve got to stay focused.”

Hart scored on its first four possessions, and if not for the clock running out in the first half with the Indians at the St. Francis 19, it would have been five.

“That is the best football team I’ve seen in the last 11 years,” St. Francis Coach Bill Redell said. “I thought we would have difficulty stopping the pass and we did, but so does everybody else.”

Hart outgained the Golden Knights (7-5) 547 yards to 240 and built a 48-0 lead before St. Francis got on the board with a 37-yard pass play from John Sciarra to Jimmy Knauf and a six-yard pass play from Sciarra to Michael Lynch--both against the Hart second string in the fourth quarter.

Hart’s opponent next Saturday in the semifinals will be Alemany at College of the Canyons. Alemany defeated Lancaster, 14-7, in another quarterfinal Friday.

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Boller Watch

A game-by-game look at how Kyle Boller of Hart High has fared this season:

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Opponent Com. Att. Yds. I TD Quartz Hill 25 42 422 1 5 Thousand Oaks 20 44 399 0 3 Sylmar 13 21 269 0 5 Palmdale 22 36 348 0 6 Loyola 22 40 362 0 2 Saugus 25 32 398 0 6 Burroughs 28 40 426 0 5 Valencia 16 27 265 1 2 Burbank 29 36 475 0 7 Canyon 15 21 347 0 5 Highland 21 33 351 1 5 St. Francis 29 34 441 0 5 Totals 265 406 4503 3 56

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The national record for passing yards in a season is 4,654.