Scheduling Game No Easy Chore for Servite, Mater Dei

Talk about scheduling problems.

Mater Dei will square off against Servite Friday night at 7:30 in a football game at Cerritos College. But how the game, which is expected to draw 8,000-10,000, came to be played at all is a story in itself, according to Servite Principal Ray Dunn.

Originally scheduled for Friday night at Cal State Fullerton, the game had to be moved, according to contractual agreements with the college, when it was discovered that a women’s soccer match was scheduled in the stadium at the same time. Servite settled on Saturday night at 7, but then discovered that its sister school, Rosary, had its biggest social event of the year, a father-daughter dinner, at the same time.

Dunn said Mater Dei agreed to play the game at 5 p.m. Saturday, so as not to conflict with Rosary’s dinner. However, Servite later learned Fullerton College was already slated to play Pasadena in the stadium Saturday at 1 p.m.

“There would be no time to get on the field [before the game],” Dunn said. “Warmups would have to take place somewhere else.” Dunn said.

Thus, a new place and new time.

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With all the talk of realignment, Bellflower St. John Bosco’s first-year football coach, Kiki Mendoza, who lives in Anaheim, knows how important it is for the Braves (2-2) to pick up their level of play.

Because of its close proximity to Orange County, the all-boys’ Catholic school has been mentioned along with Santa Fe Springs St. Paul as possibly being placed in a parochial school league with Servite and Mater Dei.

That’s why last week’s 28-21 loss to Los Alamitos was so bittersweet. After a sluggish start, the Braves outplayed the Griffins, Orange County’s top-ranked team, in every phase of the game.

“We should be able to beat Mater Dei and Los Alamitos,” said Mendoza, a 1985 graduate of St. John Bosco who led the Braves to a Del Rey League title in his senior year. “This program needs to win against teams like that.”

St. John Bosco lost to Mater Dei, 30-13, in the second week of the season.

An original member of the old Angelus League, St. John Bosco has struggled recently in the Del Rey League, which includes football powerhouses Los Angeles Loyola and La Puente Bishop Amat. Mendoza said his goal is to get the once-powerful Braves back on track.

“It hurts to lose,” he said. “We need to get over the hump, get this program back on track. And not just the football team, either. The school needs us [to do well] too.”

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Team meetings that change a team’s season are becoming so commonplace they’re almost cliche. But San Clemente football Coach Mark McElroy said it was a team meeting two weeks ago that led to the Tritons’ turnaround.

“We all had to get on the same page,” McElroy said. “Ever since then, our attitude and our focus have been completely different.”

So has their record. The Tritons have rebounded from an 0-2 start to rout Aliso Niguel, 30-0, and shock Santa Margarita, 37-14, ending the Eagles’ 28-game winning streak.

McElroy didn’t exactly predict his team would upset Santa Margarita, but he told his players it could happen.

“We kept saying, ‘Don’t listen to the naysayers, we can stop the streak,’ ” he said.

San Clemente stopped the streak by running the Eagles’ defense into the ground. Four Triton running backs combined for 400 yards rushing against San Margarita. Chris McCormack had 210 yards and three touchdowns in 15 carries, James Allen had 109 yards and a touchdown in 20 carries, Chris Smith had 45 yards in 10 rushes and Chris Roesti ran for 38 yards in five carries.

“Wow, that’s a lot of yards,” McElroy said. “And we don’t have a DeShaun Foster [Tustin High/UCLA], just a bunch of guys.”

The Triton defense played without three-year starting linebacker Daniel Montecinos, who broke his leg in practice two days before the game, but it held Santa Margarita running back Spencer McCroskey to 45 yards rushing, half his average.

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One of the week’s other big upsets was La Quinta’s 8-7 victory over previously unbeaten Santiago Thursday night at Bolsa Grande High. The victory gave La Quinta a 4-0 record and had longtime La Quinta Athletic Director Jim Perry thinking about how Thursday’s victory over the Cavaliers rated.

“It’s got to be one of the bigger ones we’ve had just because we’ve been down for so many years,” Perry said. “It’s definitely our biggest win since 1989, when Roger [Takahashi, now at Los Amigos] was here. It’s a real tribute to Jeff [Veeder] and his staff and a bigger tribute to the kids. They really bought into his system.”

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Servite Coach Larry Toner was incensed some of his players cheered an apparent injury to Fountain Valley running back Adam Ramirez, who was drilled while trying to catch a pass during the Barons’ 7-3 victory Friday.

Toner loudly chastised those players for “cheering an injury” and intimated rather directly they could play for another school if they wanted to do that.

Only 1 minute 26 seconds later on the game clock, Servite quarterback Dan Petropulos was sacked by Bernard Fano and didn’t get up for about 10 minutes.

Unlike Ramirez, Petropulos appeared to be seriously injured, causing the sideline to grow silent, except for an organized team prayer.

Petropulos, it turned out, was just shaken up, but the point was made crystal clear to the Friars.

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Brethren Christian will host L.A. Fremont in a nonleague football game 7 p.m. Friday at Clark Field in Long Beach. The Warriors were originally scheduled to meet Sierra Madre Maranatha Saturday in an Olympic League game, but Maranatha has dropped its varsity program this season for lack of players.

Staff writers Martin Henderson, Dave McKibben and Bob Rohwercontributed to his report.