The Beat Goes On Easily for Seraphs

Yawn. Stretch. Pass the caffeine.

St. Bonaventure High’s football team has been dismantling opponents with ease, outscoring them, 512-82, in 12 games that have tested the Seraphs’ ability to stay awake more than anything else.

The dominance has continued into the Southern Section Division XI playoffs, where St. Bonaventure has outscored two opponents, 114-15. In the Seraphs’ last eight games, they have outscored teams, 377-29, an average score of 47-4.

The string of lopsided victories by the parochial school in Ventura has jarred awake several rival coaches.

Some coaches talk in flattering terms of the Seraphs (12-0), who host Banning of Riverside County in a Division XI semifinal Saturday night at Ventura High.

“They’re not beating up on teams because they’re playing against small schools,” said Notre Dame assistant Jeff Kraemer, who coached with St. Bonaventure Coach Jon Mack at Notre Dame from 1981-87.

“They’re beating up on these teams because they’re a good football team.”

Other coaches aren’t as forthcoming with compliments, especially those in St. Bonaventure’s league, the Tri-Valley.

St. Bonaventure, which won the Division X championship in 1996, has an unfair advantage because it is a private school that attracts athletes from throughout Ventura County, said Coach Coley Candaele of Carpinteria.

“If they’re missing a quarterback, they’ll get one to transfer in,” Candaele said. “If they lose a running back to graduation, they get one to transfer in. They’re going to reload each year. Whatever they lose, they’re going to go get it.

“If they’re lacking speed, the next year they know speed’s coming. If they’re missing someone in the middle of the defense, you know they’re going to get that someone next year. They get to hand-choose who is going to their school. They should win [Division XI] with a cakewalk.”

Carpinteria, which won four Southern Section championships from 1987-1991, has lost its last three games against St. Bonaventure by a combined score of 103-24, including 41-14 this season.

Carpinteria has been replaced by a new bully on the block, which may be fueling Candaele’s comments. But he is not alone in his opinion that the deck is stacked in St. Bonaventure’s favor.

Coach Dick Billingsley of Oak Park has watched his teams get outscored by St. Bonaventure, 246-3, in five Tri-Valley games since 1995.

“In some ways, St. Bonaventure has a definite edge on some people,” Billingsley said. “The playing field is not always even because there are schools that can recruit, mostly the private schools.

“We’ve lost kids to Westlake, to Chaminade, to Notre Dame and to St. Bonaventure. . . I don’t mind playing [St. Bonaventure]. I really don’t. But it has to be on a level playing field.”

Mack’s answer to the complaints? Hey, it’s a free country.

“The reality is, you have a choice to go wherever you want to go,” Mack said. “If good people choose to come here, that’s their choice. We work very hard to make our school academically, socially and athletically as solid as possible. We’re going to work as hard as we can to keep doing well.”

Several Tri-Valley coaches and athletic directors are calling for a shake-up. Possible changes have been discussed, some of them extreme, some of them sensible.

One unlikely scenario has St. Bonaventure joining the Channel or Pacific View leagues, both of which compete in Division IV. It makes sense geographically--seven of the 10 schools in those leagues are in Ventura County.

But the dominance enjoyed by the football team is not shared by other athletic teams at St. Bonaventure, which would make a move to a large-school league inequitable for the Seraphs in most sports.

“Football-wise, I think we’d be competitive in a lot of leagues,” Mack said. “The reality of everything is numbers. We still have 725 kids in school. And it’s coed. If we could get our numbers up, we could compete with anybody.

“But 725 [students] shouldn’t be able to play with 3,000 week in and week out. I don’t care how much you work hard and prepare. It’s still a numbers game.”

A more likely possibility calls for the Tri-Valley League to merge with the Frontier League, which also plays football in Division XI. With the exception of Calabasas and Santa Paula, all the schools have enrollments of fewer than 1,000.

Next year, St. Bonaventure will again compete in the Tri-Valley League and Division XI in football. A Southern Section administrator said there are no plans to move the Seraphs to a higher division.

“I’m not sure that St. Bonaventure has demonstrated any dominance yet,” said Bill Clark, an assistant commissioner who noted that the Seraphs lost in the second round of the playoffs last year and in the first round two years ago.

“It’s not uncommon for a team to get a group of kids that do well one year.”

There’s no question St. Bonaventure has an extraordinary team this season. But what are the Seraphs getting out of pulverizing everyone? Their closest game was a 37-20 nonleague victory over Channel Islands.

“Since the end of last season, we’ve been on a mission to come back and win the championship,” said Adam Gray-Hayward, a senior receiver for St. Bonaventure. “[Our playoff loss] was really upsetting last year. But every victory this year is a step toward a championship.”

It would be interesting to see the Seraphs play a high-profile program.

Mack said he has tried to upgrade St. Bonaventure’s schedule every year since he began coaching there in 1990.

“We’ve got week two open next year and we need a home game,” he said. “We’ll play almost anybody.”

Even Division IV power Westlake?

“I’d love to play Westlake,” Mack said. “[Coach] Jim Benkert is a good friend of mine. That would be great.”

To be continued next year. Possibly in week two.