Newbury Park Converts Rematch Into No Match

Last year the Thousand Oaks High football team defeated rival Newbury Park by one point in a wild shootout that resulted in the teams scoring 83 points.

This time, Thousand Oaks simply fired blanks.

Newbury Park combined a balanced offense with a stingy defense in a surprisingly easy 28-6 victory Friday night in a Marmonte League finale at Thousand Oaks.

The victory gave the Panthers (6-4, 5-1 in league play) second place in the league, ahead of the Lancers (6-4, 4-2), and guaranteed them a home game in the first round of the Southern Section Division IV playoffs.

If that wasn’t painful enough for the Lancers, they also had to watch former teammate Marcus Crawford chew up yardage all night.

Crawford, a junior who played defensive end for Thousand Oaks last season, rushed for 149 yards in 21 carries to help keep the Lancer defense on the field for much of the game.

“It was a very emotional game for our whole team,” Crawford said. “We came in and worked real hard and everything went well for us.”

Crawford, who has rushed for 1,557 yards and 11 touchdowns this season, combined with the passing of quarterback Cameron Merrill to keep Thousand Oaks off balance.

Merrill didn’t complete a high percentage of his passes, but he threw four touchdown passes and finished 12 of 28 for 163 yards.

“I wasn’t very consistent, but I made the key plays when I needed them,” Merrill said.

The Panthers got all the points they needed in the first half on a pair of touchdown passes by Merrill.

The first was a 24-yard pass to Pat DuRoss in the first quarter and the second was a 10-yard toss to Eric Sanford for a 14-0 lead in the second quarter.

Newbury Park also received an excellent performance by wide receiver L. Ray Hawkins, who caught eight passes for 102 yards, including a 22-yard catch for a touchdown.

That made it a long night for Thousand Oaks, which managed to gain only 205 yards.

Clint Wilson, the team’s leading rusher, was held to 58 yards and a touchdown in 15 carries.

A bad evening for Thousands Oaks was made worse when reserve running back John Vander Pyl, a senior, apparently suffered a broken left leg on a kick return in the third quarter.

Vander Pyl was taken to Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.