Kilpatrick Pours It On Until the Bitter End

Although there were several football blowouts in the region last week, the way Kilpatrick beat L.A. Baptist in an Alpha League game seemed excessive.

Kilpatrick’s Jermaine Marshall rushed for 423 yards. He scored seven touchdowns, threw for another and was still running for the end zone in the final minute of a 76-32 rout.

He was the last Mustang to touch the ball, running 58 yards for a touchdown with 39 seconds left. Kilpatrick called a timeout just before the scoring run, which capped a 30-point fourth quarter.

It appears to some, including Coach Mark Bates of L.A. Baptist, that Kilpatrick coaches decided a little payback was in order after L.A Baptist tried unsuccessfully a month ago to have Marshall declared ineligible for Alpha League competition.

When Kilpatrick joined the Alpha League in 1994, it was with the understanding that the camp for juvenile offenders would never have a returning player, since the maximum sentence at Kilpatrick is one year.

But Marshall, who played at Antelope Valley last season, was at Kilpatrick two years ago. He rushed for 1,700 yards as a sophomore.

Now the 6-foot, 205-pound running back is running over the competition, which mostly consists of small Christian schools.

Clearly out of his league, Marshall has rushed for a region-leading 1,794 yards and 31 touchdowns and is on pace for a 4,000-yard season. There isn’t another runner in the region within 600 yards of him.

Asked about the lopsided victory and possible hidden motives, Coach Sid Ware of Kilpatrick seemed at odds with his conscience.

In one breath, he reasoned, “We didn’t blow it open until seven minutes into the fourth quarter.”

Marshall’s fifth touchdown midway through the quarter gave the Mustangs a 62-26 lead.

Clearly the victory was secure. So why keep Marshall and other Kilpatrick starters in the game, risking possible injury?

“I felt [L.A. Baptist] was still in the game,” said Ware, who has watched his team blow large leads in the second half in losses to Montclair Prep and Oak Park.

So, when did Ware realize the game was well in hand?

“When the buzzer went off,” he said. “Some of their coaches thought we were [trying to run up the score]. But if that was the case, we would have fed Marshall 700 times.”

Still, while Ware denied Kilpatrick ran up the score for personal reasons, he offered a curious confession.

“I sent the offensive coordinator [to L.A. Baptist coaches] to apologize after the game,” Ware said. “[Offensive coordinator Scott Faer said] he got caught up in the game.”

However, Bates doesn’t recall any apologies from the Kilpatrick coaching staff. But he did get one after the game from Duane Diffie, Kilpatrick’s athletic director.

“I think the coaches got excited about a kid’s yardage and [possible] record, and that sort of thing,” Diffie said.

“I don’t want to rub anybody’s nose in it. Anyway, we’re here for the kids. If we’re not here for the kids, we’re in the wrong business.”

Uh, huh.

Kilpatrick wasn’t the only team to blow away an opponent last week, but perhaps Mustang coaches could take a sportsmanship lesson from their counterparts at Valencia, St. Bonaventure and Crescenta Valley, to name a few.

Each of those teams won by 49 points or more. Running backs Manuel White of Valencia and Lorenzo Booker of St. Bonaventure were pulled early in the third quarter. Quarterback Scott Vossmeyer of Crescenta Valley sat out the entire second half.

Seems those coaches weren’t too caught up in the game to do the math and remember their manners.

White could have a shot at several Southern Section and state records if Coach Brian Stiman didn’t pull him as soon as Valencia takes a comfortable lead.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Stiman said. “I like to get the rest of my football team out there playing. If the opportunity comes up, they deserve the right to be out there.”

Meanwhile, Hart coaches were stuck in an interesting position in the Indians’ 43-3 rout of Saugus last week.

Early in the fourth quarter with the game already decided, a reporter informed Dean Herrington, Hart’s offensive coordinator, that quarterback Kyle Matter needed only 10 yards to break the school record for yards passing in a game.

So Matter stayed in and threw a shovel pass that went for 13 yards, giving him a school-record 489 yards. He was then promptly pulled with 7:11 to play.

Since more than half of Matter’s yardage came on short passes that went for long gains--rather than bombs--Coach Ron Hilton of Saugus wasn’t put off by seeing Matter still passing in the fourth quarter.

“I thought they got him out early enough,” Hilton said.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Kilpatrick’s coaches, who allowed a personal vendetta to get in the way of good sportsmanship.