No Orchestrated Ending for Lombardo

The Chris Lombardo era at Newbury Park High might be over after only two games.

Lombardo, who transferred from St. Bonaventure to become the featured quarterback in one of the Southland’s most prolific passing offenses, underwent surgery late Friday night to repair a fractured left leg and dislocated ankle.

He suffered the injuries early in the Panthers’ 35-20 loss to Paso Robles on Friday night.

“He’s just devastated that he can’t help his team go on and win a [Southern Section] championship,” said Randy Lombardo, Chris’ father.

While Randy Lombardo is hopeful Chris, a senior, can rejoin the team late in the playoffs, that seems unlikely.

The starting job falls to senior Cameron Merrill, an athlete with a prodigious Panther pedigree and the projected Newbury Park quarterback before Lombardo arrived last summer.

“It’s nice to have the chance, but I don’t like the way it happened,” said Merrill, who visited Lombardo at Los Robles Hospital Medical Center on Saturday.

Merrill, who separated his shoulder in July, overcame soreness and rust on Friday night to complete seven of 19 passes for 104 yards and two touchdowns.

Merrill’s grandfather, Jay, was the first baseball coach at Newbury Park and his father, Vern, was an athlete at the school and is heavily involved in youth football in the Conejo Valley.

Jayson Merrill, Cameron’s uncle, was a quarterback at Newbury Park in the mid-1980s.

The loss of Lombardo, who passed for more than 4,000 yards in two seasons at St. Bonaventure, is significant, but Coach George Hurley is telling his team not to dwell on bad breaks.

“You pick up the pieces and move on,” he said. “Sometimes you get the peanuts and sometimes you get the shells.”

Over the years, Newbury Park has has had its share of good fortune.

The Panthers have rivaled Hart for the distinction of the region’s top quarterback factory, producing standouts such as Wayne Cook, Keith Evans and Chris and Nick Czernek.

There are plenty of talented arms waiting in line, including Scott Wyly, a junior who transferred from Thousand Oaks after his freshman season, and freshman Ryan Lombardo, the starting quarterback on the junior varsity and Chris’ brother.

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Lombardo’s was the worst of several injuries and illnesses suffered by quarterbacks in the region Friday night.

John Gonzalez of Camarillo missed most of the fourth quarter of a 35-35 tie with Agoura after suffering a minor eye injury.

“I was going back on a pitch-pass and I think a middle linebacker came through and caught me with a thumb in the eye,” Gonzalez said Saturday.

“It still hurts a little, but I can see OK.” Gonzalez said he will be available next week.

Bryce Klenck of Royal had a high temperature and was held out of the Highlanders’ 23-21 upset of Granada Hills.

Demetre Booker of Antelope Valley was hobbled by repeated cramps in the Antelopes’ 28-21 loss to Sylmar.

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Hoover hungered for a victory for almost two years until Friday night, when it apparently found its meal ticket: the Witkop family.

Josh Witkop scored two touchdowns and broke up a potential game-tying pass in the end zone in the final minute of Hoover’s 14-7 victory over South Pasadena, ending an 18-game losing streak.

Earlier Friday, Lucy Witkop, Josh’s mother and an English teacher at the school, organized the Tornadoes’ first team meal, a spaghetti lunch featuring 18 packages of pasta.

After the game, the Witkops hosted an impromptu celebration at their home that included more than 80 players, parents, teachers and alumni, not to mention a few members of Glendale’s finest.

“We must have made too much racket,” Lucy Witkop said of the party, which lasted until 2 a.m. on Saturday.

“They even called the cops on us.”

The victory was made even sweeter since Jeff Chi, coach at Hoover when the streak began, was on the opposite sideline as an assistant for South Pasadena.

“It feels great to get [the losing streak] out of the way,” Witkop said. “Nobody believed in us except the players and coaches.”

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Another team to end a long drought was Quartz Hill, which lost 16 of 17 games until a 41-14 victory over Crespi on Friday night in Pat Degnan’s second game as coach.

It is a familiar situation for Degnan, former Alemany coach. Degnan’s Alemany team lost 15 of 16 games before defeating Crespi, 31-30, in the 1996 season finale.

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At 5 feet 8, 185 pounds, senior David Contreras of Sylmar is put together like an iron trunk.

“He’s a miniature Jerome Bettis,” Coach Jeff Engilman of Sylmar said.

Even Bettis would have been pleased with the numbers Contreras put up on Friday night at Antelope Valley.

He is believed to be only the third Spartan to run for more than 300 yards in a game, rushing for 302 yards and two touchdowns in 30 carries.

Contreras kicked two field goals, two conversions and ran in a two-point conversion.

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Engilman is one of the winningest coaches in the region, but until Friday night he was 0-2-1 against Coach Brent Newcomb of Antelope Valley, in his 22nd season.

“I walked up to [Newcomb] after and said, ‘I finally beat you, old-timer,’ ” Engilman said.

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Contreras was one of several players to turn in remarkable performances in the High Desert on Friday night.

Receiver Larry Viltz of Crespi caught 17 passes for 176 yards at Quartz Hill; Derrick Teal of Quartz Hill rushed for 182 yards and two touchdowns, returned two blocked punts for scores and blocked a third punt; Rodney Woods of Littlerock gained a school-record 293 yards and scored twice in a 25-9 victory at Victorville Silverado.

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Saugus would do well to schedule more Marmonte League schools.

The Centurions are 2-0 for the first time since 1994 after victories over Royal and Simi Valley.

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Taft’s 27-21 loss to Locke put the Toreadors at 0-2 for the first time since 1991, when they were 1-8.