Taft Defeats Granada Hills

By STEVE HENSON

Oct. 14, 2000 12 AM PT

Not even cafeteria food can stop Steve Smith and Chris Morgan.

Queasy from lunch, the Woodland Hills Taft High receivers distinguished themselves quite well in a 40-6 victory over Granada Hills on Friday night in a West Valley League opener.

Smith had 11 receptions for 156 yards and two touchdowns. Morgan had 74 yards and one touchdown on four receptions and returned an interception 82 yards for a touchdown.

“We were both feeling ill from that stuff they feed us,” Smith said. “My stomach was killing me. I was out of it until the second quarter.”

Quarterback Ricky Clausen completed 24 of 42 passes for 340 yards and five touchdowns for Taft (5-1), which had 489 yards.

Taft tailback Lee Marks rushed for 159 yards in 22 carries and added 71 yards on six receptions.

Granada Hills (4-2) was without its primary weapon, receiver Joey Rodriguez, who was sidelined from a concussion he suffered a week ago.

High School Sports

Steve Henson

Steve Henson is a reporter with the Fast Break sports team at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as an assistant editor and reporter in the Sports department. Henson was a leader in digital-only newsrooms from 2007-19 as a senior editor and columnist at Yahoo Sports and as senior editor at the USA Today Sports Media Group. This is his second stint at The Times, having covered the Dodgers and UCLA as well as doing enterprise, investigative and features writing from 1985-2007. Henson was awarded first place in sports features in 2021 by the L.A. Press Club and has been honored several times by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) and also by the California News Publishers Assn., the Football Writers Assn. of America and U.S. Basketball Writers Assn.

Taft Defeats Granada Hills

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