Upset of Venice Not Out of the Question

Not many outside the program give Carson much of a chance against undefeated Venice in the City Section’s Championship division football game Friday night at the Coliseum.

After all, Venice (13-0) has certainly played like the No. 1-seeded team. The Gondoliers have overwhelmed their playoff opponents by margins of 49, 53 and 41 points. They defeated Carson, 34-14, in the first week of the season.

But Carson supporters can point to the Colts’ tradition as one of the section’s most successful teams with 10 major-division titles to their credit.

They can also point to the outcome of recent title-game rematches.

Four times in the last five years, teams that met during the regular season also met in the championship game. Each time, the team that lost the first game came back to win the second.

Lake Balboa Birmingham did it last year, losing to Woodland Hills Taft, 30-6, during the season, then beating the Toreadors, 35-7, in the Coliseum.

Will the trend continue?

Coach John Aguirre knows the feeling, as his Carson team was upset by Wilmington Banning, 26-10, in the 2000 championship game after winning the regular-season Marine League game, 48-18.

“I hope that trend keeps going,” Aguirre said. “We learned the hard way against Banning. Part of it is focus and having discipline. When you don’t have that, you’re setting yourself up for failure. It’s those mistakes that lose games.”

Venice Coach Angelo Gasca is putting a different spin on the teams’ second meeting.

“It’s not a rematch,” said Gasca, whose team reached the semifinals last year. “It’s Game 14 against a good team. We think Carson is the best team we’ve faced because they’re the next team we face. That’s how we look at things.”

Carson’s players are reminded daily of the school’s past success, as painted on the fence that surrounds their football field are numbers representing the years the Colts (10-3) won their titles.

Venice is experiencing its first championship week, but Gasca insists that won’t faze the Gondoliers, saying his players prepared the same way during Monday’s practice as they had each day of the season.

“We’re not going there to get respect and make a mark for ourselves,” he said. “We’re going there to win. We want what they’ve got.”

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Neighborhood rivals will meet in the Invitational division championship game when Los Angeles Locke takes on L.A. Fremont at 5 p.m. Friday in the Coliseum.

Locke (5-8) has won three games in the playoffs, which is one more than the Saints won during the regular season. Fremont is 9-3-1.”It’s a great test to see how far we’ve come as a team,” said Locke first-year Coach Wayne Crawford said. “It’s a great springboard for where I envision this program is going to go.”

John Washington, Fremont’s defensive coordinator, had personal reasons to pull for Locke to advance from its side of the bracket.

Washington and Crawford played against each other in high school -- Washington at Fremont and Crawford at L.A. Crenshaw -- and both were assistants at Locke under former coach E.C. Robinson, who is now the coach at L.A. University.

“We’re all happy it turned out the way it did,” Washington said.