Newbury Park loses heartbreaker vs. Channel Islands

STEVE AMES/T.O. Acorn LISTEN UP - Newbury Park head football coach addresses the Panthers after a very tough loss.

By Steve Ames

Special to the T.O. Acorn

Play like you practice.

That reminder played out last Friday night in a negative way as the Newbury Park High football team (0-1) took a 39-14 late second-quarter lead over host the Channel Islands High Raiders. But the Panthers then lost, 46-39, and this week, head coach George Hurley hopes practice will produce a victory.

Tomorrow night’s visiting opponent in the 7 p.m. home opening game for the Panthers will be Rio Mesa (0-1). Like Channel Islands (1-0), Rio Mesa is a member of the Pacific View League and a team that opened the new season with a loss (31-19 last Friday night to visiting San Marcos High).

The Marmonte League Panthers, playing this season with a "Return to Glory" theme of the 1995-1999 years, are looking to turn around three straight years of losing seasons.

"‘Return to Glory,’" said head coach George Hurley, "is a start to get out of that 3-7 slump that we’ve had and return back to playing—not necessarily being undefeated champions—but playing like champions. You can play like champions and still lose a game, and we certainly didn’t play like champions (against Channel Islands). That’s our goal, to play like we did at that time."

Regarding the Spartans of Rio Mesa, he said he hadn’t thought too much about them.

Hurley’s thoughts aren’t on Rio Mesa’s quarterback Brian DiDomizio, receivers D.J. Price and Val Martinez, tailback Max Barroso or punter-kicker Jared Strubeck or any other player that head coach Randy Block will match against the Panthers.

"We’re mostly just concentrating on us," Hurley said. "We are the problem right now and what we’re working on. So we’re going to work on that problem, and Rio Mesa will take care of itself.

"Certainly we’ll have an offense and defense ready to meet them at the appropriate time, but right now our major goal is to get Newbury Park ready to play better and start building that process."

Hurley said that entering the Channel Islands game, he was afraid the Panthers were going to play like they’ve been practicing.

"We start off the beginning of the practice, we play real hard, and we concentrate and do some things, and then we lose concentration toward the end of practice, toward the end of each of the drills," Hurley said.

"I warned them that that might happen and it did. We are young. We are going to make some mistakes."

While it was a tough loss for the team to absorb, he said that the game was more than the final score.

"We got both of our quarterbacks a shot to throw the ball some, and I think we’re a step closer to making a decision on quarterback," said Hurley. "I think that’s a plus."

Junior Jordan LaSecla, 6-foot-2, 150 pounds, and senior Nick Crandall (6-0, 170) shared signal-caller duties, with LaSecia playing the first half, late in the third quarter and all of the fourth quarter, and Crandall calling the plays during the majority of the third quarter.

LaSecla completed 11 of 21 passes for 246 yards with four interceptions and four touchdown passes, and Crandall was one for 13 for 9 yards.

Junior receiver Luis Sanoja, senior running back Jeff Zavala and sophomore receiver/defensive back Matt Markey were three offensive players who Hurley praised. They made good contributions during the game against Channel Islands, he said.

Sanoja caught nine passes for 115 yards and three TDs, Zavala ran 17 times for 89 yards and two TDs, and Markey caught two for 23 yards. In addition, senior receiver Nick Godfrey pulled in two passes for 33 yards and junior receiver Michael Toepfer had two catches for 55 yards and one TD.

"Everybody needs to get better," Hurley said. Regarding Sanoja, he said, "Luis is a returning player, one of the few players we have returning in the skill positions, so he needs to continue to get better.

"He’s a pretty darned good kid. You can’t ask one kid to do everything. Other people have to step up and help him," he added. Hurley said that Markey "declined to play last year, so he’s one of those kids who’s a first-year varsity player—as are a lot of the kids in the skill positions. This was his first varsity game. He had plusses. He had minuses.

"We’re going to build from that and he’s going to get better, better all along the line," added Hurley.

The coach said that the players will watch the game film to see how things were done and how things were not done, who took plays off and who worked hard.

"But, Hurley said, "it’s a work in progress. So, we take this and move to the next level. The key is that we just play better this week (vs Rio Mesa). Not even that we win next week.

"We just need to improve and play better next week, and better the next week and then when we get to league, we’re ready to play. That’s our goal right now," added Hurley. In addition to several Panthers who played the offensive skill positions, the coach said the "offensive line played very well, so there’s a highlight. I think our kicking game got better as the game went along. So there’s some things that we’ve improved on."

Hurley said there’s work to do on defense, but "we knew that. We knew our defense was not ready to step up and play full go yet. We are still in the learning stages.

"We’ve got a lot of really young kids. Even some of the seniors didn’t play last year. We take this as a step toward where we want to be in three weeks. These are practice games. We’re practicing. We’d love to win them all, but we’re practicing, we’re trying to get better."

Friday’s game is the first of four consecutive home games for Newbury Park. After Rio Mesa, the Panthers host the Buena Bulldogs of the Channel League on Sept. 25. The Panthers begin Marmonte League play against the Simi Valley Pioneers on Oct. 3 and the Moorpark Musketeers on Oct. 10. All games are at 7 p.m.

As the team pulls itself together this season, Hurley and his assistants continue to develop a plan in which they hope the Panthers will play a full 48-minutes of good high school football—every game.

"We start out like gangbusters and we don’t finish, so we’re working on the finish," said Hurley.