Antelope Valley Spends Freely to Play at Home

Ah, the price of success.

Antelope Valley High has rented--at considerable expense--additional seating for Friday’s Southern Section Division I semifinal football game at home against Mater Dei.

The temporary grandstands, which cost the school $10,000, will raise the stadium capacity from 4,500 to more than 7,000, Athletic Director Pat Iaccino said.

Initially, the school considered playing the game at Antelope Valley College or College of the Canyons. However, Antelope Valley officials decided to dig deep and use money raised by the booster club to expand their facility.

“It’s our home game and we want to play it here,” Iaccino said.

The home crowd for last week’s 21-7 victory over Bishop Amat filled the Antelope Valley stadium to capacity. Mater Dei administrators told Iaccino to expect 4,000 partisan fans on the visitors’ side. “They told me they’d bring 4,000 fans,” Iaccino deadpanned. “But of course they didn’t guarantee that.”

DEL REY LEAGUE

Wise Move

Crespi, which has advanced to the Southern Section Division I semifinals, can attribute its recent surge to the absence of offensive coordinator Joel Wilker. His absence from the sideline, anyway.

After the Celts lost, 35-7, to Bishop Amat in the league opener, Coach Tim Lins decided Wilker was more effective guiding the Crespi offense from the press box, so Lins put on a headset and sent Wilker upstairs.

Since that point, Crespi has won five of six games, with the only loss being a 17-10 defeat to Loyola in which the Celts led in the fourth quarter.

MARMONTE LEAGUE

Top Gun

It was not the most spectacular pass of Keith Smith’s career--but it was among the most memorable.

On a play called “Tandem In,” the Newbury Park senior All-American quarterback became the all-time leading passer in state history by completing a 14-yard pass to receiver Trevor Coville as time expired in the third quarter of the Panthers’ 41-20 Southern Section Division III quarterfinal victory over Montebello.

“He put it right where he had to, like always,” Panther Coach George Hurley said.

Smith has passed for 9,358 yards in his career. He broke the previous state mark of 9,332 set by Chad Davis (Washington State). Smith--the state’s leading passer this season with 3,631 yards--received a standing ovation as he was removed with six minutes to play. The game ball is safely locked away in Hurley’s office.

Nationally, Smith is No. 2 all-time behind Josh Booty of tiny Evangel Christian Academy in Shreveport, La. Booty had 10,970 yards entering a playoff game Friday night.

Smith had his typical standout game against Montebello. He accounted for 457 yards from scrimmage (302 passing, 155 running). He passed for one touchdown and added two rushing.

EAST VALLEY LEAGUE

Paying the Price

Sylmar’s 34-7 victory over Venice in the City Section 4-A quarterfinals last week did not come without a price. Three Spartans either hobbled off or were carried off the field in the final eight minutes.

Among the injured is two-way starter Brandon McGee, a 6-foot-2, 250-pound center and defensive tackle who sustained a knee injury on the Spartans’ final scoring drive and was carried off the field.

One play before McGee went down, running back Tyrone Crenshaw re-injured his chronically hurt right ankle after a six-yard gain. Earlier Crenshaw had hobbled off under his own power late in the third quarter. This time, however, he left for good.

And with six seconds to play, reserve linebacker Floyd Chalk sustained a deep shoulder bruise on a tackle and had to be helped from the field.

Although McGee is questionable, Crenshaw and Chalk are expected to play in Friday’s semifinal against Carson.

SANTA FE LEAGUE

A Real Loss

St. Genevieve’s 28-20 defeat to L.A. Baptist in the Division X quarterfinals Friday must not have seemed so bad in light of what happened a day earlier.

Junior offensive lineman Kurt Vangelisti’s father, Gene, died after a lengthy battle with lung cancer.

Coach Richard Fong, whose father also died from lung cancer, said he told Vangelisti he didn’t have to play, but Vangelisti insisted, saying he felt as though his father would want him to play.

A moment of silence was observed before the game in memory of Gene, a longtime baseball coach in the San Fernando Valley, most recently with the Glendale American Legion team.

Around the Leagues. . . .

* Newbury Park has set the all-time Ventura County record for points scored in a season. The undefeated Panthers have scored 490 points in 12 games (an average of 40.8 points), eclipsing the previous record of 486 set by Camarillo in 1986.

* Buena senior running back George Keiaho could break Ventura County’s all-time single-season rushing record against Hawthorne in the Southern Section Division III semifinals. Keiaho, who has played only nine games because of injuries, enters the game with 2,158 yards. Camarillo’s Fahali Campbell (Oregon State) rushed for 2,285 yards last season.

* St. Genevieve running back Omar Gutierrez, who ran for 118 yards against L.A. Baptist last week, gained 100 yards in each of his last six games after doing it only once in the first six.

* St. Genevieve sacked L.A. Baptist quarterback Zack Hernandez six times last Friday, the most times he had been sacked in a game all season.

* Crespi’s Shaun Williams has rushed for at least 100 yards six games in a row and in 10 of 12 games this season. The only teams to hold him under 100 are Taft (18 yards) and Bishop Amat (94). Williams also has gained more than 200 yards three times.

* Crespi fans and administrators wore white ribbons at the Celts’ game Friday night in memory of Nicole Parker, the 8-year-old girl who was found slain last week. Parker’s older brother, Travis, is the Crespi student-trainer.

* Ted Iacenda, Hart’s sophomore running back, finished with 20 touchdowns--14 rushing and six receiving. He scored every 7.5 times he touched the ball.

* The Thousand Oaks boys’ cross-country team was so dominant in the Division I race of the state championships Saturday that the Lancers could have won the team title without their top two runners. Thousand Oaks, powered by the 3-4-5 finish of Jeff Fischer, Brandon Del Campo and Kevin Marsden, scored an all-time low of 23 points in winning the Division I meet. Without Fischer and Del Campo, the Lancers would have totaled 66 points. Runner-up Santa Ana had 78.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Dana Haddad, Paige A. Leech, John Ortega and Jason H. Reid contributed to this notebook.