Crespi Presents Unexpected Challenge to Loyola in League Race

Judging by its surprising performance in the past four games, the upstart Crespi High football team may be poised to beat Loyola tonight and position itself for something that eluded the Celts during the Russell White years--a Del Rey League title.

White, the state’s all-time leading rusher and now a freshman at Cal, led Crespi to the Southern Section Big Five Conference title in 1986. But the Celts lost two of three games to Loyola with White and finished no better than second in the league three consecutive years.

Crespi and Loyola are both 4-1 entering the league opener and are ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, in the latest Division I poll.

“If we do everything we’re supposed to do we have a chance,” said Tim Lins, Crespi’s first-year coach. “I think offensively they’re better than I’ve ever seen them.”

Since 1976, Loyola Coach Steve Grady has posted a 10-2-1 record against the Celts. Like many others, Grady anticipated a down year at Crespi. The team needed to rebuild after losing Coach Bill Redell, quarterback Ron Redell, now playing at Stanford, and White. Instead, Crespi followed an opening loss to Redlands with victories over Hart, San Fernando, Servite and Bishop Montgomery.

“When you lose as much talent as they lost . . . but, boy, I think they’re darn good,” Grady said. “They don’t have the big names, but the kids they have can play.”

Lins has succeeded in keeping his team focused on the game at hand during the past few weeks but says this game has loomed large.

“I think (ignoring Loyola) was impossible,” he said. “I think in the back of everybody’s mind the word ‘Loyola’ was there. I don’t think we were thinking ahead, but we might have thought about it once or twice last week. We don’t want to put too much emphasis on it. For us, it’s just another step to where we want to go.”

And for Lins, the real season begins tonight.

“What we’ve done so far doesn’t count,” he said. “We just want to finish what we started.”