Herrington Goes Public With Color

Hart High football offensive coordinator Dean Herrington thought he had called his last play of the season three weeks ago. But when a Thousand Oaks public access channel hired him as a color commentator for Saturday’s Division III playoff final between Hawthorne and Newbury Park at Moorpark College, Herrington relished the assignment.

“You’re never wrong up there, and you get to second-guess someone else,” Herrington said.

Hart lost Nov. 26 in the Division II playoffs to Dominguez, 44-42. He declined to predict who would win if Hart played Newbury Park, the Division III champion after its 22-14 victory over Hawthorne.

“The final score would probably be 80 to 80,” Herrington joked. “It would have been a fun matchup, though.”

The play that most impressed Herrington was Newbury Park quarterback Keith Smith’s 98-yard touchdown run that clinched the victory.

“He had been stopped in the first half,” Herrington said of Smith. “He had been sacked about four times. Three times during the run, I thought he was tackled. He was outrunning guys that aren’t slow. He willed his team to win.”

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The Santa Clarita Showdown will come early next year. Hart will play rival Canyon the first week of Foothill League play--Week 6 of the 1994 football season. The week before, Hart is scheduled to play Division I champion Eisenhower. Herrington said Hart is looking for two nonleague opponents for Weeks 1 and 4 next year because Pasadena and Alemany opted not to play Hart next year. The Indians’ other nonleague game will be at Palm Springs.

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Afternoon rain Tuesday in Santa Clarita caused Canyon to switch the site of its boys’ basketball game that night against Saugus and forced a flip-flop of scheduled home games. The recurring problem: a leaky gymnasium roof.

“We’ve had a problem with it for 20 years,” Coach Greg Hayes said. “It’s not an old gym, but it’s an old problem.”

Saugus will now play at Canyon on Jan. 11, rather than play host to the Cowboys on that date.

Weather permitting.

MID-VALLEY LEAGUE

Success in Failure

The Sylmar basketball team can’t help but fret about the one that got away Monday.

Sylmar overcame a 15-point deficit against San Fernando--a Division 3-A semifinalist last season--and took a five-point lead with about three minutes to play. But San Fernando came back to win, 80-73.

“We just threw it away,” Coach Jose Fernandez said. “I don’t think we thought in the last two minutes that we deserved to win.”

That’s understandable. Winning is a new experience for the Spartans, who won only six games the past two seasons.

Sylmar (3-5) is off to its finest start in several seasons. And after playing San Fernando tough, the Spartans have learned a valuable lesson.

“They know what they can do now,” said Fernandez, a second year coach whose team was 4-13 last season. “They know now they can play with anybody in the 3-A (Division).”

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Pacing Sylmar’s potential turnaround season is senior guard Michael Farmer, who after a slow start has reassumed his position as a leader, Fernandez said. Farmer, a 5-foot-11 senior guard, is averaging 14 points in his past three games.

“I think people right now understand he’s one of the premier guards in the Valley,” Fernandez said. “He always has been, but nobody knew that because he’s played for Sylmar.”

WEST VALLEY LEAGUE

Quite a Reputation

Double-take department: The Chatsworth girls’ soccer team is the proud owner of a transatlantic reputation.

Just ask senior Ida Wall, an exchange student from Norway.

“She had heard about Chatsworth soccer over there,” Coach Jack Sidwell said.

Granted, the Chancellors have won all five championships since girls’ soccer began in the City Section in 1988, but Norway!?

“A club team from Woodland Hills club traveled over there in the summer of 1992,” Sidwell said. “That was how she heard about us.”

Around the Leagues. . . .

* How’s this for a youthful league? Of the 34 players selected to the All-Mid-Valley football team, half are non-seniors. And the player of the year? Poly quarterback Keijuan Douglas, a sophomore.

* L.A. Baptist is off to a 4-1 start in basketball thanks in great part to senior guard Landon LaPack, who is averaging 20 points and 3.4 steals a game.

* Grant soccer player Nicole Bucciarelli has scored 14 goals in the Lancers’ first three matches.

* Buena freshman basketball player Michelle Greathouse scored in double figures in all three of the Bulldogs’ games. She is averaging 14 points a game.

* Twice as many teams will qualify for the City Section soccer playoffs this season as last season. Coaches voted last spring to expand the playoffs to include 32 boys’ teams and 16 girls’ teams. There is no 3-A or 4-A designation.

Kennedy Cosgrove and staff writers Dana Haddad and Paige A. Leech contributed to this notebook.

Final Football Poll

Final 1993 rankings of Valley-area high schools by sportswriters of The Times:

Rank Team League W-L 1 Newbury Park Marmonte 14-0 2 Antelope Valley Golden 7-6* 3 Hart Foothill 10-2 4 Sylmar East Valley 10-2-1 5 Crespi Del Rey 8-5 6 Quartz Hill Golden 10-1 7 Taft North Valley 10-2 8 Westlake Marmonte 8-3-1 9 Notre Dame Mission 10-3 10 L.A. Baptist Alpha 13-0

*--Includes three losses by forfeit.