Subject:Sacramento Bee: Encina homecoming game Date:Mon, 2 Nov 1998 19:19:48 -0800 Encina alumni, I searched the Sacramento Bee website and found this article on high school football. At the end of the article is a blurb about the Encina/River City game last Friday. Try and guess the final score before you look! Harlan Encina webmaster +++ Prep Focus: Has defense become a lost art? Not at Oak Ridge By Joe Davidson Bee Staff Writer (Published Nov. 1, 1998) A good number of teams have no idea how to play defense this high school football season. Get a load of all the clubs that surrender 50 points seemingly by the week. Has the area ever seen so many 60-point outbursts, so many 300-yard rushers and so many beleaguered defensive coordinators who stagger home on game nights as if they went a full 12 heavyweight rounds? But in El Dorado Hills, Oak Ridge players get downright grumpy when the team allows more than five first downs -- in a game. A 100-yard rusher? It's reason enough for the linebackers to rip the sinks right out of the walls and skip the homecoming dance. So far, the basins are in good order; not one runner has come close to the 100-yard plateau. Eight weeks in, and No. 5 Oak Ridge has allowed all of 38 points, the fewest of any team in the Sac-Joaquin Section. Ten area teams allowed more than that on Friday alone, including No. 3 Grant, a program known for its defense in recent years until this month. This is how personal Oak Ridge takes scoring: No opponent has even been able to convert an extra point. All three attempts were blocked. "We're having one of those years where we're just playing great defense," Oak Ridge coach Mark Watson said. Friday's Sierra Valley Conference contest against Galt was reduced to a Trojans defensive-highlight show yet again. The championship hung in the balance only through the national anthem, after which the Trojans put on the clamps and coasted 35-0. Oak Ridge broke down blocking schemes in a heartbeat and held Warriors runners and receivers to minimal gains. With its second SVC title in three years all but sealed, Oak Ridge looms as one of the section favorites in the Division II race with West of Tracy, Roseville, Placer and Vanden, among others. "They have an excellent defense, an amazing, experienced and quick group that plays so well together," Galt coach Tom Veatch said. "I mean, we've got a good team and we tried everything on them and we couldn't move. We average 365 yards of offense, and they held us to below 80. Our backs had about a half-step to go, and they ate us up alive. They're a buzz saw." The defensive front is mobile and muscle-bound with Mark Matus, Mike O'Banks and Garrett Adler. The linebacking corps, among the best anywhere, consists of leading tackler Scott McMahon, Dom Bosch, Brendan Mallery and Tyler Ecker. The secondary is Brandon Belland, Mark Kansier, Austin Lackey, Jordan Barnes and Nate Magin, whose older brother Joe owns the school single-season rushing mark of 1,799 yards set in '96. The defensive coordinator, Jack Harnden, is a veteran of the area coaching ranks. Harden was the first coach at Oak Ridge in 1982 and now is perfectly content ruining opposing offenses as an assistant. Interestingly, Watson found out about the head-coaching position at Oak Ridge through his father-in-law, Ray Warner, who went to a Rotary Club meeting in 1989. Harnden was the guest speaker, and Warner struck up a conversation, found out about the opening and called Watson, an assistant coach at Long Beach State. Watson has had a handful of playoff teams, won his 100th career game earlier this season and could be on the cusp of his finest squad ever. His staff is sprinkled with Oak Ridge alumni, including Casey Taylor, Aaron and Brian Marlette and Chris Jones. "I've always liked the high school game, and I was looking forward to a return to this level," Watson said. "Maybe it's fate that I got this job. I've enjoyed it. I like the freshness of the teenagers, the purity of this level. And we've been blessed with some great players." Et cetera In a strange twist, we could be looking at McClatchy vs. Woodland two weeks in a row. The teams face off in the regular-season finale at Hughes Stadium, a nonleague game to fill out the schedule. They could also meet the following week in the first round of the Division I playoffs, a first since the postseason tournament started in 1976. "That would be pretty bizarre," McClatchy coach Rob Feickert said. "I mean, what do you do? Cancel that last game? Try to beat them and expose all of your offensive secrets? Play second-string guys to hide what you do and get smashed? This could be weird." The records continue to fall in Colfax. Alec Greco recently caught his 100th career pass. Friday, Scott Kelley scored on a school-record, 96-yard run in a 55-6 rout of Marysville. Justin Rawlins' next score will put him in the record books with 25 career touchdowns, matching Tim Norris from the late '60s. And there's River City. The Raiders play host to Colfax on Friday seeking their first Golden Empire League title this decade. Few teams sport the 1-2 offensive punch of River City with tailback Malfred Shaw, quarterback Brady Tacdol and receiver Malcolm Floyd, who combined for five touchdowns Friday in a 52-0 romp over Encina that improved the Raiders' GEL mark to 5-0.