Hamlet Nalbandyan
FRIEDMAN FIELD -- One wouldn't expect a football that scored 62 points
the prior week to come back and play hard-nosed, smash-mouth football the
next, but St. Francis High showed it can do just that in a nonleague game
against Serra High.
The Golden Knights wore down a Cavalier squad that had just 36 players
to win Thursday night, 34-20. St. Francis, which has 67 players on
varsity, led just 10-6 at the half, but grinded its way to a convincing
victory in the second half.
"(Serra) is a big physical team and they came out real fired up in the
first half," said St. Francis Coach Jim Bonds. "But we knew that they
didn't have much depth, so our game plan was to ware them down and get
them in the second half.
The Golden Knights, who are ranked No. 4 in CIF Southern Section
Division III, were coming off a 62-38 victory over Pasadena in week four
in which they scored on all nine possessions.
But Bonds' squad fell behind against the Cavaliers (2-3), as Douglas
Guevara caught a six-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter to give
Serra a 6-0 lead with 3:22 left.
However, the Golden Knight defense took command from there, and didn't
allow another offensive score until 1:21 remaining in the game, with
their second-team defense on the field.
The offense took a little time to warm up. Matt Milton's three-yard
run with 53 seconds left in the first was the lone touchdown in the half
for St. Francis (4-1). Scott Smiland added a 20-yard field goal with no
time remaining in the second quarter to give St. Francis a 10-6 lead at
halftime.
The second half proved to be all St. Francis, thanks to the running of
Milton. The senior finished with 118 yards rushing in 25 carries, and he
carried the offensive load in the final 24 minutes.
In the opening drive in the third quarter, Milton touched the football
four times on an eight-play drive, capped off by a Matt Sikorski one-yard
run for a score.
After Serra made it 17-12 with a 60-yard fumble return, the Golden
Knights added a 26-yard field goal late in the third quarter and a
touchdown early in the fourth to put the game away.
Milton ran in from three yards out on the touchdown, giving him six
scores on the year, all coming in the last two weeks.
"He's not 100/% yet," Bonds said of Milton, who was suffering from
ankle injuries early in the year. "But you can see his heart and desire
out there in some of those runs. There was not a lot there, but he
managed to get something out of it. We like to go to him in the clutch,
and we did that tonight."
NO TV, NO PROBLEM
The Thursday night game between St. Francis and Serra was supposed to
be broadcast on TV on the Fox Sports Network, channel 61 locally.
However, things didn't go as planned as Fox backed out about a week
ago. Apparently, Fox could not get a TV signal out of Friedman Field.
St. Francis tried to move the game next door at La Canada High, but no
TV signal was established there either.
When the Golden Knights tried to move the game to Pasadena City
College or Glendale High's Moyse Field, they were told they could not do
it.
"We didn't want to go too far, so it just didn't happen," said St.
Francis Athletic Director Terry Terrazone, who watched his Golden Knight
squad cruise to a 34-20 victory against Serra.
The game that Fox did broadcast on Thursday was Carson against Locke.
