THE BEAT(ING) GOES ON : There Hasn’t Been a Valley Team Since to Reach Pinnacle of San Fernando’s ’75 City Championship

John Elway, Tom Ramsey and John Mazur played in the Valley. Granada Hills had a team with three future professional football players. San Fernando sent three players to USC from one of its teams.

And Cleveland won its first 12 games one season.

But, in the nine seasons since The Dream Backfield last played for San Fernando in 1975, no Valley team has won the City 4-A championship.

No Valley team has even reached the final since 1980.

In 1982 and 1984, the four Valley playoff representatives were all wiped out in the opening round.

“I don’t think the kids in the Valley are as hungry as those on the other side,� said Coach Skip Giancanelli, who begins his 17th season at El Camino Real tonight. “Those kids are brought up differently. They don’t have all the things kids in the Valley have.

“The kids from San Fernando are not in that same category, but basically the kids in the Valley have too many interests other than athletics, whereas the kids in the Banning area, the kids in the Carson area--football is their only way out. It’s more important to them. . . .

“They’re a little more physical because they’ve had to grow up that way. They’re just physically tougher than we are.�

Banning, which won six straight 4-A championships after losing to San Fernando in the 1975 final, has won seven overall in the last nine seasons.

Carson won the other two.

And, said Granada Hills Coach Darryl Stroh, “I see no change in the near future.�

One coach, asked to evaluate the City, said, “Banning and Carson. No one else exists.�

Still, several Valley schools have had strong teams in the last nine seasons, and some came close to winning the 4-A championship.

A look at those that came closest:

--Cleveland Coach Arnold Leckman was confident as he brought his unbeaten team into the 1976 final against Banning.

“We don’t look for a high-scoring game,� Leckman told a Times sportswriter in the week before the game. “Some people have phoned me and said Banning is going to score 40 points so you’ll have to do the same and then some. But we’ll rise to the occasion.�

But Banning Coach Chris Ferragamo told the writer: “This week we’ll play the best game we’ve played all year. I virtually guarantee it.�

Ferragamo was right.

Leckman was wrong.

All-America tailback Freeman McNeil ran for 183 yards in the first half, including touchdown runs of 32, 75 and 63 yards, and Banning rolled over the Cavaliers, 34-0, before 16,610 at the Coliseum.

McNeil, who didn’t start because of a sprained ankle, wound up with 209 rushing yards after entering the game on Banning’s third play. His touchdowns gave him 27 for the season, a City record.

Cleveland, making its first appearance in a City final, had drives stopped on the Banning 10-, 26-, 23- and 10-yard lines.

--The persistent rain that fell during the 1977 final probably worked in El Camino Real’s favor.

But Banning beat the Conquistadores, 14-7, before 8,420 at the Coliseum as All-City fullback Stanley Wilson scored two touchdowns to bring his season total to 28, breaking McNeil’s City record.

Wilson, who carried 22 times for 99 yards, scored on a 28-yard pass from Fred Hessen in the second quarter, then broke free for a 46-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to put Banning ahead, 14-0.

“I thought that year we could have beaten them,� Giancanelli said. “They broke Stanley Wilson on one long run for a touchdown, and the other touchdown was on a blown cover on a pass. Other than that, they didn’t drive anywhere on us all night.�

Actually, Banning put together several impressive drives, but most of them ended with turnovers.

ECR, which cut its deficit to 14-7 in the third quarter on a nine-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jeff Caprio to Ingo Loge, recovered a fumble on the Banning 20 with about eight minutes left.

But the Conquistadores couldn’t move. They got the ball again at midfield with 3:26 left, but a Caprio pass was intercepted.

--San Fernando and Granada Hills may have had the best teams in the City in 1978, but neither reached the championship game.

San Fernando’s lineup featured tight end Malcolm Moore and an explosive backfield that included quarterback Stephan Jones, halfback Anthony Gibson and fullback Robert McClanahan. Moore, Gibson and McClanahan signed with USC after the season.

The Tigers were 10-0, including a 21-10 win over Granada Hills, when they met Banning in the semifinals at Birmingham High. And they led the Pilots, 21-7, before giving up three second-half touchdowns and losing, 25-21.

The game turned around after San Fernando had reached the Banning 11-yard line late in the third quarter.

A pitchout by Jones was deflected into the air and picked off by Banning defensive back Danny Andrews, who returned it 85 yards for a touchdown, cutting the Tigers lead to 21-13.

“It was a lucky play, really,� said Tiger Coach Bill Marsh. “Actually, my quarterback should have had the sense to turn up when he saw the pressure instead of flipping it out there.�

Banning scored twice in the final eight minutes, the second touchdown following a leaping interception by Louie Faison.

In the other semifinal, Carson beat Granada Hills, 20-19, in overtime when a pass by Granada Hills quarterback Walt Seymour was intercepted by Marlowe Brooks on the last play of the tie-breaker.

Under the rules of the tie-breaker used for that game, the ball was placed at the 50-yard line and the teams alternated plays, each running four. The team that wound up in the other’s territory was declared the winner. On its last play, Granada Hills needed to gain only five yards to win the game.

The semifinal at El Camino College was a rematch of the season-opener, won by Carson, 40-28, despite a brilliant effort by Elway, who passed for 476 yards.

Seymour took over for Elway after the All-America quarterback injured his left knee in the sixth game of the season.

Seymour led the Highlanders to the semifinals, where they probably would have beaten Carson if kicker Paul Bergmann hadn’t missed two conversion attempts.

Bergmann, an All-City receiver, was running a high fever and lost 12 pounds in the week before the game.

“He had never missed an extra point all season,� said Stroh, a Granada Hills assistant in 1978. “But when he addressed the ball that night, he was so dizzy that he was swaying back and forth.�

--El Camino Real was unbeaten going into the semifinals in 1979, but the Conquistadores were beaten by Banning, 20-7, before an overflow crowd at Pierce College.

The swarming Banning defense forced Mazur, the Conquistadores’ All-America quarterback, into four interceptions. Mazur was sacked six times and completed just 7 of 25 passes.

“It’s awfully tough to throw on us because we put so much pressure on the quarterback,� Ferragamo said afterward.

Banning, which limited El Camino Real to 21 total yards in the first half, scored three touchdowns in a five-minute span at the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third to build a 20-0 lead.

--Giancanelli was surprised when ECR reached the final in 1980.

“We had a good record because we won on Friday night,� Giancanelli said, “but we practiced very poorly during the week. It was just amazing to me that that team went that far.�

But ECR was “definitely overmatched� in the final, Giancanelli said.

Banning won its fifth straight title and completed an unbeaten season by overwhelming the Conquistadores in the second half en route to a 34-12 rout before a crowd of 21,563 at the Coliseum.

Banning’s lead was only 7-6 at halftime, but after Greg Moore returned the second-half kickoff 60 yards, the Pilots were off and running.

All-City tailback Danny Andrews scored on a 10-yard run to make it 14-6 less than two minutes into the half. Later in the quarter, Andrews intercepted ECR quarterback Altie Schmitt on two successive possessions, both interceptions leading to touchdowns.

Schmitt was intercepted again on ECR’s next possession, leading to another score that made it 34-6, and Ferragamo removed his starters to a standing ovation.

--Two years ago, San Fernando reached the semifinals with a defense that limited All-City running back Gaston Green of Gardena to only nine yards on 14 carries in a 15-13 quarterfinal victory.

But the Tigers ran into a Banning team that was even stronger defensively and lost, 8-0, on a rainy night at San Fernando.

The shutout was the fourth straight for Banning, which scored on the fourth play of the game on a 42-yard run by quarterback Jamelle Hollieway.

On a slippery field, San Fernando managed just 53 total yards.

“It was pouring rain,� said Tiger Coach Tom Hernandez. “It was just a mud bowl. They got the early touchdown and then the footing got really bad. We run a wishbone and you just can’t run it in the mud. We had a lot of speed, but we couldn’t use it. . . .

“That could have been a championship year. We just had a lot of bad luck.�

And the beat goes on.