Northwestern Conference Final : Hart Defeats Temple City Behind Bonds, 40-27

Rumors persisted all night that Coach Don Swanson had dropped a bomb on his Temple City High School football team in a pregame talk by announcing his resignation as the head of one of the Southern Section’s most succesful programs, a fact that he would neither confirm nor deny before or after the game.

“Could be,� he said at the end of the night.

But there was no doubting the bomb that hit the Rams during the game. It came not from word of mouth, but through the air, courtesy of Jim Bonds, and in the trenches, courtesy of a defense that has improved each week, and it all added up to Newhall Hart’s 40-27 win over Temple City for the Northwestern Conference title Saturday night at Citrus College.

Bonds completed 17 of 27 passes for 270 yards and 2 touchdowns and ran for another, moving him into second place on the all-time Southern Section list for most yards in a season. His 3,195 yards fell short of the mark of 3,437 set by Mike Smith of Hacienda Heights Los Altos in 1982.

Bonds, the Southern Section’s leading passer at the end of the regular season, had completed 12 of 17 attempts, including two streaks of five straight, for 182 yards by halftime. Eight of those yards came on a scoring toss to Craig Whitten that gave Hart a 26-3 cushion to start the third quarter and moved Bonds within four touchdowns of tying Pat Haden’s Southern Section single-season record of 42.

In fact, if Temple City had any added motivation after a possible pregame announcement by Swanson, it didn’t show much during the first two quarters. Hart, as the score indicated, was hot from the start.

The Indians, the runnerup to Muir of Pasadena last year for the Coastal Conference championship, just missed scoring on their first possession when Chris Hite fumbled on the Temple City two after a 15-yard run. Hart didn’t miss the next time, though, as Andy Iacenda found a big hole on the left side for 31 yards to move to the Ram 23. Three plays later, he went over the right side for a seven-yard score.

Temple City got a 22-yard field goal from Rich Niccum on its first series of the second quarter, but Hart came back to get touchdowns on two straight plays from scrimmage. The first, set up by Hite’s 54-yard kickoff return, was Bonds’ seven-yard run, with a good lead block by Hite on linebacker Bob Rees. The second was not so conventional.

The ensuing kickoff left Temple City on its own 13, where quarterback Tim Vance tried to dig the Rams out of the hole with a run. Turns out it only buried them deeper, as Vance took the snap, started to turn upfield and had the ball pop out of his hands--and right into the arms of defensive end Chris Setterberg, who rambled 10 yards for the touchdown.

Bonds had used six different receivers by halftime, three for 40 yards or more, before Hart Coach Rick Scott went with a new wrinkle: An option to add to the cushion. Turns out that wide receiver Joe Deschryver has a pretty good arm, too, as he proved by catching a lateral from Bonds and pulling up to fire a tight-spiraled 33-yard pass to Bryan Millner in the end zone, which, along with the third of Jim Harper’s three extra points, made the score 33-3.

Temple City came back to score 16 points in the fourth quarter on a two-yard run by star running back Mike Mooney and a two-point conversion pass from Vance to Hani Alexander and a nine-yard pass from Vance to Mike Napolitan and another two-point pass.