Moorpark Calls Carp on the Carpet

Analogies have been mediated and eradicated, metaphors mixed and dutifully nixed.

Time is short, and if you happen to be a Moorpark High football fan, it is time to simplify, clarify and, when necessary, be blunt:

We want Carp.

Louder now, so those stick-in-the-mud, by-the-book Southern Section bureaucrats holed up in their tidy little offices this morning can hear us.

We want Carp!

Not in a week. Not in a month. Not in the same side of the Division IX playoff bracket.

We want them Friday, in the opener.

So what if Carpinteria is a second-place team and the playoff format calls for Moorpark, a league champion, to draw a third-place pushover? For once, make an exception.

None of us yuppies and “bean farmers” from Moorpark would care.

In the words of offensive lineman Dan Arnold, “We’d be more than willing to take the chance.”

After all, it would be just like Carpinteria to lose its first-round game to someone else just so their remarkable winning streak over the Musketeers might last forever.

Earth to Southern Section: Fifty-nine years is long enough.

Since 1934, Moorpark has lost a galaxy-record 51 consecutive games against Carpinteria, its nemesis to the north.

What started out as a rivalry between Tri-Valley League schools separated by 40 miles of farmland slowly evolved into a scourge. During the streak, the Warriors have outscored the Musketeers, 1,728-259.

Then they tucked tail and ran. Carpinteria, that is.

Two years ago, after the Southern Section moved Moorpark to the Frontier League, Carpinteria abruptly ended the series.

An invitation to schedule an annual nonleague game between the schools was declined by Carpinteria officials, who cited travel considerations, small gate receipts and Moorpark’s burgeoning size. Rob Dearborn, coach of the Musketeers, scoffs. “The real reason they don’t want to play is they wanted that streak to stay intact,” he said.

Today, the Southern Section has a chance to make amends. By realigning leagues, it ended the series. By arranging a playoff match, it can give suddenly mighty Moorpark another chance.

For the Musketeers, the haunting specter of Carpinteria is but a lone remaining demon spirit left to exorcise. Already this season Moorpark has defeated rival Santa Paula for the first time in 69 years, won its first league championship in 53 years and finished the regular season 8-1-1, the most wins in school history.

Getting another shot at Carpinteria is high on every Musketeer’s wish list.

Moorpark administrators make no attempt to hide the fact that in recent weeks they have all but pleaded with the Southern Section to set a first-round date against the Warriors.

But instead of appealing to that governing body’s sense of justice and fairness, Moorpark officials have taken another tack. Their requests strike straight to the pocketbook.

“In the early rounds, this kind of game would attract a lot of attention,” said Cary Dritz, Moorpark’s principal and father of the team’s quarterback. “For the Southern Section, it would be an economic windfall.”

Earlier this season, when Moorpark knocked off Nordhoff, the two-time defending league champion, loyal Musketeer fans frolicked in the bleachers more than 20 minutes after the game.

Asked how the crowd might react after a victory over Carpinteria, Angela Cappuccino, Moorpark’s student body president, predicted, “It would be Nordhoff--times a hundred.”

Much has changed in Moorpark, a town of 26,000 that Carp residents once dubbed as a blight of “bean farmers.” The city has been overrun by a well-heeled, mostly thirty- and forty-something generation. But many Musketeer players have deep-rooted, decades-long family ties to the school.

Robert Lerma, a senior defensive lineman, is the latest in a long line to compete in green and gold. His father, Robert Sr., played for Moorpark. So did his uncles and several cousins.

Asked which would mean more to him personally, a victory over Carpinteria or the Southern Section championship, Lerma replied, “Carpinteria would be it because of how deep it runs in my family.”

Jose Ceja, a junior whose father and three uncles played for the Musketeers, said, “Before I graduate, that’s my goal, to get another shot at Carp.”

Southern Section, are you listening?