Time Runs Out and Hart Has No Kick Coming

COMPTON —  Mike Kocicka was on his hands and knees at the 23-yard line. His head, still strapped into his Hart High football helmet, was face down in the grass.

Kocicka, a senior quarterback who had just thrown for 322 yards, was crying. Seconds earlier, he was at the five-yard line--15 feet away from leading the Indians into the semifinals of the Division II playoffs.

But after he scrambled for a four-yard gain on second and goal from the nine-yard line, the seconds ticked. Nine, eight, seven, six.

Hart lined up but couldn’t get the third-down play off and San Gabriel Valley League runner-up Dominguez won, 44-42, Friday night.

“He’s had a great season--you have to give him a lot of credit,” a stunned Hart Coach Mike Herrington of his distraught quarterback. “We wanted to get off a play to throw the ball away. . . .”

Then Herrington blamed his defense for the loss. With 2 minutes 54 seconds left, Hart took a 42-38 lead on a five-yard sweep by Kocicka. But in a game that saw six lead changes, the Indians (10-2) couldn’t stop Dominguez (11-1) at any time.

The Dons rushed for 358 yards and had 456 yards of total offense, and they marched 53 yards on five plays and went back in front for good with 1:29 remaining when quarterback Anthony Bilbo threw his only touchdown pass, a 33-yard strike to Zachery Swopshire on a crossing pattern. Swopshire (eight carries, 119 yards) and Donald Davis (21 for 132) led the Dons on the ground for much of the night.

“We can score 42 points, but we can’t afford to give up 44,” Herrington said.

Still, Hart needed only a field goal to win when Kocicka completed a 36-yard pass to Mark Mahone and a 23-yard pass to Soren Halladay (eight receptions, 188 yards) that put the Indians at the Dons’ seven with 25 seconds left.

Going in, Herrington feared Dominguez’s big-play potential. Dominguez Coach Willie Donerson feared Hart’s run-and-shoot offense after having faced only one passing team in 10 games.

Both fears were justified.

On the game’s opening possession, Swopshire swept left for 37 yards to give the Dons a 6-0 lead.

The Indians, after getting a 49-yard kickoff return from Mahone, took a 7-6 lead three plays later on a seven-yard run by Ted Iacenda--set up by a 16-yard Kocicka-to-Iacenda shovel pass.

Dominguez then marched 67 yards on six plays to take a 14-7 lead with Donald Davis scoring on a four-yard run and Vicent Parker running in a two-point conversion.