FRIDAY NIGHT HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL : Granada Hills Shows No Mercy : Highlanders Crash Westlake’s Homecoming, 56-12

The Westlake High homecoming celebration Friday night at Thousand Oaks was dubbed “A Night in Paradise.” The Westlake football team may remember it as “A Night in Hell.”

It started off badly. Granada Hills scored the first time it had the ball. And it ended even worse. Highlander defensive back Anthony Graves intercepted a pass from reserve quarterback Greg Cox and sprinted 99 yards for a touchdown with 26 seconds left in the game.

The result was a 56-12 win by the party-crashing Highlanders, who handed the Warriors the worst defeat in Westlake history.

Even when Granada Hills stopped passing and moved to a conservative running game, the team scored at will. Running back Khalid Ali rushed 22 times for 217 yards and 4 touchdowns, including scoring runs of 42 and 11 yards. Backfield mate Jamaal Farmer rushed 4 times for 83 yards and 2 touchdowns, including runs of 27 and 50 yards for scores.

“They weren’t as big as we thought they were,” Granada Hills Coach Darryl Stroh said. “I thought it would be a lot closer.”

Said Westlake Coach George Contreras: “I think we’re lucky Darryl didn’t try to run up the score. If they wanted to, they probably could have scored 100 points.”

No doubt.

The game marked the third contest between a Marmonte League team and one from the Valley 4-A League. The Marmonte League still has a 2-1 lead in the series, which began this season, thanks to Camarillo’s win over El Camino Real and Thousand Oaks’ victory over San Fernando.

Granada Hills remained unbeaten at 5-0-1, the Warriors fell to 4-3.

Who knows what kind of numbers Granada Hills quarterback Jeremy Leach could have tallied if the Highlanders hadn’t abandoned the passing game in the second half. Instead, Leach had to settle for 8 completions on 9 attempts for 124 yards and an 11-yard touchdown pass to Ky E Jan.

“I don’t like to see that against any team,” said Stroh of the lopsided score, Westlake’s worst since 1984 when it gave up 48 points to Camarillo. “We would have liked to have thrown the ball more because we need to work on things. We have some big league games coming up. But we basically just ran the ball in the second half. What else could we do?”

Maybe given an advance warning.

“We knew it was coming soon,” said Westlake tight end Garret Messner, who missed an extra-point attempt after Rob Mandel scored from 11 yards out in the first quarter to cut the Highlanders’ lead to 14-6. “They’re huge. They’re really good. They kicked our butts.”

Can you say understatement?

On its first possession, Granada Hills, backed by passes of 8 and 15 yards from Leach to Sean Brown and Ali, respectively, drove to the Westlake 27-yard line. On the next play, Farmer scrambled around right end and sped into the end zone. The Highlanders didn’t look back. When Westlake did, Granada Hills was in its face.

“They’re a great team and they had a great game,” Contreras said. “We had a bad game. They have a great pass/run combination and we couldn’t stop either. We are a small team. The program doesn’t lie. Those are real weights and heights.”

Westlake has only one player who weighs more than 200 pounds and he’s not a starter.

Said Contreras: “I expected to play a really tough football team, but I did not expect to get blown out like this.”