HIGH SCHOOL HIGHLIGHTS : Oak Park Finds Meal Ticket for Success

Because Ron Veres believes the route to a winning record is through players’ stomachs, Oak Park (6-1) is no longer starving for victories.

The Eagles had a record of 1-18-1 the past two years before Veres took over as coach this season. Now they are a success on the field and in culinary circles.

One of the first things Veres did was raise funds to build a $20,000 weightlifting facility. The second was to mandate team meals three times a week.

The Eagles eat at a pizza parlor on Tuesdays, have dinner at the home of a different player every Thursday evening, and go to a steak house for a pregame meal on Fridays.

“A team that eats together, stays together,” Veres said. “I want my players to enjoy being with each other both on and off the field, and I found team meals to be the best way to pull them together.”

The results?

Oak Park is bigger and stronger than last year and might be the best-fed team in the Valley.

The Eagles are off to a 3-1 start in the Tri-Valley League, having lost only to Carpinteria, the top-ranked team in the Inland Conference.

“We ate too much that week,” Veres jokingly said.

The only problem so far is that players are becoming gourmets. Oak Park coaches had cooked the Thursday meal but stopped after players complained about having to eat hot dogs and beans.

Team parents Marie Hall, Pat Kavulic and Elaine Clapper took over the next few Thursday meals and lined up volunteers for the rest of the season.

Kavulic, whose son Jon plays on the offensive line, said she enjoyed cooking for the 21 players but was disappointed they didn’t eat everything. Her menu included 10 pounds of pasta with meat sauce, a three-quart salad and 40 pieces of French bread.

“My biggest mistake was that I made too much,” Kavulic said. “I’m also the only person to put after-dinner mints on the table. I found out that football players don’t eat after-dinner mints.”

Spare time: Kennedy Coach Bob Francola has spent the week trying to get psyched up for tonight’s big game--the Granada Hills-Cleveland game.

Several weeks ago, Francola learned that Westlake decided not to play the Cougars on a night when both teams had byes on their schedules. A search for a replacement team proved fruitless, so tonight, while nearly every team in town is on the field, Francola will be in the grandstands.

“I’ll be up there throwing things at Steve Landress,” he said, joking about the Cleveland coach.

Yet the bye isn’t really a laughing matter. In September, 1986, Westlake scheduled a game with San Diego Santana for tonight. By the time Francola learned of the switch in the schedule, it was too late to find another opponent.

“We tried like crazy to find somebody to play us this week,” he said. “Everybody in the area was booked. I’m really disappointed that we aren’t playing Westlake--I think we could have beaten them. I’m one of those guys who would rather play anybody than sit out.”

Last year, Valley 4-A and Marmonte teams played during weeks in which teams had byes. Westlake Coach George Contreras said Marmonte coaches decided last year that the schedules of the Valley 4-A League (five members) and the Marmonte League (seven), didn’t match up well.

Marmonte coaches voted last year to allow member schools to choose whether to play the Valley 4-A teams. Westlake, which lost to Granada Hills, 56-12, last season, chose to schedule San Diego Santana.

Francola couldn’t adjust the schedule in time, but at least the time off allowed him to make a few adjustments on the team.

“We had our best practice all year Tuesday,” he said. “We really went at it out there. We needed it. We’re making some changes in the lineup, we’re still looking for the right combination.”

And looking for a Friday-night date.

On the road: Members of the Westlake team will leave school at noon Friday on a bus for San Diego. After the game with Santana, the team will spend the night at a nearby hotel. Saturday afternoon, after breakfast and the drive back to Los Angeles, the team will watch USC play Washington State at the Coliseum.

It’s all part of the Coach George Contreras go-to-Westlake-and-see-the-world tours.

“This is sort of a test for us, “ he said. “If this trip goes well, we may schedule a trip out of state. Something where we take a plane to go play.”

A few seasons ago, Westlake played host to a team from Seattle. After talking to coaches and players from the team, Contreras said the idea of traveling for a game struck him as a good one.

“This has been one of our best weeks of practice,” he said. “Everybody is excited about the trip and it’s a good break from the league schedule.”

Contreras said the school’s booster club helped foot the bill for the trip, which should cost between $1,000 and $2,000. “We may get more ambitious later on, depending on how it goes,” he said.

Thus far, it goes well on the field for Westlake, which has a 5-2 record and a 4-0 mark in Marmonte play. Santana is 2-4-1.

Return to action: St. Genevieve running back Ruben Aguirre, who has missed all or most of the past three games, is expected to return to the starting lineup Saturday night for a Santa Fe League game against Bell-Jeff at Burroughs High.

Aguirre, a senior who leads the team with 605 yards rushing, sprained his ankle against Pater Noster the fourth week of the season and served a one-game suspension last week for violation of a school rule.

St. Genevieve Coach Lindon Crow declined to elaborate on Aguirre’s suspension but said it was a non-football matter.

“It was a campus-related thing,” Crow said. “Everything has been cleared up.”

Aguirre was replaced last week by junior Chris Andrews, who gained 94 yards and scored 2 touchdowns on 25 carries in a 20-0 victory over Salesian.

Balancing act: When San Fernando scrapped its wishbone offense in the off-season, Coach Tom Hernandez said it was primarily because he had no real power running back--players such as Anthony Davis, Charles White and Chris Richards, who played for the Tigers when the ‘bone was bad .

This season, statistics prove Hernandez’s point. After five games, 13 different Tiger players have carried the ball. In last week’s 29-15 victory over Cleveland, six players had carries.

Yet San Fernando’s offense is now based on balance. Against Cleveland, seven different players caught passes from quarterback Joe Mauldin, who completed 12 of 19 passes for 145 yards and 1 touchdown. Mauldin, who personifies the new approach, also rushed for 41 yards and a touchdown.

The offensive shakeup has worked. San Fernando, a disappointing 2-8 last year, is 5-0 overall and 1-0 in Valley 4-A League play.

Waiting for a landslide: Calabasas could plunge from Frontier League champion a year ago to cellar dweller this season. The Coyotes (1-6, 0-2) have not won since the first week of the season.

Coach Larry Edwards said his team still hasn’t recovered from losing to Cabrillo three weeks ago on a last-second, 63-yard touchdown pass.

“We’re down,” Edwards said. “The Cabrillo game made us believe it will take an act of God for us to win. It’s not good enough if we just win a game. We need a landslide victory.”

Sedacca blossoms: When Marcel Sellers broke his left collarbone two weeks ago against Narbonne, Birmingham’s Sunset League title chances seemed bleak. But quarterback Alan Sedacca has emerged as a solid player.

Sedacca, a pitcher on the baseball team, has completed 26 of 45 passes for 425 yards and 5 touchdowns in the past two games. The 6-0, 185-pound senior completed 14 of 22 passes for 190 yards and 2 touchdowns in Birmingham’s 22-6 upset of Chatsworth last Friday. Birmingham is 3-2 overall, 1-0 in league play.

“Alan is just coming of age,” Birmingham co-Coach Chick Epstein said. “He’s gotten better and better every game. He has a really strong arm and his confidence has grown with every game.”

Epstein also praised the play of Steve Pratt, a 6-4 1/2, 250-pound two-way tackle.

“Steve has been overpowering in the last three games,” Epstein said. “He’s just dominated the guys on the other side of the line of scrimmage. I think he’s a Division I prospect.”

Coming home: Reseda has yet to play a home game this season because its first scheduled home game was defaulted--to the Oct. 1, 6.1 earthquake.

“I feel more like a traveling salesman than a coach,” Reseda Coach Joel Schaeffer said. “We’ve forgotten what our stadium looks like.”

Some teams dread playing on the road, but the Regents don’t seem to mind. Reseda has played eight consecutive games away from home, including the final four of last season, and has won seven.

The trip ends tonight when Reseda plays host to North Hollywood. Three of the Regents final four games are at home.

“It will be good to play in front of our fans,” Schaeffer said.

Bullish Toreadors: A dominant rushing game has been Taft’s calling card, but the Toreadors also boast a strong defense that notched its second consecutive shutout in last week’s 21-0 win over previously unbeaten Monroe.

“Our defense has been a pleasant surprise,” Taft Coach Tom Stevenson said. “We have a lot of young kids this year, but they’re finally learning what we want. The defensive line has really played well.”

Nose guard Rob Holland (5-11, 175) and tackles Gregory Bernard (5-11, 210) and Adam Zutler (6-3, 215) compose the line, which Stevenson describes as “very quick.”

“They’re not real big,” he added, “but they get to the point of attack very quickly.”

Taft’s defense has allowed 1,064 yards (212.8 a game) in five games. However, 469 were against Crespi. In the other four games, Taft has allowed 149 yards a game.

Chris Parker and Times staff writers Steve Elling, Vince Kowalick and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.