HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS : BIG FIVE CONFERENCE : Fontana vs. Fountain Valley

Fountain Valley High School has no chance of beating Fontana for the Big Five Conference football title Friday at 7:30 at Anaheim Stadium.

Then again, the Barons had no chance of making it to the championship game.

Or the semifinals.

Maybe even the playoffs, period.

What we have here is a perfect case of peaking at the right time, with Fountain Valley having won nine straight, after starting the season 0-4, to the surprise of most everyone. The Barons scored their big win in the quarterfinals, defeating previously unbeaten Bishop Amat of La Puente, 42-14.

Fontana, on the other hand, is no surprise. In fact, the only question about the 13-0 Steelers may be: Can a team peak for an entire season?

Since a game on the road against Vista of the San Diego Section in Week 2, the Steelers have beaten three teams ranked among the top five in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, most recently Crespi of Encino last week in the semifinals. They have a good two-man running game with Derrick Malone and Edrian Oliver, physical lines on both offense and defense, led by tackle Chris Ybarra, and a solid secondary headed by Kurt Bruich.

In other words, finding weaknesses on this team is very difficult.

But figuring out their personality isn’t, at least not for Coach Dick Bruich. Traditionally speaking, the 1987 Steelers, who play in the Citrus Belt League, the Southern Section’s Black and Blue Division, are a very atypical Fontana team.

“This is more of a finesse team,” said Bruich, who was on the losing end in the 4-A title game in 1976 and the Big Five final in ’85. “We don’t depend strictly on coming out and knocking you down. In fact, we’ve had trouble every time we tried to do that. We have to be able to throw the football, and we can throw the football, unlike past Fontana teams.

“In the last four years, we’re probably a totally different team. I was looking at a bit of film the other day from 1984, and the ’84 version compared to ’87 was different. We do more things.

“One of the things we’re going to be remembered for (this season) is that we have so many weapons. We have an excellent running back in Derrick Malone, but we also have two other running backs and a quarterback (Chris Hancock) who can throw.”

Bruich calls Fountain Valley “probably one of the most balanced teams we’ve seen this year.” The Barons do have talent on both sides of the line. Defensive end Reza Mehdizadeh, a native of Tehran, Iran, has emerged as one of the top linemen in the Southern Section, though mostly unknown outside Orange County. Quarterback David Henigan, a junior, is the Sunset League’s most valuable player.

“(Mehdizadeh) is a truly dominating player,” said Fountain Valley Coach Mike Milner, who won the Big Five title in 1978 and reached the final in ’80. “He’s had an exceptional season. He’s probably the best defensive lineman we’ve had at Fountain Valley, and that includes three of four guys who made All-CIF (Southern Section).”

In case of rain, the game will be played at Cerritos College. The choice belongs to the Rams, who will play Atlanta at Anaheim Stadium Sunday.