Team Hears U.S. Title Slip Away

Less than 24 hours after coaching his football team to one of the most lopsided victories in Southern Section playoff history, Tom Hoak and his staff gathered around the radio to listen to a high school football championship game being played about 2,300 miles away.

Hoak and his staff took little time to savor Rialto Eisenhower’s 56-3 victory over Santa Ana Mater Dei in the section’s Division I title game Friday night at Anaheim Stadium. On Saturday afternoon, the battle between St. Ignatius High of Cleveland and Cincinnati Moeller for the Ohio Division I state championship was of utmost importance.

Eisenhower (14-0) finished the season as the top-ranked team in the Southland by The Times and in the state by Cal-Hi Sports. But it was No. 2 in two national polls, trailing St. Ignatius in each.

Local interest in the battle for the “national championship” resulted in a Riverside radio station’s picking up the broadcast of the St. Ignatius-Moeller game. An Ohio radio station had carried the Eisenhower-Mater Dei game live on Friday.

“Moeller stayed close for a while,” Hoak said. “But mistakes started to add up and it ended up losing, 38-20. Some people might feel like our season was a failure because we won’t finish as the best team in the country. But I know otherwise, and I hope my players do, too.”

The final national polls will be released today.

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Eisenhower’s performance was the most dominant in a local championship game since Huntington Beach Edison defeated Redlands in 1979, 55-0.

Hoak said he knew his team was going to be special this season because of all the talent, but he added that next year it will be back to basics.

Among the standouts were quarterback Glenn Thompkins, running back Marlow Farlow, defensive back Julius McChristian and lineman Rick Austin. All are being heavily recruited.

Austin left for a recruiting trip to Washington State Saturday morning and Farlow went on one to Illinois. Thompkins said he will visit Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Kansas, but expects to sign with UCLA. McChristian also has several visits planned.

“They didn’t have it in their eyes,” Thompkins said of Mater Dei. “I saw that during the coin toss. You know how a boxer has those killer eyes? They didn’t. I knew they were scared.”

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The Eisenhower-Mater Dei game was televised live on Channel 13, a first for the Southern Section. Despite the margin of victory, the telecast was a ratings success. According to Rick Feldman, station general manager, the game averaged a 4.4 rating and an 8 share. It started strong with a 5.7 rating and 10 share, but dropped after the first hour as Eisenhower took a 35-3 halftime lead.

The Laker-Portland game on Channel 9 averaged a 4.8 rating and an 8 share and trailed the high school game for the first hour.

Each rating point represents 50,000 homes in the greater Los Angeles area.

Last year, Channel 13 averaged a 5.0 rating and a 9 share for the now-defunct Reebok Bowl, which matched La Puente Bishop Amat and Sylmar.

“We’re obviously very pleased with continued good numbers for our high school sports coverage,” Feldman said. “Certainly we would have been happier with a closer game, but that is beyond our control.”

Channel 13 is in the first year of a three-year contract with the Southern Section to televise the Division I championship game.

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Although administrators from both Mater Dei and Eisenhower requested last week that the Division I final be moved from Cerritos College to Anaheim Stadium for the sake of more seats, a crowd of only 15,328 showed up.

Cerritos College holds 12,000, so the venue was changed to handle the anticipated crowd of 25,000. The move cost the section about $35,000. *

David Williams, in his first year as Carson’s coach, showed class Saturday by refusing to run up the score against Dorsey in the City Section Division 4-A championship game at El Camino College.

Leading in the fourth quarter, 26-0, Carson had the ball on the Dorsey one-yard line with four minutes to play. Instead of going for a touchdown, Williams instructed quarterback Ramon Rogers to drop to a knee. Rogers did the same thing on fourth down.

“We’re not just trying to teach these guys how to play football,” said Williams, a former Dorsey assistant. “We’re also trying to teach them to be young men, and running up the score proves nothing.”

Prep Notes Mike Good, who never expected to play quarterback at Los Alamitos, finished his senior season by passing for 403 yards and four touchdowns in a 39-21 victory over previously undefeated Huntington Beach in the Southern Section Division II title game Saturday night. . . . Leon Blunt, a quarterback from San Fernando, made an unwritten commitment to Notre Dame last week after visiting South Bend. Blunt, 5 feet 10 and 185, was recruited as a receiver.

The top 10 high school girls’ volleyball players in the country will take on the top 10 players from California in a national all-star match Saturday night at 7 at Cal State Long Beach. This is the second year for the event, but the first time with this format. . . .The Tournament of Champions boys’ basketball tournament began Monday at Ocean View High in Huntington Beach and concludes Saturday. The 16-team tournament, considered the best of the season in the Southland, includes Santa Ana Mater Dei, Pasadena Muir and Manual Arts, among others.

Times’ Top 20 Football Poll

The Times’ final top 20 high school football poll, with teams from the City and Southern Sections.

School Sect. Div. Rec. LW 1. Eisenhower SS I 14-0 1 2. Los Alamitos SS II 14-0 2 3. Newbury Park SS III 14-0 3 4. Norco SS V 14-0 8 5. Irvine SS IV 13-1 9 6. Bishop Amat SS I 11-1 6 7. Hawthorne SS III 12-2 7 8. Hunt. Beach SS II 13-1 5 9. Hart SS II 10-2 11 10. Dominguez SS II 10-2 12 11. LB Poly SS I 10-2 13 12. San Pedro City 3-A 13-1 15 13. Mater Dei SS I 12-2 4 14. Carson City 4-A 10-4 19 15. Quartz Hill SS I 10-1 17 16. Antelope Valley SS I 7-6* 10 17. Cyn. Springs SS IV 12-2 14 18. Savanna SS VI 12-2 NR 19. Mira Costa SS VIII 13-1 NR 20. Fountain Valley SS II 10-3 18

* includes three forfeits.