Central Conference : Saddleback Wins Easily, Knocks Valencia From Playoffs

Jerry Witte, for one, is tired of hearing about his Saddleback High School football team’s quickness.

This suggests that the Roadrunners are more interested in track meets than football games.

Friday night on a soggy Irvine Stadium field, the Roadrunners went toe to toe with Valencia and knocked the Tigers out of the Central Conference playoffs with a 28-9 victory.

Entering the game, the Tigers expected to control the line of scrimmage with their superior size and grind out a close win with their running game, just as they’ve always done since they’ve had Ray Pallares in the backfield.

Judging by the amount of mud on the Tigers’ uniforms following the game, however, they spent much more time than they’d planned on the turf, a place where Saddleback’s linemen kept escorting the Tigers to throughout the game.

Despite Witte’s protests, Saddleback’s reputation as the speed representative from the Sea View League is well deserved. Friday’s second-round playoff victory proved the Roadrunners are equally capable of meeting power with power when the occasion arises.

Witte: “We’ve got a good defense and some gutsy kids. We don’t care how big you are--we’ll play you. Our line blocked extremely well tonight.”

That they did, on both sides of the line.

On offense, the Roadrunner front five of Robert Melchior, Peter Pesak, Don Warnick, Chris Romoser and Don Westphal consistently opened good holes for running backs Glenn Campbell and Willie Pickering as well as providing pass protection for Myron Butler.

On defense, the Roadrunners managed to hold Pallares to only 3 rushes more than 10 yards long and even though he totalled 133 yards for the evening, most of that was between the 20-yard lines.

Saddleback kept the ever-dangerous Pallares out of the end zone and because of it, the Roadrunners (11-1) will advance to the conference semifinals against the winner of today’s La Habra-Artesia game.

Jumping on Valencia for an early first-quarter lead, the Roadrunners took advantage of several first-half mistakes and never looked back.

“We spread their defense out,” Witte noted. “We used a lot of options, bootlegs, traps, and counters that kept them guessing.”

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they usually guessed wrong.

Roadrunner blocking back Willie Pickering scored on a 54-yard touchdown run with 2:36 to play in the first quarter, catching the Valencia defense in a blitz.

Pickering ran a quick trap play up the middle, when Valencia’s linebackers were keying on Campbell, the tailback. Once Pickering got past the line of scrimmage, he was gone. It was that kind of night for the Tigers.

Valencia answered that by driving to the Saddleback 6-yard line, where they were stopped and had to settle for a 26-yard field goal by Bryan Elliott, making it 7-3.

That’s as close as the Tigers would get before Saddleback scored two more touchdowns before the half to make it 21-3.

Saddleback drove 57 yards in seven plays, with Campbell scoring the first of his three touchdowns on a seven-yard run. Campbell added a 1-yard run later in the quarter and a 26-yard burst early in the third quarter to complete the Roadrunners’ scoring.

Southern Section Career Rushing Leaders

Pos. Player (School) Years Yards 1. Ray Pallares (Valencia) 1983-85 5,398 2. Craig Johnson (Whittier Chr.) 1973-75 5,213 3. Steve Tetrick (LA Baptist) 1970-72 5,181 4. Mickey Cureton (Centennial) 1964-66 4,920 5. Aaron Emanuel (Quartz Hill) 1982-84 4,807