The High Schools / Tim Brown : Dueling Konrad Twins Saved Their Breath for Game

Ever hear a 16-year-old talk about the good old days?

Heck, ‘8 7 was a great year, wasn’t it?

But Patrick Konrad doesn’t sound like your average teen-ager. He sounds as though he misses his twin brother, Marty.

Marty and Patrick played football Friday night when St. Francis High played host to Blair in a nonleague game. Marty is a 6-foot-3, 195-pound tight end-linebacker for St. Francis and Patrick is a 6-1, 212-pound two-way lineman for Blair. Both are juniors.

After attending junior high together, Marty opted for the local private school.

“I miss the good ol’ days when we’d do things together and nobody would mess with us because we were the Konrad boys,” Patrick said. “And we’d punk everybody. Not for lunch money or anything, just for the fun of it.”

For the second consecutive year, Marty’s team got the best of Patrick’s. Last season, as junior varsity players, it was 14-0. Friday night, St. Francis won, 21-6.

And Marty has been gracious in victory. Sort of.

“It’s kinda half and half,” Patrick said. “Sometimes he’s nice, other times he’s real mean.”

What are older brothers for? Marty is Patrick’s elder by a good three seconds, which is about the length of the twosome’s most in-depth conversation for the past week.

“We didn’t talk about anything during the week,” Patrick said. “We were afraid to give any secrets out. I was up until three o’clock Thursday night--I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking I’d have to move in with my grandmother for the week. I didn’t want to see him.”

Come game’s end, however, all was well. The two posed for family pictures at midfield.

“Twenty years from now, we can look back at the good ol’ days,” Patrick said.

Tongue-tied: Canyon’s players, apparently, kept it all in perspective. While Coach Harry Welch went on and on about Canyon’s deficiencies and Thousand Oaks’ efficiency, the Cowboys went out and forged a 7-7 tie Friday at Thousand Oaks.

Welch was quoted earlier this week as saying, “We’re not going to win.”

He was right, but the tie might have righted Canyon’s previously 0-2 ship.

“My players weren’t (listening to me),” Welch said. “They think, ‘Hey, Welch, he’s weird.’ My players know me. ‘Don’t listen to him.’ ”

That was no cheap tie, however.

Canyon fullback David McDivitt tore ligaments in his left knee and will miss at least four games, and defensive tackle Sean Glacone tore rib cartilage and will be out two to four weeks.

What we meant to say: That was not Rachel Gagliano kicking off to start the second half for Monroe on Friday night, as it was erroneously reported in Saturday’s edition.

Gagliano, Monroe’s 5-foot-3, 120-pound placekicker, saw no action in the Vikings’ 9-0 loss to Chatsworth.

“She will not kick off,” Monroe Coach Dave Lertzman said. “I’d have to be an idiot to do that.”

Gagliano, however, was suited up and would have played had Monroe gotten close enough to try a field goal. The experience, she said, was worth the preparation.

“I kept telling everyone on the sidelines, if we got inside 50 yards I’d go in,” Gagliano said, laughing. “I like it. I like contact.”

The player who actually kicked off was Bert Broek, an exchange student from the Netherlands who also was playing in his first high school game. In fact, on his first play, Broek made a tackle, caused a fumble and recovered the ball.

This game isn’t so tough.

Harp’s accord: Tom Harp can’t figure what all this quarterback fuss is about. The Granada Hills co-coach remembers a time when there was absolutely no quarterback controversy. The results weren’t always spectacular then either.

“When (Jeremy) Leach was a senior, I think he completed 25 of 31 passes against Alemany--and we lost,” he said.

Leach was the All-City Section quarterback who led the Highlanders to the 1987 4-A Division championship. Leach passed for 271 yards on that opening night in 1987 and the top-ranked Highlanders fell to Alemany, 17-14.

This edition of Granada Hills is also ranked No. 1 in the Valley and has opened with two victories despite sluggish offensive play.

There is a problem, however. After alternating quarterbacks Chris Gadomski and Bryan Martin in an opening victory over Westchester, Harp settled on Martin for Friday’s game against Franklin. But, no thanks to the passing game, the Highlanders won, 19-7.

Martin, a junior, completed four of 14 passes for 17 yards. But running back Brett Washington picked up the slack, rushing for 158 yards.

“We can’t be happy,” Harp said. “We’re not completing the passes. We’re getting open receivers, we’re just not getting the passes there.

“You’re not going to beat the Bannings and Carsons without a passing attack.”

Tigers in the tank: Two weeks have passed and San Fernando’s offense--touted before the season as a high-flying, high-scoring attack--has produced . . . one field goal.

Three points.

As a result, the Tigers are 0-2, including Friday’s 17-7 loss to Crespi. The lone San Fernando touchdown came on Danny Wright’s second-quarter interception return. “I think our offense is starting to doubt if it’ll ever put the ball in the end zone,” Coach Tom Hernandez said.

To that end, Hernandez is planning changes. Three defensive linemen--Juan Ochoa, Gilbert Quiroz and Hector Hernandez--will turn around on offense. And Michael Wynn, the All-City quarterback, will play some defensive back.

“We’re not blocking people,” Tom Hernandez said. “It’s making it impossible for Michael to do anything. We gotta get Michael back on track. He’s taking a beating back there.”

Wynn, who passed for 1,614 yards last season, has thrown for 167 yards in two games.