THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Welch Finds Canyon Followers Tough to Please

Before approaching Canyon High Coach Harry Welch to talk football, it might be wise to bone up on a little local sports trivia. Canyon trivia, specifically.

By beating Saugus on Thursday, the Cowboys won their seventh Golden League title in Welch’s eight years at the school and improved their league record to 39-1 during that span. Those illustrious numbers had been in jeopardy at the start of the season. Smarting from the loss of injured All-Southern Section running back Chris Peery, who was sidelined the first three games, Canyon stumbled to a 1-3-1 start.

The team rallied, however, winning its next five games. Still, residue from the lean weeks lingers.

Case in point: Welch was approached by a group of party-goers at a Santa Clarita Valley function last week.

“We know you’re the football coach at Canyon,” one group member said, “and we were afraid to ask you how you were doing, because we know it’s not going that well.”

The seemingly innocuous icebreaker left the coach steamed.

“I just shook my head,” Welch said. “It caught me off guard at first. I wanted to explain that we had just played the most challenging schedule that I had ever been involved in. We had a young, inexperienced team that was missing its most valuable player. . . . Actually, I said nothing.”

The expectations put on the team by the surrounding community, Welch says, are often unfair.

“My wife and I try to smile at it but it carries over to the team,” he said. “Yeah, I guess we’re not that good. We just outscored opponents, 176-27 (163-29, actually), in league games.”

Tough crowd.

King-sized: The player most hurt by Camarillo’s offensive woes this season was wide receiver Mitch King. As a junior, the 5-foot-9, 165-pound King had 40 receptions for 561 yards.

This season, when Camarillo quarterbacks passed for only 524 yards, King had 16 catches for 275 yards and two touchdowns.

Rough break: Initially, Carlos Guerra thought the thwap from beneath his shoulder pads was the sound from a piece of plastic that had cracked. Instead, when he stood up after the tackle, reached under his jersey and clutched his tingling shoulder, the Poly tailback found it was his collarbone that had snapped like a brittle bread stick.

Guerra, Poly’s second-leading rusher, was injured on the team’s first drive against Grant last week after picking up 15 yards on a pitch. The play put an abrupt end to the season for the 5-foot-6, 140-pound senior nicknamed “Speedy” by teammates.

Because he underwent surgery to remove bunions on both feet, Guerra did not get much playing time until Poly’s third game. Still, he gained 498 yards in 67 carries and scored five touchdowns.

“The worst thing about it was the kid worked so darn hard and he got tackled and boom,” Coach Fred Cuccia said.

No sour grapes: Traditionally, when teams are on the bubble for playoff berths and don’t get picked, you get some high-volume whining and moaning from the coaches left out in the cold.

But not at L. A. Baptist, which just completed an impressive 7-3 year. “Even if we were on the council,” modest first-year Coach Mark Bates said, “we wouldn’t have picked us.”

The Knights lost out on a sure playoff bid, losing to Western Christian, 14-7, in a regular-season finale with second place in the Alpha League on the line. But this year’s record was the best of the decade at the Sepulveda school, resulting in an aura of good feelings within the program.

There is only one problem left for Bates and his staff: “We still don’t know what to do with our afternoons now,” he said.

Rush hour: Followers of City Section 3-A Division football recently may have noticed the name of Leon Gable turning up in their papers with regularity.

After the North Hollywood junior’s name have been impressive rushing digits. Considering that in the early season the Husky rushing game rested almost exclusively on junior Mike Lewis, it seems strange that Gable’s name would turn up now.

But Gable, according to Coach Fred Grimes, was the No. 1 tailback before being injured in his first carry of the year. Thus, Lewis, who stars in the Husky defensive secondary, was given the call. But since Gable has been able, it’s been all Leon.

He has gained 954 yards in 134 carries and, last week against Sylmar, netted 268 yards in 29 carries for two touchdowns.

“I had high hopes for him (before the injury),” Grimes said. “I believe he’s as good as (former Husky and current Cal State Fullerton running back) Chip Grant was as a junior.”

Title for real?: The unofficial score charts at the Southern Section cross-country finals last year listed Camarillo as the winner of the 4-A Division. However, as the official results were released, the Scorpions were stunned to discover that Dana Hills had edged them, 86-90, for the championship.

“We had our hearts broken,” Smith said of the race. “We were walking around for about 20 minutes thinking we were champs.”

This year, Camarillo has remained modest in the face of its competition but still has some unfinished business in the 4-A final Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College. “Now, we hope to finish the job that we didn’t quite finish last year,” Smith added.

Add Camarillo: Derek Kite missed running in the Scorpions’ 4-A preliminary heat Friday because of a swollen toe. Kite, a senior transfer from Agoura, stubbed the big toe on his right foot in his home, according to Smith. He is questionable for Saturday’s race.

Mike Glaze and staff writers Tim Brown, Sam Farmer and Brian Murphy contributed to this notebook.