Transfer Still Causes Strife

Quarterback Rudy Carpenter, who has passed for 2,524 yards and 33 touchdowns for 12-0 Westlake Village Westlake, won’t find himself on the All-Marmonte League football team when it’s released in two weeks.

The decision by Westlake Coach Jim Benkert not to nominate Carpenter, the league most valuable player last season when he played for Newbury Park, provides a small clue as to the hostile environment Benkert encountered at the meeting of league coaches two weeks ago.

“The writing was on the wall,” Benkert said.

Newbury Park Coach George Hurley said he started the meeting with a plea to the coaches to take into consideration “integrity and honesty” and not just statistics when voting for players.

Hurley has repeatedly criticized the transfer of Carpenter, who enrolled last February at Westlake. Investigations by Westlake administrators and the Conejo Unified School District cleared Carpenter to play for the Warriors.

“A message needed to be sent what’s right and what’s wrong and in my opinion, the transfer was wrong,” Hurley said.

Benkert said not nominating Carpenter or another Newbury Park transfer, lineman Ryan Sorensen, was done to prevent a boycott of other Westlake players for postseason honors.

Benkert’s fears were confirmed early in the vote for first-team all-league offensive line. Of eight nominated linemen, six made the team. The only two not selected were from Westlake, whose offensive line was considered the best. That caused an irate Benkert to challenge the vote, and he gained an ally in Hurley.

The coaches then retreated from their earlier vote and put the two Westlake linemen on the first team.

There has been continuing bitterness directed at Westlake within the league because of the Carpenter transfer even though Hurley has said Westlake did its best to discourage the transfer.

“When you transfer from one school to another within a league, there’s going to be ramifications and negative feelings,” Benkert said.

Benkert said Monday afternoon he had not told Carpenter of his absence from the all-league team. The Warriors play Moorpark on Saturday in a Southern Section Division IV semifinal game.