Sailors’ JV rolling

CHRIS YEMMA

With the Newport Harbor High varsity football team on a roll, winning

four of its five last games, with no losses all season and only one

minor aberration -- a tie with Foothill -- it’s hard to believe there

is another football team at the same school with a better record.

The Newport varsity team capped its regular season with a 63-20

win over Woodbridge Thursday to finish 9-0-1, 4-0-1 in the Sea View

League. But the immediate future of the varsity team looks like it

could be even more promising for the Sailors.

The Newport junior varsity football team closed out its season

Friday with a 14-7 win against Woodbridge to claim the Sea View

League championship and finalize its record at 11-0.

Most of the squad played together on the freshman team that went

9-0 the previous season.

If you do the math, that’s 20-0 over two seasons from, virtually,

the same bunch of kids. And to think, these kids don’t even get the

fame of playing in the prime-time slot. Instead, they play in the

middle of the day with 100-150 people watching on a good day.

The varsity? Well, they’ve got thousands rooting for them on any

given Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.

But it’s not about the fame or glory on the freshman or junior

varsity level. It’s about grunt work. It’s about learning and

improving their game. It’s about “halfback dive” right up the middle

to earn every yard the working-class way.

“We don’t do anything flashy on this team,” said Coach Mike

Bargas, who co-coaches the team with Bill Brown, Pat Paternie and

Matt Burns. “For the most part, it’s the same style as the varsity,

but there aren’t as many intricacies. It’s a lot more basic.”

Bargas said the team runs about 50-75% of the plays the varsity

uses, with the majority being run plays. Occasionally, though, spurts

of flash appear on the team.

In Friday’s win against Woodbridge, junior running back Keith

Eldridge, who took his sophomore season off to run track, broke off a

65-yard touchdown run. The week before, he broke off a 72-yarder.

“He’s probably the fastest guy on the team,” Bargas said. “He’s

got 4.6 or 4.7 speed [in the 40-yard dash].”

The other running back is sophomore Charles Vickery and the

quarterback is Kevin Williams, a sophomore.

Other standouts are linemen Louis Truxton, Matt McCullough, Billy

Munce, Frank Muscatelo, Bryce Jardine, Jamie Ohlhaver and Eric Ray,

along with linebacker Nick Frazier.

Now that the season’s over, some of the players will be moving up

to varsity, but the outlook the next few years looks pretty good.

Bargas is in his 13th season coaching at Newport Harbor.

“Over the years, I don’t think we’ve lost more than a couple of

[junior varsity] games a season,” he said.