INLAND FIELDHOUSE

I covered the Norco-Riverside King varsity football game for the Riverside Press-Enterprise on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2009 and came away thinking Norco has little more to offer, offensively, than its two very exceptional running backs.

And the are very exceptional. Watch a video from the game here.

Senior Deantre Lewis (6-foot, 194) and junior Kelsey Young (5-11, 192) comprise the finest pair of running backs that I’ve seen this season (not named Deontae and Deontrae Cooper). Lewis and Young are better than Corona Centennial’s Denzel Hawkins and Dion Bass. Better than Riverside North’s E.J. Schexnayder and Sadale Foster. Better than Riverside Poly’s Ryan Salgado and Jaron Farmer.

On Thursday, the two combined for more than 400 yards on the ground on exactly 40 carries. For you non-mathematicians that’s 10.0 yards per carry. Some guys can do that over 10 or 15 carries… but 40?!?!

Speaking of 40, Young’s first carry went for 40 yards and he finished with eight carries of 10-or-more yards while Lewis had six carries of 10-or-more yards. Usually running out wide, Young and Lewis turn a corner quick and accelerate quicker. They turned what would be short gains into much, much more.

In truth, it’s little wonder why Norco throws the ball at all. (The Cougars attempted just four passes the entire game.) With Lewis and Young averaging a first down per rush, it just makes sense to give them the ball as often as possible.

Norco was up by the final margin by the start of the fourth quarter and penalties started to fly. I asked Norco’s coach, Todd Gerhart, about the way was being called at that point.

“You ain’t getting me in trouble. I’m not touching that,” Gerhart said. “You can see for your own eyes.”

Norco, which owned the final possession, was resigned to taking a knee on the last play of the game.

On the opposite sideline, King’s Todd Handley played well but was — at best — the third best back on the field. To his credit, his lengthy touchdown run in the third quarter included two sweet spin moves that made Norco defenders reach and miss.

COACHES QUOTES —

Norco’s Todd Gerhart:
“Time of possession, truthfully, because they possess the ball in their offense and we had to make sure that when we had the ball that we were gonna put something down the field. I didn’t think we were going to get more than six possessions in the game. I think we got up to nine. It was a much better… and the turnovers hurt them. In their offense when they’ve got a turnover — the interception, the kickoff return — that’s what I think the difference was. Our guys, we have some banged up guys, ankle, you can see our guys — they’re kind banged up — but they did a nice job. I think King did a nice job, too. They made us work. We’d been struggling on defense so 13 points is a good job for us.”

King’s Ken Mushinskie:
“It was a typical Norco team. They came out and played smash-mouth football. The third quarter — and all the fourth quarter — they really played more physical than us. Their O Line did such and outstanding job blocking our defense and getting up on our backers and move their feet. It’s hard when you’re playing a very good athletic and physical team. They have three great running backs, a quarterback with a very live arm. It’s a tough set. There’s a reason why they’re 7-1 and they could very well be 8-0. We still have a lot of work to do on our offense. I think we did a good job to open up the second half, driving the ball down and getting on the board. The reverse, the kickoff return reverse that Lewis scored, obviously changed momentum. Then we get to ball back and we fumble. I think we started to hang our heads a little bit. That’s something we cannot do and has been something we have not done all year. It’s why I’m so proud of these kids. You know, they fought till the end but tonight Norco was definitely a better group and I tip my hat to Norco coach Gerhart. Especially for the class they showed at the end — taking a knee like that.”