INLAND FIELDHOUSE

I covered 14 Inland Area prep football games this season for HS Gametime. On Thursday and Friday nights from August to November, I saw games on muddy fields to pristine synthetic surfaces from Fontana to Temecula, Corona to Bermuda Dunes.

Here’s FOMB’s best from the 2010 Inland Area prep football season:

BEST SLICE OF HISTORY:
Riverside Poly defeats Riverside Ramona in the 40th meeting between the schools, played in the newly refurbished Riverside Unified School District Stadium at Ramona HS. Lots of Riverside big-wigs were on hand, and Poly re-asserted itself as the best of the city’s oldest schools. Oh, and the Bears’ Steven Peck made five interceptions.

BEST COACH-SPEAK:
Fontana Kaiser shuts out Riverside North in Week 2, and Huskies coach Mark Parades calls me twice from the bus after the game. Clearly in a bad mood following his team’s 28-0 dismantling, Parades went out of his way to give me his cell number, and then call me back 20 minutes later to see if I had any further questions. Coaches don’t do that, especially not after they lose.

BEST PERFORMANCE(S):
Corona Centennial’s Barrinton Collins runs for four TDs twice in three weeks. OK, so this is technically two things, but combined they’re significant. Collins ran for 213 yards and four TDs in a Week 5 rout of Poly, and 131 yards and four TDs in a Week 7 victory over Corona Santiago. He’s a bowling ball; he’s so low to the ground. And he still has one more game to play, Friday vs. Vista Murrieta in the CIF-Southern Section Inland Division championship game.

BEST COMEBACK:
Riverside North comes from behind to defeat Riverside King in Week 10, knocking the Wolves from the playoffs. In his finest varsity performance, inconsistent junior QB Justin Gheorghe passed for 330 yards and accounted for four TDs, including the game-winning run with 13 seconds remaining, as the Huskies salvaged their season with 30-26 victory over their intra-stadium rival. King coach Ken Mushinskie was devastated afterward. Just devastated.

BEST MOMENT:
The lightning strike in a Week 4 game between Moreno Valley Canyon Springs and Riverside La Sierra. The Thursday night game was stopped and everyone was ordered by police to take shelter following a strike on site. As a steady rain fell I stood under the grandstands and caught up with my 11th grade history teacher, Joel Whelchel, who still teaches at La Sierra and works the PA during LSHS football games. That night was like meeting a memory. Odd.

BEST GAME:
Moreno Valley Vista del Lago eeks out a 35-34 road victory over Riverside Patriot. The Ravens, led by senior QB Trent Hedlund, passed for a controversial two-point coversion with less than a minute left to take the lead. Read about the game, which features eight lead changes and a number of tremendous performances on both sides, here. There was a buzz in the stadium following that game that went above and beyond anything else FOMB experienced this season. The tension in the air was palpable, and so were the emotions on both sides afterward. FOMB, nay every football fan, lives for games like this one.