INLAND FIELDHOUSE

I covered the Norco-Rancho Cucamonga Etiwanda varsity football game for the The Press-Enterprise on Friday, Sept. 16, 2011, and came away thinking about my exchanges with Norco coach Todd Gerhart.

Now, I’ve met Coach Gerhart three times in my life — all directly following games Norco has won. I don’t expect him to remember me (and he doesn’t) but a little recognition? Not even.

TODD GERHART

During the second quarter I was doing my thing (stats, video) on Norco’s sideline when Gerhart says to me, “Are you doing all the stats?” Me: “Everything but total tackles.” Gerhart: “Wow. Really? And video?” Me: “Yeah. As best I can anyway.”

Norco went on to win the game by holding the ball 17 of a possible 24 minutes in the second half. Sophomore QB Coltin Gerhart (6-foot-2, 225 pounds) and junior RB Joseph Ajeigbe (6-foot, 223) both scored three times each and combined to gain more than 450 yards.

The Cougars (2-0 overall) wore down Etiwanda behind their big offensive line, and after Eagles’ QB Larry Cutbirth (6-5, 185) was knocked out of the game in the fourth quarter, a back-and-forth game was finally in hand for Gerhart, who was as laid-back as I’ve ever seen him after the game.

I approached and introduced myself as I normally do. “Hey Coach. Dennis Pope for The Press-Enterprise.” Gerhart: “Wait. You’re not a writer. You’re doing the stats and video.” Me: “Nope. My main job is to write. I’m a writer.” Gerhart: “Seriously? … Huh.” Me: “Yep.”

Me: “What changes did you make in the second half?”

Gerhart: “What was the score at half?” Me: “It was 30-28 (Etiwanda).” Gerhart: “So we only allowed one score? So obviously that 4th down stand was huge. I don’t know. I thought we did well on offense in the later parts — we started to run the ball much better. We only went up top once when we had to. In a sense our second-half game plan was to maintain the ball as much as we could. That was the bottom line. And we probably could’ve thrown it a little bit more but there’s no… I didn’t want the tall kid on the field. He’s OK. I’m glad he’s OK. I’m not like that. I really that our ground  game, if you look at the stats, our ground game in the second half ground out the clock. And our one great defensive stand. I thought we started fast. We really started fast. Went on down (and scored) and what really swung in a bad way, where we had to get our momentum back, was the punt. The snap over the head. They got the ball, whatever, at the 1. That took a quarter to recover. I mean they started going ’cause I think when we went down the field everything was gonna go in our favor and start rolling. And that (snap) went over his head. That was… that took a long time to comeback from that. We couldn’t get the counter game going very well which I understand, I mean they were man-to-man with our guys, the guys we counter with. As a whole I think our offense did well. I think our defense, in places, needs to get better. I mean in our league, it’s a tough league. Centennial and all these boys throwing it around, and Roosevelt, Santiago. There all just slingin’ it. We have to get better on defense. We need to get one of our safeties back. He’s been injured. Corbin McCarthy. He’s huge. I think we might have to figure out what to do with our other safety. He got hurt in a game two weeks ago, Johnny Cross. He got a concussion. We might have to move a few people around. I don’t really want to move a receiver, put a good receiver back there. But in a sense it really matters in two weeks for us. So the next week against Upland — win, lose or draw — I’m not going to make a wholesale change but Roosevelt we may have to look at a few different things.”

Norco junior Joseph Ajeigbe:
“Our coaches just talked to us. They told us to play hard. You know, work on things that we’ve been working on all week. The linemen came out… it was just a new half for us. We made a couple mistakes in the first half. I felt we cleaned those up at halftime. I just got to  give glory to God. Thank my linemen. They went out and played hard. Defense… you know, they made a couple of mistakes they’ve got to clean up. You know they played hard. In the second half we just had to work on our communication with the sidelines like the coaches getting the plays in and stuff like that. And us understanding the plays and communication with the receivers and stuff so they know what’s going on on the field. So once we clean that up it opened up the holes. And they were keying on me so it opening it up for Coltin, and when they were keying on Coltin it opened up stuff for me. It was just the captains. Scott Starr. Coltin. The linemen, they all told us if we want them to play hard for us, we have to play hard for them. I think it was a mutual thing. We just had an understanding and went out there and played hard for each other. It’s not as pretty as we would like it but we’re going out there and getting ‘Ws’. We just to clean stuff up and I think we should be a pretty strong team this year. Everybody is on the page… coaches, out teammates. It’s just a really good team. I think we’ll be pretty good this year.”

Etiwanda coach Steven Bryce:
“The defense didn’t come up tonight and play like we wanted them to. We thought we had a game plan intact and I think they just responded, played a little bit of keep away. I think we assumed they were going to try to keep the ball away from us on offense and they did. They were running dive and zone read and that HUGE offensive line up front and they can create some holes, just gaps. That (early turnovers) killed us. Our receiver had the fumble early down, and that’s a scoring drive and if you look at — if we complete the drive — that a 14-point swing. Oh, yeah. Gerhart’s a stud. See his acrobatic moves? Hurdlin’ over the ball. (Shaking head). He’s really, he’s a studly kid.”

Etiwanda senior Larry Cutbirth:
I think they sat on the ball a little bit in the second half. That was a good plan on their part. You just gotta give them credit. Really close. Couple of hear-and-there plays. The short yardage right there. If we get that I think the game changes. Just learn from them. We start slow sometimes on offense. We gotta fix that. We just gotta come out and play every week. It doesn’t matter who our opponent is.”