November 10, 2007

Whicker column: Mater Dei streak lives

MARK WHICKER

ANAHEIM Few Servite players were alive when the Friars last beat Mater Dei.

Fewer of next year’s players will be.

It has been a long wait for next year, in fact.

Especially if you’re a Friars fan who has seen fire, rain, housing booms, housing slumps, county bankruptcies, sheriff scandals, a remodeled Angel Stadium, a new Cal State Fullerton football stadium without a football team, bad NFL, no NFL and all kinds of other transformations since 1988, when Servite toppled Mater Dei, 42-24.

In fact, Mater Dei-over-Servite is one of the rare things in the county that hasn’t changed.

This time, next year isn’t much of a comfort, since Mater Dei’s Matt Barkley will be around next year, too.

There were times when Servite outnumbered Mater Dei’s receivers and forced Barkley into incompletions, and one potentially painful interception to Dwight Storay.

But Barkley, like most quarterbacks of pedigree, only needs one play to tilt a game.

He found Robbie Boyer behind double coverage for a 76-yard touchdown, and then he saw a hole and filled it, scampering 13 yards for a touchdown just as he was getting crunched by linebacker Austin Niklas.

Barkley hopped up triumphantly and held the ball high, and the Monarchs were up 14-0 at halftime and made their way to a 38-13 victory.

Barkley was 16 for 24 for 348 yards, 97 of them coming on a fourth-quarter play to Andrew Abbott that dissuaded Servite’s hopes of coming back.

“A play like that is tough to recover from,” said winning coach Bruce Rollinson. “It was all Barkley. By rights it could have been a safety.”

Rollinson is 18-0-1 against Servite, with an 0-0 tie in 1992 that would have gone black if Servite’s kicker hadn’t missed a 19-yard field goal.

Servite also led the Monarchs going into the fourth quarter in ’95, and had a field goal bump the upright last year, on the final play of regulation.

So this one won’t be as difficult to rationalize.

Servite didn’t cross midfield in the second quarter and was subjected to very long fields, taking the ball at its own 1- and 3-yard lines, and the Friars broke nothing significant on the Mater Dei defense.

“We got off the carpet,” Rollinson said, referring to last week’s loss to Orange Lutheran. “We knew the offensive and defensive lines would have to carry us tonight.”

That 1988 Servite victory came when Coach Jerry Person served up heaping helpings of Derek Brown.

Brown gained 246 yards on the Monarchs that night, scored four rush touchdowns and took a kickoff 96 yards to the end zone (it wasn’t yet known as “the house.”).

That followed games of 338 and 117 yards for Brown against the Monarchs in ’86 and ‘87.
D.J. Shoemate, the 220-pound junior, is probably Servite’s best back since Brown. And coach Troy Thomas gave him exclusive rights to the offense on Friday.

Shoemate took the handoff on Servite’s first 10 plays. At least the first six carries appeared to be exactly the same play, with quarterback Johnny McEntee taking the shotgun snap and giving it to Shoemate, who ran through whatever hole Matt Kalil had cleared.

But the Monarchs defense was always poised for the sweep — the first one, seven plays in, produced an illegal block penalty — and they didn’t miss tackles. Shoemate’s long run of the first half was 8 yards.

“We said we knew he’d get four and five yards,” said Rollinson, who was concerned enough to use massive tackle Khaled Holmes on defense for the first time. “Just don’t let him get wide.”

At halftime Thomas made adjustments — he could have adjusted the retro-rockets on the Space Shuttle in the time that halftime took — and the Friars took the kick, changed things up with the option, and rolled 66 yards to cut the lead to 14-7.

“We knew that was coming, because Centennial hurt us with it,” said defensive end Cameron Meredith, “and Orange Lutheran did the option well, too. That was a disaster, so we thought we’d see more of it. Rollo got on us this week and we responded.”

The Servite TD apparently stimulated Barkley. He picked up a third down to Boyer, then stepped up to avoid the rushing Stuart Hein and speared his cousin for a 42-yard touchdown and a 21-7 edge.

Servite struck back to make it 21-13 and seemed to have found its “aha” moment when Mater Dei botched the kickoff return and Barkley had to deal with third-and-11 from his 3.

And then he had Servite’s Carl Brayton threatening to twist off his feet in the end zone.

And then he hit Abbott behind everybody anyway, and Abbott took it for the goodnight touchdown, followed shortly by Michael Brown’s close-the-door interception.

There is a certain nobility in patience and suffering, and Servite fans can take heart. As George Harrison once sang, all things must pass.

Of course, the streak outlived him, too.