Running It Up : Beating an Opponent by a Lopsided Margin Does Neither Winner Nor Loser Any Good

“I looked at the clock and there was 3:37 left and the score was 94-6. I turned to my assistant, Tony Matson, and I said, ‘God, I don’t want us to break 100 in our first game. What should we do, hold the ball?’

“Tony turns to me, smiles and says, ‘Coach, that’s 3 minutes 37 seconds left in the THIRD quarter.’ ”

--Jeff Sink, Brea Olinda girls’ basketball coach, recalling a 137-10 victory over Ontario Chaffey in 1994

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When Jeff Sink went to his office after that 127-point victory--the largest in county history in boys’ or girls’ basketball--there were three anonymous messages on his answering machine. None were very nice. They accused him of trying to make a reputation for himself at Chaffey’s expense.

“And nothing could be further from the truth,” Sink said.

But it underscores a point. Blow out a team, appear to run up a score, and people notice. The accusations can fly pretty freely.

Blowouts can be found throughout the girls’ basketball season. They are less common in boys’ basketball, which, unlike the girls, doesn’t have a shot clock. It’s a weekly occurrence in football. But no one raises an eyebrow if a wrestling team wins 61-2 or a tennis team wins 18-0 because they are individual sports.

But every year, lopsided scores lead to questions. Where is the line that separates running up the score from trying to set a record or pad statistics? What of those coaches who fail to understand an unfolding situation and how to prevent it from getting worse?

And whose fault is it, the winning coach who pulls the strings or the losing coach who continues a foolish strategy in a lost cause? And what of those who cry wolf, who accuse but fail to recognize the disparity in talent in the first place?

“The only thing worse thing than running it up,” Santa Ana football Coach Mark Miller said, “is whining about it.”

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Girls’ basketball seems especially vulnerable to ridiculously lopsided scores because tournaments pit the best teams against the worst as a part of the seeding process. That’s the reason Brea played Chaffey in Sink’s first game as the Ladycats’ coach.

In last year’s playoffs, with three teams qualifying from each league, there were 11 games decided by 50 points or more, and 10 decided by 40. It even happened in the state playoffs, where three games were decided by 50-plus points, and five by 40-plus.

John Hattrup, who coached Brea Olinda for one season--the undefeated, 1993-94 state championship campaign--is now at Westlake Village Westlake. He was accused of running it up while at Brea, and while at Mission Viejo in the 1980s. There, his team beat Saddleback, 63-3, in the 1980-81 season.

Hattrup, who taught at Saddleback High while coaching Mission Viejo, says he caught a couple of Saddleback players sneaking cigarettes in the locker room before tipoff.

“We had a couple of [Mission Viejo] kids injured and I made them play so I could take my starters out,” Hattrup said. “They [Saddleback] were horrendous. We played a zone defense the entire time. We were averaging more than 63 points per game. It’s hardly like we ran up the score.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, someone is going to find something wrong with it. People say, ‘Oh, you scarred those kids for life.’ Those [Saddleback] kids couldn’t care less. ‘Here, let me put out my cigarette and shoot a couple.’ ”

The three points given up by Mission Viejo was the county record for 15 years--until Liberty Christian recorded a 63-2 victory over Huntington Beach Claremont on Dec. 4, 1996. Six days later, Claremont lost to Connelly, 85-4.

Those outcomes represent the dichotomy of the blowout--at least, it does for Claremont Coach Brian Whitman. Liberty Christian slowed the game and Whitman had no problem with the one-sided score. He wasn’t nearly as understanding about Connelly, which scored, quarter by quarter, 23, 22, 21 and 19 points.

Claremont didn’t field a team last year. Against Connelly, only six players suited up.

“This coach [Jett Del Mundo] ran a full-court press in the fourth quarter,” Whitman said. “He ran the first team throughout the game. At the end, his first-string kids were still going into the game. My kids are all freshmen and have no experience. Unless the guy was an utter moron, he knew the game was over.”

Del Mundo’s response?

Connelly played with nine players. Del Mundo said he fielded his tallest team--without a point guard--in the third quarter, his shortest team in the fourth. And after two very hard fourth-quarter fouls on attempted layups--intentional fouls, he said--Del Mundo told his players to use a full-court press for two possessions, just to drive home the point that he had been trying to take it easy on Claremont.

Bill Clark, assistant commissioner of the Southern Section, said there was an alternative: “Games in any sport can be stopped at any point by mutual consent of the coaches.”

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In a football game Sept. 15, 1994, Estancia held a 31-0 lead over La Quinta with one second left. La Quinta reached the Eagles’ 13-yard line. Estancia’s nine-game losing streak was ending, but its first-team defense, which had been on the bench since early in the fourth quarter, went back into the game for the final play.

Quarterback Jason Gondringer was sacked; he didn’t get off the ground until about a minute after the game ended.

Ben Carpenter, now the assistant principal at Anaheim, was Estancia’s defensive coordinator at the time and still defends his decision to try to maintain the shutout: “My personal philosophy comes into that--establish goals and do your best to meet them. We’re shorting ourselves if we don’t do our best to try to meet them. . . . Trying to get the shutout was important to us. If someone says the game was over and it wouldn’t make any difference, then why throw for the end zone?”

Gondringer’s wooziness was the unfortunate result.

John Liebengood, Estancia coach, said the buck stopped with him. He said he had never been called so many names in such a short period as after that game. “[Hurting Gondringer] wasn’t done on purpose. [But] I didn’t overrule [Carpenter’s decision]. Looking back, I should have left the second string in, and they probably would have scored, and we would have beaten them, 31-7. In the position I’m in, I just want to win. I’m not in a position to be picky.”

Servite’s Steve Ward tied a national record with seven touchdowns (en route to a 56-0 first-half lead) in Servite’s 76-0 victory over Santa Ana this season. His coaches were trying to get him the school record (held by one of the coaches) for receiving yards in a game. Ward admits that night holds few good memories.

Game ball? He didn’t keep anything from the game.

“It was fun scoring, but I’m not sure I’d want to do it again,” Ward said. “If it was during a championship game I’d do it in a second. But under those circumstances, when the score is up that high. . . .”

The Santa Ana player who guarded Ward that night, Chris Weaver, is still bothered by what happened: “I’m trying to forget it, but it’s hard. I think they were trying to embarrass us.”

That was nothing compared to what happened at a school assembly at the end of the season. That day the student body booed the football team.

“That,” Coach Miller said, “was pretty brutal.”

Ward broke his school’s record three weeks later in a meaningful game, a 47-34 playoff victory over El Toro. He caught nine passes for 282 yards and three touchdowns and kept his gloves as a memento.

Among the most notorious, blatant examples of running up the score in recent memory was in Inglewood Morningside’s victory over South Torrance in the 1989-90 season. Morningside’s Lisa Leslie was fed the ball repeatedly in an attempt to break the national single-game scoring record held by Cheryl Miller. Leslie scored 101 points in one half--16 minutes--in a 102-24 victory.

Gil Ramirez, South Torrance coach, refused to put his players on the court in the second half. He was promptly suspended by the Southern Section office for breaking its rules on sportsmanship.

That story made headlines and Leslie was thrust into the national spotlight. She fell short of breaking Miller’s scoring record of 105, set while at Riverside Poly in a game against Norte Vista during the 1981-82 season. However, Leslie did ask Ramirez to play the game long enough so she could score three more baskets.

Leslie, arguably the world’s best female player, did not respond to an interview request.

Regardless, there are plenty who think such efforts tainted.

“Last year in the Woodbridge tournament, we played Rancho Alamitos, and they probably shouldn’t have been in that tournament at all,” said Dave White, Edison’s girls’ basketball and football coach. “The score was about 25-2 in the first quarter and Marie Philman had 20 points. She didn’t play the rest of the game. Marie could have scored a hundred points.

“If you set [a record] against a good team, that’s one thing, but I don’t believe in setting records against teams that you’re beating by 30. I’m a believer in winning and losing with class, and what goes around comes around.”

In the final game of the Sea View League football season, once-beaten Newport Harbor defeated winless Woodbridge, 50-7. Two Woodbridge assistants thought the Sailors laid it on a little heavy and even confronted Newport Coach Jeff Brinkley afterward.

Woodbridge Coach Rick Gibson found irony in what eventually happened: “After Newport Harbor lost, 38-0, to Santa Margarita [in the Division V championship game], Jeff made a comment that he wished his seniors didn’t have to go out that way. We felt the same way after our game.

“There’s the old saying, ‘What goes around comes around,’ and in this case, it came around quicker than usual.”

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Coaches at outstanding programs have to be especially careful to avoid getting tagged with a reputation. It’s made more difficult because all players deserve the opportunity to play hard when they get in a game, and no one should roll over. It’s compounded because the great programs often have more talent on the bench than some teams have on the field. They are easy targets.

Mater Dei boys’ basketball Coach Gary McKnight admitted he let scores get out of hand when he took over the program in 1982.

“I was 29, 30 years old, and I don’t think I understood the real picture of just letting the other kids play,” he said. “In the early years, we were so dominant and the scores got very lopsided, and no good comes from that.”

Mater Dei football Coach Bruce Rollinson, whose team was recently ranked No. 1 nationally for the second time in three years, said, “The 10 minutes of personal satisfaction I would get from putting it in a guy’s face would not be worth the embarrassment and humiliation I would cause a 16-year-old kid.”

But, like other coaches, he has a philosophy he follows, which is why his starters will begin the second half: “I’ve been accused of running it up in a 38-7 game because I didn’t pull my first string out soon enough.”

Yet, even good programs get theirs. Rialto Eisenhower beat Mater Dei, 56-3, in the 1993 Division I championship football game.

In the last three weeks, the Mater Dei boys’ basketball team lost by 26 points and the Brea girls’ basketball team lost by 31.

Tustin football Coach Myron Miller--whose team set a county scoring record, had six victories by 28 points or more and beat Santa Ana, 82-19--may have the county’s most notorious reputation. His final game last season was a 38-0 loss. He didn’t complain.

“My philosophy is that we’re going to run our first-team offense all the time because we want them to have confidence in what they’re doing and we don’t want them to fail,” Miller said. “We’ll put in our second team on defense. I’m going to let you have as much success on offense as you can have, but I’m never going to let my team lose confidence in our offense. Santa Ana scored more points against us than anybody they faced this season. They went home happy.”

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Perhaps no girls’ basketball team this season has been beaten on as much as Magnolia. The Sentinels lost their best player, Stacy Tewell, three games into the season with a broken hand, and another sat out December because of commitments to her church.

Magnolia lost consecutive games at the Bolsa Grande tournament by 84, 63 and 86 points to San Clemente, Newport Harbor and Huntington Beach. Point differential determined who played for first, third and fifth place, necessitating the big scores.

But Magnolia Coach Marian Mendoza said most coaches were “pretty compassionate,” especially Huntington Beach and Newport Harbor, which at one point led, 60-0.

“The coach from Huntington Beach [Bill Thompson] called me for a week apologizing,” Mendoza said.

Imelda Ortiz, a junior who is captain of the Magnolia team, said blowouts can be a little bothersome. “We get a lot of negative feedback from the other students--I think it’s just teasing. It’s not that it’s mean-spirited, but it sometimes bothers me. You just have to ignore it.”

White, the Edison girls’ basketball coach, says the advent of the three-point shot makes it tougher to determine when to let up.

“I’ve cut it close a few times,” he said. “I’ve taken my starters out with a 20-point lead and two minutes left. The other team hits some three-point baskets, it’s an eight-point game and my starters are on the bench looking at me.”

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Two years ago, with Brea Olinda on the cusp of breaking 100 points, Valencia players intentionally shot at Brea’s basket. They shot twice and missed.

When Kennedy football Coach Mitch Olson coached a junior varsity girls’ basketball team at Western in 1979-80, his team trailed, 55-10. The other coach, whom he would not identify, called timeout with four minutes remaining and changed from a full-court zone press to a full-court man-to-man. Olson ordered his players to in-bound the ball to the opposition to make his point.

“His response was that they needed to work on things,” Olson said. “Everyone has a rationalization, and some of them make some good points, but when you’re embarrassing people, that’s not the time to work on things.”

To keep football scores close over Olson’s 10 years as head coach, he has had players jump offsides, run tackle to tackle with the second string, and purposefully fumble--which he has done about five times.

“What I do is put in a hell of a player, a starting defensive back who is the third-string running back, and he goes in and fumbles or jumps offsides,” Olson said. “Nobody’s going to rag on him. And the player understands. We don’t want to embarrass anybody or get embarrassed. Kids are very compassionate nowadays.

“Everyone works as hard as everybody else, and nobody deserves to get demoralized--as long as you do it in a way that nobody knows for sure, and it’s not embarrassing to the other team.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Among the Worst

A sampling of some of the worst blowouts this season involving Orange County teams.

GIRLS’ BASKETBALL

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Date Result Dec. 19 Huntington Beach 94, Magnolia 8 Dec. 16 San Clemente 105, Magnolia 21 Dec. 10 Connelly 85, Claremont 4 Dec. 19 Esperanza 103, La Quinta 25 Dec. 18 Newport Harbor 74, Magnolia 11 Dec. 3 Liberty Christian 63, Claremont 2

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BOYS’ BASKETBALL

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Date Result Dec. 3 Marina 82, Fairmont 18 Dec. 3 Capistrano Valley Christian 76, Heritage Christian 14 Jan. 8 Tustin 91, Westminster 35 Jan. 10 Villa Park 85, Foothill 37 Jan. 10 Capistrano Valley Christian 72, Fairmont 26 Dec. 2 Bolsa Grande 95, Fairmont 48

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FOOTBALL

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Date Result Nov. 8 Servite 76, Santa Ana 0 Nov. 15 Tustin 82, Santa Ana 19 Sept. 12 Mater Dei 56, Santa Ana Valley 0 Nov. 1 Laguna Hills 56, Laguna Beach 0 Oct. 11 Mission Viejo 56, Century 0 Nov. 7 Esperanza 62, Marina 7 Nov. 14 Loara 53, Cypress 0 Nov. 7 Aliso Niguel 52, University 0 Sept. 13 Mission Viejo 49, Santa Ana 0

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