Spotlight turns up heat on winning program

LA HABRA - CIF officially calls it "fall practice," but it was 91 degrees Monday at La Habra High when the football team ended its mid-afternoon practice.

The heat is on La Habra's Highlanders, and in more ways than one.

They won a third consecutive CIF championship last year; only St. Margaret's, with four in a row going into this season, has won more consecutive CIF football titles in Orange County history. La Habra has not lost a Freeway League game since 2006.

PHOTOS: Click here to see a slide show from Monday's practices at La Habra and Edison.

Then there is the schedule. The five nonleague games might be the most challenging set of games in La Habra coach Frank Mazzotta's 13 seasons at the school.

The Highlanders open against Orange Lutheran, a perennial county top 10 team from the much-respected Trinity League, on Sept. 3 at Glover Stadium. Then comes La Mirada, last year's CIF-Southern Section Southern Division champion, followed by CIF-SS Pac-5 and CIF State Division 2 champion Servite.

Pressure?

"The pressure is big," La Habra senior safety Will Peppard said. "But we schedule these big games to make us better."

La Habra coach Frank Mazzotta said there was no intention to seek out such vaunted opponents. With Lutheran, Servite and also St. John Bosco of Bellflower on the schedule, that makes three Trinity League teams on the Highlanders' nonleague board.

"It just came up," said Mazzotta, going into his 13th year coaching at La Habra. "We called other people, and I'm not saying names, but they didn't want to do it."

It happens. Sometimes coaches duck the tough nonleague competition, and sometimes the schedule just doesn't work out for legitimate reasons like an out-of-state trip, stadium availability or a promised commitment to another team. Last year, La Habra played two Pac-5 teams, teams that qualified for the '09 Pac-5 playoffs, beating San Clemente and losing to Los Alamitos, but both of those teams made other arrangements for 2010.

"We looked at the CIF website, and (ocvarsity.com) to see who had open games," Mazzotta said. "Orange Lutheran agreed right away, but Servite took some time because they were looking at some other teams out there."

With La Habra's profile so high these days, are other teams pursuing the Highlanders?

"I don't think so," Mazzotta said. "I recall only one guy calling me a lot for a game, and that was (Mission Viejo coach) Bob Johnson. He was very proactive about it, for two years, but we already had somebody else in for that week so it just didn't work out."

Putting together a practice schedule can be just as challenging.

There is a complicated CIF-mandated formula coaches must follow. Once the required "dead period" of 21 consecutive days with no school-supervised activity has concluded, teams are allowed 25 three-hour practice opportunities before their first game, with an interscholastic scrimmage counting as one opportunity, non-school days as two opportunities and Labor Day, each Saturday and each teacher/staff work day counting as one or two practice opportunities depending upon the practices held on those days. The first three days are for physical conditioning only, with pads – and hitting – starting on the fourth day.

Some teams started Monday of last week, others started Thursday and concluded the conditioning period Saturday so they could begin hitting on Monday of this week, others started the conditioning period on Monday of this week, and many others get going next Monday.

It is a system that can confuse, and it is one that Mazzotta would be happy to help change if involved in a proposal that would create a new system.

"You take all that time during the summer to get the kids in shape, then comes that big break and you've got to take those three days to them back into shape again," said Mazzotta, who was an assistant coach for his father Frank Sr. at Cerritos College before coaching at Artesia of Lakewood and then La Habra. "I would have the break not go for three weeks, but maybe two, and set it so that every team has to take it at the same time.

"In California, we can't practice in pads during spring time, and I would change that. Football is the only sport in which you can't practice your sport the way you play it. Football is safer with all the gear on. Everybody practices 11-on-11 in spring time, without pads, and you see all these broken noses and busted teeth."

Football, like just about every other high school sport, now is a year-around venture. Many teams have enough of their game plan intact that they could play, and play reasonably well, this Friday.

"We could play and put up a challenge," La Habra senior All-CIF quarterback Cody Clements said. "But we do have some things to work on. We're just coming off of the break, so the timing with the receivers is something we have to get back again."

Peppard, a quick safety who hits like a linebacker, said fine-tuning is required elsewhere before that season opener against Lutheran.

"We're not that good as a team yet, but we can be a great team," Peppard said. "If we keep practicing hard, we'll get there."

Clements and Peppard are taking on leadership duties, as seniors must. Clements, who committed to Washington State, was the starting quarterback on last year's CIF-championship team. Quarterbacks generally are leaders, but his junior status made Clements a bit reluctant to assert himself in some situations.

"Last year, I was a lot quieter and didn't say as much," Clements said. "I'm going to talk more this year."

With that schedule and that string of CIF championships, La Habra might give people a lot to talk about all year long.