No losing games or sense of what's right

Look at some of the scores from St. Margaret's undefeated football season, so far: 69-0; 52-0; 58-7; 70-6.

Those scores can make people uncomfortable. Nobody is bothered by them more than St. Margaret's coach Harry Welch.

He is in a difficult position. Once a game gets to the one-sided stage, Welch can't tell his quarterback to take a knee every play for the final 20 minutes. He can't tell his defense to miss tackles.

There is the integrity of the game, and the dignity of the opposing team. How to maintain both when your team is so much better is a challenge Welch is facing almost every week.

"It is tough," Welch said. "We only suit up 25 players, and we start 21 of them. What can I do, sit down those 21 and only let the other four play?"

Welch said he has tried everything, even offering opposing coaches a system of signals, so that the other team knows which play is coming. The offer was denied, and Welch was relieved but still searching for some way to be as sportsmanlike as possible.

When a running clock is used, the opponent might attempt three consecutive pass plays, which has happened against St. Margaret's this year. Incompletions stop the clock, and not many teams pass successfully against St. Margaret's, which takes an 8-0 overall record and 1-0 league mark into tonight's Academy League home game against 0-8 Capistrano Valley Christian.

Welch is not unaccustomed to coaching such a dominating team. His final team at Canyon of Canyon Country, in 2006, posted similar one-sided scores: 90-0 over Golden Valley of Santa Clarita; 62-17 over Valencia of Valencia; and, in that year's Division IV playoffs, 63-3 over Royal of Simi Valley and 64-14 over Rio Mesa of Oxnard. Canyon went 12-2 that year (losses to Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, and St. Bonaventure of Ventura) and beat De La Salle of Concord in the first CIF State Bowl Division I championship game.

In at least one way, Welch feels this year's St. Margaret's team is outperforming that '06 Canyon team, or last year's St. Margaret's team he coached that went 14-0.

"So far," said Welch, in his 20th year as a high school football head coach, "this team is executing better than any team I've ever coached."

St. Margaret's senior quarterback David Mothander "could have played on one of my better Canyon teams," Welch said. That's quite a compliment, considering Welch coached five CIF championship teams at Canyon, where he was 179-46-2. Mothander also is an excellent punter and kicker.

"He's got a quick release," Welch said, "a strong arm and he keeps getting better and better."

Welch said Tartans two-way senior lineman Chase Smith and receiver/defensive back Alex Brolic would also have fit in fine with any of those Canyon teams.

But Welch is not lobbying for inclusion in the county top 10.

"If we played those teams 10 times, on one or two Fridays we might beat them," he said. "But win all of them? No way."

St. Margaret's won the CIF-Southern Section's Northeast Division championship last year, Welch's first at the school, and in 2006, when current Corona del Mar coach Jason Hitchens coach was at St. Margaret's. The Northeast is what used to be called Division XIII, considered the lowest of the section's 13 playoff divisions. This year, St. Margaret's and its Academy League co-members are in the East Valley Division, which is what used to be Division XII, and Welch expects the playoff competition in the East Valley Division to be challenging.

"That will be the most challenging thing we've ever faced," Welch said.

Until then, Welch and the Tartans probably will spend the final two weeks of the regular season playing one-sided games, while trying their best to do it the right way.

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

•The Edison-Fountain Valley football game, tonight at Orange Coast College, is sold out. Updates on that game and all of the top games in county football tonight will be available at ocvarsity.com. We have other great matchups tonight: Fullerton-La Habra; El Dorado-Villa Park; Santiago-Garden Grove; Mission Viejo-Dana Hills; Los Alamitos-Esperanza; and St. John Bosco of Bellflower-Mater Dei.

•Two days after losing to Foothill in a Sea View League water polo match, top-ranked El Toro plays No. 2 Los Alamitos in a nonleague match today. It sure would be fun if football and basketball coaches scheduled their teams as daringly as water polo coaches do.

•Some people use "wild card" instead of "at large" to describe those extra playoff berths that are up for grabs for teams that don't automatically qualify for the playoffs. The CIF-SS office refers to those berths as "at-large" berths, and we do, too. So don't get confused.

•Playoff seedings and first-round pairings for girls volleyball and boys water polo will be released Sunday and will be posted at ocvarsity.com, as will girls team tennis playoffs when they are announced Monday. Football playoff seedings and pairings will be announced Nov. 16.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com