Southern Section Roundup : Hawthorne Overruns Palos Verdes

Hawthorne High School’s football team was back at Palos Verdes Friday afternoon, running wild through the Sea King secondary and sacking various Palos Verdes quarterbacks, with familiar results.

Hawthorne, which also beat Palos Verdes in its 1986 opener, again was much too fast for the Sea Kings and ran off to a 28-6 victory.

The difference this time was the Hawthorne offense, which has grown with junior quarterback Curtis Conway. Conway completed 8 of 16 passes for 131 yards and 2 touchdowns, ran for 48 yards and another touchdown, and did giant slaloms through the Palos Verdes defense, whether scrambling in his own backfield or out of it.

“Me and the (offensive) line had a little talk before the game,” Conway said. “I told them if they give me time, I’ll make them look good.

“We looked pretty good.”

When the Hawthorne offensive line could not contain the larger Palos Verdes defensive line, Conway scrambled, and on two occasions crossed the field twice before making completions. On his 14-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, Conway ran right, froze cornerback John Wells with a head fake at the 7-yard line, then did two 360-degree turns through Palos Verdes defenders into the end zone.

“He just outmaneuvered us,” Palos Verdes Coach Bill Judy said. “In the end, we had to go with man-to-man coverage, even though they are faster than we are, just so we could seal the ends and contain him.”

Hawthorne’s Rod Taylor was also hard to contain. The senior running back rushed 17 times for 101 yards, including runs of 17, 18 and 19 yards.

“I don’t feel like we were out-physicalled out there,” Judy said. “But they were quicker, for sure.”

The Palos Verdes offense was disturbingly familiar. Wells, who started the game at quarterback, completed 1 of 4 passes for 1 yard. His replacement, junior Dave Walsh, completed 5 of 13 passes for 66 yards but was intercepted 3 times, once for a touchdown.

So the Sea Kings, who in 1986 went on to win the Bay League title after losing to Hawthorne, 15-3, totaled only 135 yards on offense but nearly doubled their production from last year’s game. Palos Verdes’ only score came in the first quarter after Taylor fumbled on Hawthorne’s third play from scrimmage.

“We didn’t have a quarterback, but then again we knew we didn’t have a quarterback,” said Judy. “We’re in a growing state; we still don’t know what will work on offense.”

The veer, which replaced last year’s very similar option offense, only worked a little for Palos Verdes. The Sea Kings divided the work between running backs Matt Seaburn and Greg Branch and produced 68 yards, more than a third coming on a 28-yard run by Seaburn in the third quarter.