Football: Can Crenshaw get back to a bowl game?
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Crenshaw was the story of the 2009 football season in Southern California, becoming the first Los Angeles City Section team to advance to a state bowl game.
Can the Cougars make history repeat itself and qualify for a second consecutive gowl game?
‘In all honesty, that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing for L.A. Unified Schools and realistically, we’ll have to wait and see,’ Crenshaw Coach Robert Garrett said recently. ‘Who knows what the future lies?’
Garrett called his team’s 28-14 loss to Concord De La Salle in December at the Home Depot Center a learning experience because ‘we think that we stunk up the place. We want to do a better showing than what we showed. We stunk up the place as a unit, as a coaching staff, as a team.’
Among the adjustments Garrett said he would make were training harder and bringing more players up from the junior varsity level to establish depth. But the Cougars could have a 100-man roster and still not find anyone as talented as receiver Geno Hall and linebacker Hayes Pullard, who graduated after last season.
‘My Geno Hall is De’Anthony Thomas,’ quarterback Marquis Thompson said of the multi-talented running back-defensive back. ‘That’s the one I’m going to be looking for. He’s going to be doing a little bit of everything--running back, slot receiver, a little bit of everything.’
Crenshaw opens its season at 5 p.m. PDT on Sept. 3 at Suwanee (Ga.) North Gwinnett in a matchup televised live by ESPNU. The Cougars’ other biggest potential stumbling blocks on the way to a second consecutive bowl appearance are a road game against Norco on Sept. 10 and the City Section playoffs.
--Ben Bolch