Farrar, the Tutor, Hopes He Doesn’t Get a Lesson

For once, Nordhoff High Coach Cliff Farrar hopes he hasn’t imparted too much wisdom on his former football players.

Farrar will coach against two of his ex-players when the Rangers (6-3, 3-0 in league play) travel to Moorpark (8-1, 3-0) tonight for a game that will determine the Frontier League champion.

Moorpark Coach Ron Wilford played for Farrar at Simi Valley High and Moorpark assistant Fran Fredette played for Farrar at Oxnard High.

“That was quite a long time ago,” said Farrar, who coached the players in the 1970s. “We’ve been friends ever since, but we enjoy the rivalry.”

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Backward: Antelope Valley, the school that has given you all-area and Division I college running backs Tommie Smith, Jermaine Lewis and Tony Walker, has struggled with its rushing game this season.

The Antelopes’ top ground-gainer through eight games is quarterback Justin Mobley with 345 yards, 28 fewer yards than gained by the team’s defensive secondary.

Antelope Valley’s defense has returned 10 interceptions for 373 yards, including five for touchdowns.

Joe Manning has returned interceptions 75, 75 and 37 yards for touchdowns. Teammates Nakia Manick and Jon Molock also have returned interceptions for scores.

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Homeless: Valencia plays Canyon at Canyon High tonight, but Valencia is the home team.

Huh?

The Vikings don’t have a stadium, so Canyon High is their designated home field.

But that doesn’t mean they get to use it all the time.

This is will be the Vikings’ third game at Canyon High. They played a home game against Hart at College of the Canyons, normally the Indians’ home field. The rest have been away games.

“We don’t have a home field,” Viking Coach Brian Stiman said. “[Canyon] is just another place for us to go and play.”

With road games against Burroughs and Burbank, which uses Burroughs High as its home field, the Vikings have played at Burroughs as much as at Canyon. Stiman would prefer to use College of the Canyons as a home field, but Hart and Saugus have dibs there.

“Every year we just wait to see what field is available to use,” Stiman said. “We kind of follow behind and pick up the leftovers.”

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Pick and roll: Westlake sophomore quarterback Zac Wasserman is learning by trial and error. Four times, Wasserman has thrown passes that were intercepted and returned for touchdowns.

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Footnote: Ramiro Esqueda’s 30-yard field goal as time expired that gave Kennedy High a 17-15 victory over San Fernando was the senior’s third game-winning kick in the past three years.

In 1995, Esqueda kicked a field goal that was the margin of victory against Garfield in the first round of the City Section 4-A Division playoffs. Last year, Esqueda kicked a game-winner with three minutes left in a first-round victory over Palisades.

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Starr trek: Taft Coach Troy Starr picked up his first unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in six years last week.

Asked what kind of punishment he’d recommend for Starr, quarterback Steve Alvarado said, “He needs to do up-downs with us after conditioning. You run in place, do push-ups, run in place.”

Alvarado, though, is concerned about Starr’s conditioning.

“I saw him running a couple laps after practice and he was dying after two laps,” Alvarado said.

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Passing grade: Peter Dirksen of L.A. Baptist threw four touchdown passes without an interception in Friday’s 42-0 victory over Maranatha.

Dirksen has 23 touchdowns and has had one pass intercepted for the season.

The only interception Dirksen has thrown was in week three against Brentwood. He has thrown more than 128 passes since without an interception.

His quarterback rating, based on the NFL rating system, is an astronomical 140.857. An NFL quarterback rarely has a rating higher than 100 using the complex rating system, which accounts for touchdowns, interceptions, completion percentage and yards.

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Double loss: Chatsworth tight end Chris Tapia is probably out for the season after breaking a leg in last week’s loss to Taft.

Tapia, a 5-10, 215-pound senior, caught six passes this season, including two for touchdowns.