Venice Football Rested for Home Opener

Having an extra week to rest and heal is just what Venice High Coach Angelo Gasca and his team needed after a 41-21 loss at Chaminade on Sept. 9. However, the Gondos have also been hard at work preparing for their home opener tonight against St. Francis of La Canada.

Venice (1-1) has sustained injuries at some key positions that have had a domino effect, forcing Gasca to shuffle the lineup. One major change is that senior starting quarterback Dean Sarabia will start tonight at middle linebacker in place of the injured Daniel Magallanes. Right tackle Marcus Anderson, who suffered an injury the week of the Chaminade game, also won't play.

"I'd say that the bye week came at a good time mostly because we're banged up," Gasca said. "If we had to play last week we would've had six guys out. Every team deals with injuries, though. That's part of the game. In the long run, guys getting experience in different positions will make us a better team."

Gasca said Sarabia would see some time at quarterback but most of the snaps this week will probably go to sophomore Alex Diamont, who led the Gondos' comeback in their 34-27 season-opening victory over Harvard-Westlake.

"He's started 15 games for us at quarterback going back to last year  but he played [linebacker] some on frosh/soph," Gasca said of Sarabia. "He's had two weeks to prepare and he's a smart player so I think he'll do well."

St. Francis, coached by former Newhall Hart All-CIF quarterback Jim Bonds, is in the Mission League along with Chaminade, but presents a whole different challenge. The Golden Knights (2-0) are ranked fifth in the Western Division of the CIF Southern Section and blanked Crescenta Valley 35-0 last week.

"They're bigger than Chaminade but don't have quite as much team speed," Gasca said. "Last year, we were missing a lot more key guys but they beat us pretty good (31-13) and they're a good program. It's a good matchup and I'm looking forward to it."  

Gasca took responsibility for the loss to Chaminade, saying he didn't have his team well enough prepared. He feels better about this week's preparation and said that with two more tough games on the horizon his team could be 1-4 going into Western League play or it could be 4-1. MaxPreps has Venice ranked fourth in the City Section.

"When you factor in the Zero Week game and the scrimmage with Garfield the week before that, we're five weeks into our season and we're finally getting to play at home so hopefully that'll help us," Gasca said. "It's important to beat some of these Southern Section schools. We promised ourselves to have fun, love the game and play Venice football."

Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at Venice High. 

Windward On the Road Saturday

For the third straight week, Windward will play an 11-man game, this time against Santa Clarita Christian at Canyon High School in Canyon Country at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The Wildcats (1-1) are hoping that playing bigger schools will toughen them up for their run at a second consecutive CIF Southern Section 8-Man Division 1 championship. They routed Riverside Christian 40-20 last Friday at Palisades High.

The Cardinals (1-1), meanwhile, will try to bounce back from last week's 45-6 loss to Vasquez. Santa Clarita Christian, which plays in the Northeast Division (XIII), beat the Wildcats in a shootout, 58-50, last season.

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