Inglewood’s 106 points denounced
Inglewood Morningside football coach Brian Collins did not have kind words for the Inglewood High coaching staff on Saturday morning when discussing his team’s 106-0 loss to the Sentinels in a game Inglewood quarterback Justyn Martin threw 13 touchdowns passes, including a two-point conversion pass with a 104-0 lead.
“It was a classless move,” said Collins, a first-year head coach at Morningside. “I told them, ‘Go play St. John Bosco and Mater Dei.’ ”
Collins said he was proud of his players for not quitting. He said a running clock did not start until the second quarter despite attempts to switch to a running clock earlier. Inglewood led 59-0 after the first quarter.
“The refs asked them to run the clock and they refused,” Collins said.
Inglewood head coach Mil’Von James is in his third season. He was head coach at Hawkins in the City Section until being fired following the 2016 season when his team had to forfeit every victory for using ineligible players and the program was placed on two years’ probation for rules violations. He has seven players on this year’s team committed to major universities. All are transfer students.
James has not responded to an email seeking comment about the lopsided win.
Collins said he was surprised to see Martin, who committed to UCLA earlier in the week, play throughout.
“I wouldn’t do that to any team — keep your quarterback commit to UCLA in until the end of the game, taking a chance with an injury,” he said. “It wasn’t good sportsmanship.”
Both schools are part of the Inglewood Unified School District, which said in a statement it was “saddened beyond words” about the outcome. “We will conduct a full investigation and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that a similar outcome never happens again under an IUSD athletic program,” the district statement said.
A statement released by the Southern Southern on Saturday “condemns, in the strongest terms, results such as these.”
The full statement: “The CIF Southern Section expects that all athletic contests are to be conducted under the strictest code of good sportsmanship. We expect coaches, players, officials, administrators and students to adhere to the Six Pillars of Character — Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship. A score of 106-0 does not represent these
ideals. The CIF-SS condemns,
in the strongest terms, results such as these. It is our expectation that the Inglewood administration will work towards putting in place an action plan so that an event such as this does not repeat itself.”
This isn’t the first time a district team has come under scrutiny for running up a score.
In 1990, Morningside’s Lisa Leslie scored 101 of her team’s 102 points in the first half of a girls’ basketball game against South Torrance. South Torrance refused to come back out after halftime to finish the game. The final score was 10224.
Collins said he will use the game as offseason motivation for his players. Morningside finishes the season 2-8. Inglewood is 8-0 and will play in the Southern Section Division 2 playoffs.
“I’m going to print out the score real big and put it in the weight room so they can see it every day and use it as positive reminder,” Collins said.
City Section playoffs
The City Section unveiled its football playoff pairings on Saturday using this season’s results while relying on CalPreps.com’s power ratings to place teams in playoff divisions. Wilmington Banning received the No. 1 seed for the eight-team Open Division, followed by No. 2 San Pedro, No. 3 Palisades and No. 4 Lincoln.
The seeding process was complicated by waiting to see which schools might have to opt out if they did not have at least 18 fully vaccinated players. The Los Angeles Unified School District is requiring students who want to participate in sports be fully vaccinated by Sunday. One school that was uncertain of having enough players, Crenshaw, was included in the pairings.
Although Banning earned the No. 1 Open Division seed thanks to a Marine League championship and a win over San Pedro, the Pilots won’t have All-City running back Jakob Galloway, who has been lost for the season because of a knee injury.