Poway-RBV game will be quite a rush

By: TOM SHANAHAN - For The North County Times | Thursday, December 6, 2007 1:12 AM PST ∞

On Friday night, three 1,000-yard rushers will take the field at Qualcomm Stadium when the Rancho Buena Vista High football team meets Poway for the CIF San Diego Section Division I championship.

Is a 100-yard football field big enough for a game featuring three 1,000-yard rushers?

A better question, suggests Poway running back Nick Ricciardulli, is this: Will be there enough time to appreciate watching them play?

"This game is going to be fast on the clock," Ricciardulli said. "It's two good teams that like to run the ball."

Poway (11-0), the Palomar League champion and No. 1-ranked in the section, advanced to the final with a running game led by the Ricciardulli, a 5-foot-7, 151-pound junior. He's carried 221 times for 1,376 yards and has scored 19 touchdowns.

Rancho Buena Vista (9-3), a third-place Avocado League team ranked No. 10 at the end regular season, knocked off No. 2-seeded Carlsbad and No. 3 Eastlake in the playoffs. The Longhorns have a pair of 1,000-yard rushers in fullback Ian Sluss and running back Noah Jackson.

Sluss, a 6-0, 215-pound senior, has carried 190 times for 1,410 yards and scored 11 touchdowns. Jackson, a 5-8, 193-pound senior, has 147 carries for 1,388 yards and 19 touchdowns.

"I wasn't expecting to rush for 1,000 yards," Sluss said. "But after that first game, Noah and I both made it a goal to get 1,000."

That first game was a 48-21 romp over Temecula Chapparal, in which Sluss carried 15 times for 208 yards and Jackson had 19 carries for 202 yards.

Similarly, Ricciardulli started out thinking that a good year for him would be 500 yards. Then he opened the season with 20 carries for 176 yards and a touchdown in a 27-14 win over Eastlake.

Something else the two teams shared this year is that both changed their offense to fit their returning talent.

Ricciardulli had been a slotback as a sophomore on the varsity, but with a new starting quarterback and an experienced offensive line returning, fourth-year Poway coach Damian Gonzalez emphasized the run out of the same I-back offense.

"It's the same formation, but we had a third-year starter at quarterback last year, so this year we wanted to run the ball more," Gonzalez said. "We knew Nick could be a talented running back when we switched him, but the question was how durable he would be."

Don't let Ricciardulli's size fool you. He has broken tackles by linemen and run over linebackers.

"He's a tough kid who can absorb a hit and deliver a hit," Gonzalez said. "He runs like a big guy and has a motor that never stops."

Eventually teams started keying on Ricciardulli, but by then senior quarterback Tynan Murray had gained experience. That allowed the Titans to spread the ball around to senior tight end Ryan Deehan, the Colorado-bound recruit, and senior slotback Jared Relyea.

RBV coach Eric Jorgensen is a first-year head coach for the Longhorns, but his tenure as an assistant dates to the 1988 and '89 teams that won back-to-back CIF titles (2A in 1988 and 3A in 1989) with the triple option under Craig Bell.

The '89 team featured a pair of 2,000-yard rushers and racked up 5,571 total rushing yards. Markeith Ross gained 2,220 and O.J. Hall had 2,098.

This year's RBV offense hasn't topped the staggering milestone of 5,000, but the Longhorns' 3,877 rushing yards leads North County by nearly 700 (San Pasqual is second with 3,187).

"That's the offense I grew up with here, and I thought we had the kids to run it with Ian at fullback and Noah to run outside," Jorgensen said. "Our linemen have the body type for that offense -- a lot of angle blocking."

Sluss had been a blocking back previously. Guess which offense he prefers?

"I like running the ball," said Sluss, who still gets opportunities to hit people as a starting linebacker.

Jackson also does double duty as a starting safety, but he doesn't mind sharing carries with Sluss.

"The reason we've rushed for 1,000 yards is our offensive linemen," Jackson said. "They're the ones opening up the big holes for us. This is a fun offense."

Spoken like a grateful running back -- one of three in this game.