Dec. 13, 1986

Fallbrook coach Tom Pack was watching film the morning of the 1986 CIF San Diego Section 3A championship and made one of the most-decisive decisions of his coaching career.

"I decided not to run the ball," Pack said of his team's impending matchup with Vista at then-Jack Murphy Stadium. "We were going to throw it every time.

"We ended up running the ball 14 times, but they were all inside the 10-yard line."

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Vista had defeated the Warriors by 27 points earlier that season, a game in which Fallbrook had run for just 16 yards and relied heavily on the screen pass.

"So we scrapped the screen, too," Pack said. "We threw the ball down the field almost every down."

The result was a shocking 28-14 upset of the No. 1-ranked Panthers.

"There was so much hype surrounding that game," said Bill Dunckel, a star receiver and kicker on that Fallbrook team. "There was a lot of talk about how they were going to run over us.

"It was a championship game involving neighboring towns. We had never beaten Vista before that, and there was bad blood between the teams.

"But it was great in that it was two small towns that loved their football teams. Both towns shut down that night. It seemed like everyone in town was at the game."

More than 18,000 people were in the stadium. And they witnessed a stunner.

Fallbrook led 14-0 at the half, 21-0 at the end of three quarters and 28-0 in the fourth before Vista tried to rally.

The night before the Fallbrook-Vista clash, Capistrano Valley, the No. 1-ranked team in the state, had lost to El Toro. So a Vista victory over Fallbrook likely would have given the Panthers a mythical state championship.

"Vista was No. 1 in the preseason (San Diego Section) polls, and we were No. 2," Pack said. "But we worked all summer building a house to make a trip to Hawaii, and we struggled through the season.

"We lost our first two league games. Vista was, by far, the best team in the county."

No one knew it, Pack said, but Warriors quarterback Scott Barrick was playing with mononucleosis and an enlarged spleen.

"He practiced about 30 minutes during the championship week," Pack said. "And he wouldn't have been able to play, but the Chargers fitted him with a pad to cover his spleen."

Barrick threw for 343 yards. Dunckel said 10 of Barrick's completions went to him.

"But the star for us that night was Gary Nelson," said Dunckel, who now coaches baseball at Valley Center High.

Nelson had suffered a knee injury during the team's trip to Hawaii and struggled all season.

"Vista was double and triple teaming me, so all my catches were for short yardage," Dunckel said.

"Gary was the guy who got open for the big catches."

Dunckel stressed that Fallbrook's win over Sweetwater in the playoffs, after trailing 21-0, gave the Warriors the confidence to challenge Vista.

"That Sweetwater game was the most amazing comeback I've ever been involved in," he said.

Pack countered by saying "But I think Fallbrook beating Vista was the biggest upset in San Diego football history."

- John Maffei