Gondos Seek Victory Over Westchester on Friday

One down, and four to go.

That's the way Venice High football coach Angelo Gasca is looking at his team's season. The Gondos snapped their four-game losing streak with a big 45-21 victory over Fairfax last week and now they look to start their first winning streak of the year by beating Westchester on Friday night in a game that has come to be known as the "Battle of the Beach."

Westchester began Western League play with a 4-1 record but suffered a surprising 27-20 road loss to Hamilton last week. The Comets will try to make amends by handing Venice its first league defeat since 2005 when Fairfax turned the trick.

Since then, the Gondos have reeled off 29 league wins in a row. to make it an even 30 Gasca's team will have to slow down quarterback Nicholas King and a rushing attack led by fullback Daryn Walton and running back Darrin Palmer.

"We know every team [in the league] is going to get up for us, and that's a good thing because it keeps us focused," Gasca said. "It's hard to believe that there are less than four weeks left in the season. We needed to win just to get our confidence back last week, so beating Fairfax was huge."

Sophomore Alexander Diamont has been taking the majority of the snaps at quarterback since the second half of the Gondos' season opener at Harvard-Westlake, and Gasca doesn't plan on deviating from that pattern now, especially given that senior Dean Sarabia, the team's other quarterback, has gotten better each week at linebacker.

"We're just not there yet, we still can get better as a team but I think we're on our way," Gasca said. "We have to take it one game at a time. Westchester is always a tough, physical team and I expect no different Friday."

The Comets come in having surrendered the second fewest amount of points (136) of any team in the league–60 less than Venice–and have also scored the most (186), 14 more than the second-place Gondos. However, Westchester has played a far weaker schedule and that will work in Venice's favor come kickoff.

"Our nonleague opponents went 18-4, so we played as difficult a schedule as anyone in the City," Gasca said. "The nonleague portion of our schedule didn't turn out the way we wanted it to, but we played tough teams on purpose and that's to prepare us for league."

Venice is in pursuit of its 10th straight league title. The last team to take the league crown besides the Gondos was Westchester in 2001. Venice won last year's meeting 22-13.

Friday's Western League matchups:

Fairfax (3-3, 0-1) at University (3-3, 0-1), 3 p.m.

Westchester (4-2, 0-1) at Venice (2-4, 1-0), 7 p.m.

Hamilton (4-2, 1-0) at Palisades (1-5, 1-0), 7 p.m.