Eisenhower Senior High School

His statistics were outstanding. His poise, unshakable. Nearly everything he did registered high on college recruiters' wish lists. But none of that was really important to quarterback Billy Blanton Friday night. In leading Mater Dei to a 35-14 victory over Eisenhower for the Division I championship at Anaheim Stadium, Blanton passed into another realm of high school football, one that has less to do with attempts and completions than it does with pride. What a way to cap a career!

Dwight D. Eisenhower High School: First in USA Today's national prep football poll, second at Anaheim Stadium, 647th on the pregame blackboard. This is not intended to take anything away from Mater Dei High School, which took away the Southern Section Division I championship from Eisenhower Friday night, 35-14, and left no questions unanswered, no objectives unfulfilled.

Out along the concrete corridors of Mater Dei High School, there has been talk of little else. The mood is high voltage, volcanic. Butcher-paper signs splatter the school buildings, screaming slogans like "Red Attitude!" and "Rock-N-Roll Baby!" Who wouldn't count the days, the hours? Freshman Michael Cunningham puts the situation in its proper perspective. "I haven't been able to study because of it," said Cunningham, an otherwise levelheaded 15-year-old.

Anaheim Stadium officials removed the facility's rain clause Wednesday, ensuring that the Southern Section's Division I championship game between the Mater Dei and Eisenhower high school football teams will be played there, rain or shine. General admission and reserved seat tickets will be on sale at the Freedom Bowl's ticket booth outside Gate 9 at the stadium beginning at noon today.

Inclement weather and Anaheim Stadium's rain clause has dampened the most attractive high school championship football game in Orange County in 11 years. Bill Clark, Southern Southern administrator, said only 6,000 tickets have been allocated to Mater Dei and Rialto Eisenhower, participants in the Division I championship game Friday night at Anaheim Stadium, because of the facility's rain clause. "The rain clause is in effect because of the Freedom Bowl (Dec.

Good news, Mater Dei football fans. Eisenhower--the nation's top-ranked team, the team the Monarchs are up against in Friday's Division I championship game--actually has a weakness. We just can't tell you what it is. C'mon, think we want to give you any more hope than you already have? Give you further reason to believe in that Mater Dei mystique? Think we want the streets of Santa Ana overrun with priests shouting "Red Attitude! Red Attitude!" and other Monarch mottoes? OK, OK.

Top-seeded Rialto Eisenhower is undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation by USA Today heading into the Southern Section Division I playoffs, but the high-flying Eagles can be beaten, according to El Toro Coach Mike Milner. Milner, whose team lost to Eisenhower, 20-9, in the fourth week of the season, offered some tips to the 15 teams standing between Eisenhower and a section championship.

Eisenhower High easily passed the first big test of its No. 1 national ranking Saturday by shutting out rival Fontana, 14-0, in a Southern Section battle of unbeaten teams at Eisenhower. With heavy security closely watching the standing-room-only crowd of 9,000, the Eagles clinched the Citrus Belt League title for the second year in a row and probably will be top-seeded in the Division I playoffs, which begin in two weeks. Eisenhower, ranked No. 1 in the Southern Section by The Times, No.

The response was electric last month when the stadium announcer at Rialto Eisenhower High School told fans before a game against Pasadena Muir that their Eagles were the nation's No. 1-rated team in every prep poll. After having been the hunter for years, the Eagles were suddenly the hunted, with every opponent focused on defeating them. And Coach Tom Hoak has learned that being regarded as the best can be a problem.

The alleged offense is arrogance. But who's offending whom? The answer might not make a lick of difference in the outcome of the Eisenhower-El Toro and Fontana-Edison football games Friday night, but the question has nonetheless fueled some pregame debate. Arrogance was the word used by coaches Tom Hoak of Rialto Eisenhower and Dick Bruich of Fontana to describe their counterparts in Orange County. Both contend that O.C. coaches--as well as their players, fans, etc.