By DICK SPARRER
Just try to convince a bunch of Sunnyvale youth football players that the Super Bowl won't be played until January.
As far as they're concerned, the Super Bowl is played in Florida in December, and it's coming this weekend.
The Sunnyvale Micro Rockets and Black Knights have qualified for the national finals in Orlando, Fla. And they hope to be playing there at Cypress Creek High School on Dec. 14 when national championships will be decided in their respective divisions.
The Micro Rockets and Black Knights each won conference and regional titles to earn their places in Florida. The Rockets play a first-round game on Dec. 11, hoping to advance to the Junior Midget Super Bowl on Dec. 14, and the Knights also open on Wednesday with hopes of advancing to the Pee Wee Super Bowl on Saturday.
The teams qualified for the trip east by winning three playoff games apiece in the Peninsula Pop Warner Football League, then winning at the Pacific Northwest Regionals.
Micro Rockets
The Micro Rockets won their trip to Florida with an easy 26-6 victory over Sparks, Nev., in the regionals over Thanksgiving weekend. But winning the conference title wasn't quite as easy.
It took a fourth-quarter touchdown to help the Micro Rockets pull out a tight 14-8 win over Oak Grove in the Peninsula Pop Warner championship game.
Steven Nichols ran seven yards for a key fourth-quarter TD to lift the Rockets to the title-clinching victory.
Sunnyvale beat Sparks a week later to push its season record to 13-1.
Nichols and Javier Eredia are top running backs for the Micro Rockets and Brandon Dougherty is the club's quarterback. James Henderson, Marcus Harper and Anthony Baza are the leading receivers on the club.
Dougherty works behind an offensive line of tackles Christopher Maston and Michael Ball, guards Luke Estrella and Eric Dove and center Robert Morales.
Eredia goes both ways for the Rockets, doubling as a linebacker. He plays beside linebacker Sean Mattade on the defensive side.
Brandon Trujillo and Fricek Rodriguez are starting defensive ends for the Rockets with Laniel Harvey and Chad Tally at tackles and Victor Lopez and Daniel Sanchez in the secondary.
Head coach Marvin Jeffcoats has a deep bench that includes defensive linemen Matthew Leavenworth and Matthew Cavlan, defensive back Jamie Cortes, noseguard Nathan Soudani, and offensive linemen Michael Marr, Douglas McIntire, Andrew Nolan and Kevin Robinson.
Black Knights
There were few close games for the Black Knights during the regular season as they outscored opponents 370-36 on the road to a 14-0 record.
The Knights rolled through their 1996 schedule before running into a tough Redwood City foe in the second round of the conference playoffs. Sunnyvale pulled out a tight 16-12 victory, then went on to crush the Oak Grove Razorbacks 28-0 to clinch the Peninsula Pop Warner title.
The champs won a spot in the Pacific Northwest Regionals by taking the conference title, and they knocked off the Fairfield Falcons 28-19 to earn the trip to the Florida.
Quarterback Troy Tulowitski and running back Robert Perry sparked the offense for the Knights this past season. Perry was the club's leading scorer.
Douglas Dunbar and Donny Johnson were other top backs running behind an offensive front wall of tackles Kai Garcia and Eddie Morales, guards Jerome Iese and Joey Elenterio and center Leonard Wells.
"We have an outstanding offensive line," head coach Dolf Placencia said. "And we have some excellent receivers."
Hauling in Tulowitski passes this fall have been Damonte Harrello, Will Faules, Gil Aragon and Nick DeLaTorre.
Most of the players serve double duty on the defensive line of the scrimmage line for the Knights.
Perry, Dunbar, Elenterio and Iese are top notch linebackers, and Garcia, Wells and Morales lead the charge up front. DeLaTorre starts at noseguard for the Knights and Harrell stars at defensive end.
Tulowitski is the club's free safety with Johnson, Aragon and Faules other key members of the secondary.
Placencia says the talent doesn't drop off at all when he goes to his bench. He singled out running back Willie Grimes, receiver John Hyrne, utility player Delaney Durgin and linemen Matt Martinez, Brian Lincoln, Daniel Sizemore and Chip Lewis as top players for the Knights.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, December 11, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.