Immediately after quarterbacking the final game of his team's 1-9 season, then-Nipomo sophomore Mason Sperakos figured better days were ahead.

“I just knew we had the people, the personnel, the coaching to get there,” he said.

He was right.

Fast-forward to Sperakos' junior year. Nipomo finished 5-5 and just missed getting into the CIF Southern Section playoffs. Fast-forward again to his senior season. That time, the Titans DID get in.

Nipomo went 5-5 during the regular season and finished tied for third place in the Los Padres League. The Titans got the third of the LPL's four seeds thanks to a pre-season draw. They took Tri-Valley League tri-champion Ojai Nordhoff to overtime in the first half before falling 23-20 in the first round at Nordhoff.

The Titans drew a high number in the draw, but they played themselves into that playoff spot. Sperakos did more than his share. He completed 121 of his 215 passes for 1,503 yards. Sperakos tossed 15 touchdown passes and just three interceptions.

His performance was good enough to earn him the Santa Maria Times' All-Area Football Team Most Valuable Player award. Sperakos thrived under the offense that first-year head coach Russ Edwards put in. Edwards is the Times' All-Area Coach of the Year.

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The Titans' new offense “was much more my style - just dropping back and throwing the ball instead of just throwing on the run, short passes,” as he did his junior year with Nipomo's old wing-T offense, said Sperakos.

With Nipomo's varied sets this past season, “I was just dropping back, throwing the deep ball.”

“We felt he would have a much better year as a pocket thrower - he throws a very good deep ball,” said Edwards.

“The statistics really did not lie. He did not make many throws, other than the actual interceptions, where guys had chances to make interceptions. He was very efficient. A 56 percent completion percentage is a very good percentage for a high school quarterback to have.”

Los Padres League All-Purpose Player of the Year Scott Cathcart of St. Joseph is on the All-Area Team. Los Padres League Offensive Back of the Year Bennie Garrett of Cabrillo and Offensive Lineman of the Year Tyler Vogt of Pioneer Valley join Sperakos on the All-Area Team Offense.

So do linemen Blake Clark of Nipomo, Riley Gauld of Santa Ynez, P.J. Cano of St. Joseph and Steven Alurac of Righetti; wide receivers Travis Biegel of St. Joseph and Diego De Miranda of Pioneer Valley; quarterbacks Gavin Kelly of St. Joseph and Justin Level of Righetti; fullback George Lopez of Arroyo Grande; and running backs Justin Iniguez of Santa Ynez and Billy Chambers of Nipomo.

Co-LPL Defensive Back of the Year Kyle Webb of Nipomo heads the All-Area Team Defense. The linemen are Brandon Rainey and Korben Boaz of Nipomo, Justin Buchan of Pioneer Valley, John Sua of St. Joseph and Drew Wendler of Arroyo Grande. The linebackers are Ryan McKellar of St. Joseph, Nick Leyden of Pioneer Valley, Jesse Aragon of Righetti and Kenny Sugishita of Arroyo Grande. The defensive backs are Ray Cano of Nipomo, Albert Squires of Pioneer Valley, Masson Blow of Lompoc and Adam Wilson of Righetti. The All-Area utility player is Steven Grigg of Santa Maria.

There is a good chance that the All-Area MVP's prior football season will be his last.

He is a left-handed pitcher for the Nipomo baseball varsity. “It would be nice to play football in college, but I think I'll just stick to baseball,” said Sperakos.

“I've talked to Cal State Northridge. A little bit to Cal Poly too, but not so much. I've talked pretty steadily with Northridge, and if I go there I'll stay a pitcher.

“I wasn't real happy with the season I had last year, but I'm going to work real hard during the off-season to improve it,” next spring.

“He's 5 feet, 11 inches,” Edwards said of Sperakos. “If he was a 6-foot-3-inch pocket passer, everybody would be after him. But the fact that he's 5-11 makes it harder,” for Sperakos to get a football scholarship.

Nipomo finished 5-6 overall last season but 4-3 in league games. The Titans were 3-4 in league games the year before. “We won that one more league game, and we were in every game except Morro Bay - and Morro Bay has blown a lot of people out,” Edwards said.

The top-ranked Pirates shut out Nipomo 34-0. Playa Del Rey St. Bernard upset Morro Bay in the quarterfinals.

Edwards completed his third year with the five-year Nipomo program. He got his first teaching and coaching jobs in Shandon, where he coached from 1997-99. He guided the Outlaws to the eight-man divisional championship game in 1998 and the Coast Valley League title in 1999.

The Outlaws and Valley Christian Academy were CVL co-champs in ‘98.

He was the defensive coordinator last year and the offensive coordinator at Nipomo two years ago. Edwards came to the Titans from San Luis Obispo. He spent his last year there in 2004 as a defensive coordinator.

“The pro-style offense was what we ran at SLO when I was there, and we thought it could work here,” Edwards said.

“I felt going in that we would have a real good season. We had 33 seniors, and the group was 8-2 as freshmen and 8-2 as a JV group their sophomore season,” except for sophomores such as Sperakos, of course, who played on the varsity.

“The coaching staff pretty much stayed intact. They got 'em excited about the new offense. We had a really good program last summer - the guys were really dedicated. It was our best summer ever in terms of what we did in passing league and weightlifting competitions.”

Before last season, Sperakos wasn't in the position other quarterbacks Edwards had worked with had been in. “At SLO, we'd had the luxury of a junior quarterback waiting in the wings, learning the system, then playing his senior year,” Nipomo's coach said.

“The system (we played this year) is a read-type offense for the quarterback. He has to make quick reads on what the linebackers and defensive backs are doing in coverage. Mason really learned the system nicely and played well for us.”

His learning curve, Sperakos said, involved studying scouting reports “every week. It's not much extra time, but once you do study it, it's all downhill from there. It's pretty easy.”

In the Nipomo football program's case, familiarity bred the opposite of contempt. That, Edwards said, helped the Titans make their run into the playoffs.

“This is a really close group. This is a core group that's been intact (playing football) since they were 10 years old. They like each other a lot. They're very close.

“Jim Chambers, Billy's dad, was a long-time youth coach at Nipomo. He went up through the ranks with Billy, coached at the freshman level, JV and then varsity with us.” The Billy that Edwards referred to is running back Chambers. Chambers was one of the area rushing leaders his junior and senior seasons.

“We hang out together a lot,” said Sperakos. “Last year, how we didn't get in (missing after coming so close) just gave us more motivation to make it to (the playoffs). It was a great feeling when we got in, knowing we had fulfilled the goal.”

The legacy for this group of Nipomo seniors, Edwards said, “is intact. They are the best team in Nipomo (varsity) history. They were the best freshmen, the best sophomores in Nipomo history. They set the standard for all Nipomo groups to follow.”

December 9, 2007