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Friday, Oct. 09, 2009

James Burns: Hungry Merced

Andrew Mendoza is a rare bird, much like The Burn List.

The Merced senior plays a position haunted by gaudy statistics and records, but admits he isn't much of a numbers muncher.

"To be honest," the Merced running back said, "it doesn't matter how my stats look."

But there are a few digits that make Mendoza's stomach turn faster than Dale Jr. on a road course.

Four, as in four games, four losses.

How about this one: 350 yards of total offense and only 13 freakin' points in a blowout loss at Loomis Del Oro last week.

"If we could have punched the ball in every 100 yards, that's 21 points," Mendoza said, "and with 21 points, we're in that game in the fourth quarter. We didn't execute, and we need to change that."

And so it's gone for Merced, Merced County's embarrassed king. Merced is 0-4, and because two of those games have been played out of this area code, no one really knows what to make of this group.

Until tonight.

The schedule finally softens for Merced, which travels to Loftin Stadium for a showdown with another hobbled title contender, Los Banos.

Before Merced jumped on a bus pointed toward the Westside, The Burn List caught up with Mendoza, who talked about expectations and second chances.

TBL: Fresno Bullard, Napa, Fresno Edison and Del Oro in a span of five weeks. Now that you've walked through the fire, per se, exactly how hot was it?

AM: It was definitely a wake-up call. But as coach (Rob) Scheidt says, we have not played our best ball yet. That's an opportunity we'll get (tonight), to play our best ball against a good team from the Central California Conference.

Hopefully, we'll show everybody that we're not a team that accepts going 0-4. We want to show everybody that we're not that team.

It's not that they were ridiculously good teams. I felt we could hang with them. Against Edison, our defense made some crucial stops, but we had turnovers. We shot ourselves in the foot. We'll change that.

TBL: Being a program not used to losing at this rate or in this fashion, how have the outcomes affected you psychologically?

AM: Like I said, it was a wake-up call. We kept having these good weeks of practice, and then we'd go out on Friday and not get it done. After losing to Bullard and Napa, I think we got caught up in wanting to show everybody that we could win. We were just going for the win. We need to start having fun again, like we did when we started playing at 8 or 9 years old. Back then, it was fun. In high school, it's easy to get distracted by the media and the expectations. You get distracted and lose that love for the game. We need to get it back. We need to get that fire.

TBL: Publicly, have you had to answer for your 0-4 record?

AM: Every day. Every day my classmates are like, "Why haven't you won a game yet?" All I can tell them is that it's going to change this week. "Come out Friday, we'll get our first win." But it doesn't matter what they say or ask. It doesn't faze me. All that matters is that me and my teammates believe we can win (tonight).

But it's definitely a public thing. "How you gonna win the CCC when you can't win a game?" I don't doubt myself or my teammates, but I've started to think we need to do something different. We have the talent. It's obvious.

TBL: How excited are you for league and the chance to finally play like opponents?

AM: Obviously, the hype surrounding the games we've been playing in has been intense -- atmospheres some of us have never seen before. But right now, it's about getting back to teams we're used to playing every year. It's CCC now. At the beginning of the week, our coaches said that we've got to forget about the teams we've played. We're 0-0. We need to start our season off correct. That's how we're looking at it.

This is our second chance to show everybody the team that we are. We're not a team that is OK with going 0-4. We want to show we're still the dominant team in the CCC.

TBL: And who better to make statement against than Los Banos, a team many picked to take your league title?

AM: Before the season even started, everybody was saying that Los Banos-Merced was going to be the game to watch. It's fitting that we're playing them in the first CCC game, so we can prove ourselves.

If people see us get a win against Los Banos, they'll know ... they'll know that Merced is the real deal.

James Burns is sports editor of the Sun-Star. He can be reached at jburns@mercedsun-star.com.