CONTROVERSY AND SUCCESS WESTLAKE'S TRANSFER QB HAS TITLE SHOT.

Byline: Matthew Kredell Staff Writer

As Rudy Carpenter walked off the football field following warm-ups for Westlake's semifinal game at Moorpark High last week, a fan leaned over the railing and spit on him.

Each road game produces a scene reminiscent of a murderer being marched through the town square, pelted with rotten fruit on his way to a public execution. People draw Newbury Park Panthers paws on signs next to Carpenter's name. They chant ``Let's go Panthers'' as he is introduced in the starting lineup. They ask how much Westlake pays him a week. They hurl insults.

The quarterback receives abuse usually reserved for select criminals because he committed the sin of transferring eight miles down the road from Newbury Park to Westlake.

As the Warriors prepare to play St. Bonaventure of Ventura for the Southern Section Div. IV title tonight at Moorpark College, all of the petty gestures in the world won't change the truth - Carpenter made the right decision.

``Despite all of that, I think this is the best move I could have made for myself,'' Carpenter said. ``It has benefited me in so many ways. I've done so many things that I wasn't able to do at Newbury Park.''

Like play in December.

Carpenter toiled for a bad Newbury Park team last year. He passed for 3,129 yards - including more than 500 yards in one game twice - but all that got the Panthers were three victories.

Now he is one game away from leading Westlake (13-0) to the first undefeated season in school history.

``I can't even tell you how special this has been,'' Carpenter said. ``I've been dreaming about going 14-0 and winning a Southern Section championship my entire life. It couldn't happen at Newbury Park. To think I've been given the opportunity to compete for one this week is awesome.''

Winning has been an enjoyable byproduct of the transfer, though other benefits will have a more lasting effect.

Carpenter is a real quarterback now. At Newbury Park, they would pass every down and defenses didn't have to respect the run. They would drop some defenders back in the secondary and blitz others.

Carpenter had no time to set his feet and read patterns. He chucked balls up half the time and scrambled for his life the rest. Carpenter ended up the team's leading rusher with 306 yards.

Nobody is more qualified to speak of the difference this season than Ryan Sorenson, an offensive lineman who also transferred from Newbury Park to Westlake and has seen Carpenter's transition.

``He's gotten a lot better,'' Sorenson said. ``He used to run around like a chicken with his head cut off. Now he has more faith in the offensive line. He steps up and throws in the pocket.''

Carpenter no longer has that raw look that he carried even at the beginning of this season. He has a quarterback coach, something he didn't have at Newbury Park. Darryl Smith, father of former Kansas State and current NFL Europe quarterback Cody Smith, taught Carpenter mechanics and stressed that he stay in the pocket.

Though his yardage numbers are down (2,434), Carpenter's efficiency is way up. He doesn't have to pass as much for Westlake. He often hardly plays in the second half because of big leads. However, he has 34 touchdowns to just five interceptions after throwing 22 picks last year.

Michael Stuart points to a 69-yard touchdown pass he caught from Carpenter in the semifinals as an example of the quarterback's progress. Stuart went over the middle on a slow-developing play and caught a perfect pass in stride. Earlier in the season, Stuart said Carpenter would have taken off running before he got open.

Stuart entered the season known as a defensive end, where he wasn't getting much college recruiting attention because he is undersized for the position at 220 pounds. Carpenter has helped Stuart increase his numbers and get attention at receiver, where he earned a scholarship offer to USC.

``At the beginning of the season, I was taking trips as a defensive end,'' Stuart said. ``USC (coach Pete Carroll) came out to a game and saw what I could do at receiver with Rudy throwing. I think it definitely helped to have Rudy to get me the ball and make me look good.''

Carpenter already was on the recruiting map at Newbury Park. But playing for a high-profile team like Westlake has gotten him offers from Brigham Young and every Pacific-10 Conference school except USC and UCLA.

That's why Carpenter's father Scott no longer wonders if pushing Rudy to transfer was the right decision, given the abuse he has had to put up with.

``When we were at a USC camp in the summer, Pete Carroll came up to me and said, 'I'll tell you what Mr. Carpenter, the best thing you could have done for your kid was to take him to Westlake High. I'm pretty aggressive with my recruiting. I go all over California and, out of all the high schools I see, I can't tell you a high school that runs a better practice and gets more out of the kids than Westlake.

``I heard all these idiots out there saying look at what he's doing to his kid. Well, when coach Carroll tells me that, it makes all that (garbage) go out in the trash.''

Scott Carpenter pushed his son to transfer since before his sophomore year, when he had a disagreement with Newbury Park coach George Hurley. Scott wanted Rudy to stay on junior varsity to gain experience at quarterback. Hurley wanted to move Rudy up to varsity but play him at receiver and defensive back.

Scott threatened to transfer Rudy then, but backed off when Rudy said that he wanted to stay.

Rudy began to change his mind last year when he felt he was being treated badly by baseball coach Mike Lee, complained to the school's administration and didn't receive the support he expected.

Carpenter transferred before the spring semester last season in hopes of playing baseball at Westlake. However, transfer eligibility concerns kept him on junior varsity. Nobody believed he transferred because of baseball, but Carpenter received some vindication when Lee was fired following the season.

``I'm happy for the kids now, that they don't have to deal with him anymore, but I'm kind of irritated that I had to go through so much unnecessarily,'' Rudy Carpenter said. ``If they fired him earlier, I probably would have stayed.''

But Carpenter does admit that the transfer also had to do with football, the talks his father had been having with him for years about the benefit transferring would have on his college future, and a confrontation with Hurley when the coach heard he was thinking of transferring that pushed him over the edge.

Carpenter understands why his transfer would anger Newbury Park fans.

``I can totally understand why parents and kids are mad that I transferred from Newbury Park,'' Carpenter said. ``I'm not going to lie. It wasn't really fair to them. I was doing what was in my best interests, not their best interests, and obviously it didn't help their team.''

What he doesn't understand is the petty abuse he has had to endure, much of it not even coming from Newbury Park but fans of other Marmonte League schools.

Matthew Kredell, [phone]

matthew.kredell(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) Rudy Carpenter, who made a controversial transfer from Newbury Park, will lead Westlake in the Div. IV title game tonight.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

Box:

ST. BONAVENTURE (13-0) vs. WESTLAKE (13-0)