DESERT ADMITS BLAME WRONG.

Byline: Ross Siler Staff Writer

Desert High principal Charlie Hildebrand apologized Monday to Lancaster High officials after his school's athletic director incorrectly accused Eagles football players of vandalizing their locker room following Friday night's football game.

Hildebrand said first-year athletic director Brian Moss wrongly believed the holes in the wall and dented lockers in the room Lancaster used were caused by Eagles players. Moss' comments appeared in a report over the weekend in the Antelope Valley Press.

``We had custodians say the locker room looked better than sometimes it does at the end of the day after PE,'' Hildebrand said. ``The holes had been there for years, and the new lockers we put in the year before didn't have a dent on them.''

There was a derogatory message about Desert scrawled in soap on one of the locker room mirrors, Hildebrand said. But that was not out of the ordinary, the principal added.

``You just expect that,'' Hildebrand said. ``You wipe it off and move on. It took the custodians 10 minutes to clean up the locker room.''

Hildebrand said Moss would call Lancaster on Monday to apologize. He hoped the incident wouldn't damage relations between the school. Desert and Lancaster signed a contract in the offseason to play each other the next two years.

Desert won Friday's game 26-23 and improved to 4-0. It was Desert's first home football game of the year and the first meeting ever between the two schools.

Lancaster High principal Bill Appleton, a former principal at Desert, said he accepted Hildebrand's apology. ``We have no bad feelings toward Desert at all,'' Appleton said.