Ramirez a surprise at Barden Classic

YAKIMA, Wash. — One of the most explosive offensive players on the East roster for Saturday’s Earl Barden All-Star Football Classic wasn’t on the roster at all.

At least, not when he showed up at the game headquarters at Yakima Valley Community College to check in.

That’s because Oscar Ramirez, the Toppenish flash who ranked among the state’s best running backs — any classification — had been dealing with a hamstring injury that was serious enough to convince Toppenish coaches he couldn’t possibly compete in the 15th annual showcase of the top graduating seniors from the smaller-classification schools.

“My coach called in and said I wasn’t going to be able to play because of my hamstring. But I came out anyway,” said Ramirez, who led the CWAC in yards (1,251), yards-per-carry (8.6) and rushing touchdowns (13) in 2008 in leading the Wildcats to their best season in a dozen years.

Ramirez said he tore the hamstring running the 100-meter dash during track season, then took off nearly two months to rehabilitate the injury before pulling the muscle again at the district meet.

Still, he didn’t want to miss a chance at testing himself against the state’s best in the Earl Barden Classic, primarily because he doesn’t know if he’ll ever suit up for football again. Although he plans to try to walk on with the football team at Boise State, where he’ll major in art — he’s an award-winning artist — Ramirez knows making the cut at a top-20 program will be a challenge.

As will trying to play Saturday with a questionable hamstring.

“It feels pretty good right now,” he said after Wednesday’s practice. “Nothing’s happened (to the hamstring) yet, but I really haven’t gone full speed. It scares me a little bit, because that’s when I pulled up — getting up to full speed. Maybe if I break a long run it’ll happen again; I don’t know.

“I might be rushing it a little bit, but I want to play in this game.”

East team head coach Brian Dunn is just as anxious to have Ramirez in his lineup.

“He’s exceptional, and what a great kid,” said Dunn, the head coach at Lakeside High near Spokane. “I keep asking him, ‘You OK to run? You all right?’ And he’s just, ‘I’m good, coach, no problem.’”

Dunn said Ramirez and Royal’s Blair Collins, a 155-pound all-state wide receiver, “are probably our two fastest kids, but there’s another three or four that are right there with them.”

One of those that aren’t far behind in the speed category is Granger’s Mychal Lopez, who played quarterback for the Spartans but can expect to be catching the football in Saturday’s game, not passing it.

“He’s going to start for us at wide receiver,” Dunn said. “I saw him in a playoff game and I thought, now that kid’s a player. He’s an athlete. He’s maybe just an inch behind Collins and Ramirez for the fastest guys on the team.”

Saturday’s game begins at 1 p.m. at Zaepfel Stadium. The game is named in honor of the late Earl Barden Sr., a Yakima businessman and supporter of youth sports who was instrumental in bringing the game to Yakima. Barden died in 1999.