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Poway’s quest for a trilogy was in full swing. Coach Neville Saner’s team, San Diego Section winners the last two seasons, made it clear from the first tip that things weren’t going to change. The Titans opened the season on Dec. 3 with an 81-48 victory over established and well regarded El Capitan, which would earn a ...

As Tom Shanahan of the Evening Tribune described on Jan 18, 1986, “The Oceanside-El Camino football rivalry may not stir much passion, but emotions in the city’s basketball rivalry have overheated.” “Boiled over,” added Shanahan of the antipathy felt by these too-close-for-comfort North County neighbors. The Wildcats’ gymnasium was filled to its 1,100-seat capacity when El Camino, ...

Editor’s note:  We were on hiatus last week.  My wife and I were celebrating our anniversary on a cruise, so we’ll try to catch up. Most of the 18 league champions had byes as playoffs in five of six divisions (Open opens Friday) got underway. They were first in 2019: TEAM LEAGUE REGULAR SEASON  PLAYOFF DIVISION Carlsbad Avocado 9-1 Open Serra Central 8-2 IV Citrus San Diego Jewish 8-0 8 MAN City Scripps Ranch 10-0 III Coastal The Bishop’s 10-0 II Eastern La ...

Point Loma was beginning the most successful run in school history. —Banks and creditors foreclosed on the Garnet Avenue property in Pacific Beach on which San Diego Army and Navy Academy had been a fixture since 1910. —School districts sprung up in Encinitas and Vista, creating a revamped Southern Prep League and an enrollment shortfall at Oceanside. —Hoover ...

The 18 San Diego Section leagues put a wrap on the regular season this week and most of their members will take a breath and await playoff seedings, which will be determined on Saturday. Championships have been won in several circuits. AVOCADO Champion Carlsbad (6-0, 8-1 overall) is getting ready for a nonleague test with Vista and a ...

Helix and Cathedral, the San Diego Section’s two big ones, have had to regroup. The Highlanders lost running back Elelyon Noa, probably for the season with a foot injury, and Cathedral quarterback D.J. Ralph sustained what was reported as a broken collarbone on his non-passing side. Ralph was replaced by Charlie Mirer, son of former Notre Dame ...

And another milestone is near. Joel Allen of The Bishop‘s rampaging Knights of La Jolla could become the 43rd San Diego Section coach to win a 100th career game. The Bishop’s will have to win out but you’d have to go to eight-man football to find any team scoring 55 points or more six times in a ...

Ron Hamamoto’s crashing the top five in San Diego Section coaching ranks wasn’t the only significant career achievement last week. –Grossmont’s Tom Karlo became the 42nd to reach 100 wins. Hamamoto, whose Monte Vista squad defeated Chula Vista, 34-17, now has 229 victories, tying the 35-season mentor with Morse’s John Shacklett, who won 229 at Morse from ...

Sweetwater, the San Diego Section’s International team. After trips to Hawaii and Canada in recent years, Coach Gary Zarecky’s Red Devils visited the Continent this season. They played four games in Yugoslavia after Christmas, meeting some of that basketball-savvy nation’s top junior teams. The roadrunners from National City also found time to set a San Diego Section record ...

Sweetwater fired a season-opening shot to remember on Nov. 21, exploding for 136 points against Coronado in the first game (Seach 1984-85: Zarecky’s Red Devils Runnin’…andTravelin’), but the Red Devils came up short again in the playoffs as Poway, now a team of mostly juniors, ran away with the San Diego Section 3-A title. Other moments  ...

Half the regular season is complete for all but a handful of teams and Helix has emerged as the front runner for the longest postseason. The Highlanders arrived at this juncture after having beaten No. 2 Cathedral and No. 3 St. Augustine, which followed  a surprising, overtime loss to Utah’s Herriman West Herriman. The loss to Herriman ...

Oceanside and La Costa Canyon set a record when they played four overtime periods last week. Somewhere Bennie Edens was smiling. The late coach at Point Loma was instrumental in the city schools’ adopting overtime sessions as a way to solve the inconvenience of tie games in 1975. The entire San Diego Section agreed in 1976 to use ...

Sweetwater coach Gary Zarecky took over a bottomed-out program in 1972-73 that was 2-22, 6-20, and 1-23 in the three previous seasons and proceeded to go 6-19, 1-23, and 11-15. In Zarecky’s year four the Red Devils saw light at the end of the tunnel and fast-breaked past it. Since 1975-76 Sweetwater is 196-54, a .772 winning ...

The future was almost now for Poway. Coach Neville Saner’s starters included three sophomores, Dominick Johnson, Judd Buechler, and Andy Byrne, and junior John Colborne. The young Titans posted a 21-5 record and won the San Diego Section 3-A championship but were sidelined, 79-60, by Riverside John North in the Southern California Regional. They would be back. There was ...

Thirteen players on opening week NFL rosters made their bones on fields of the San Diego Section: NAME HIGH SCHOOL COLLEGE TEAM POSITION Jamal Agnew Point Loma San Diego Lions Cornerback Jake Bailey Santa Fe Christian Stanford Patriots Punter Joe Cardona Granite Hills Navy Patriots Long Snapper Royce Freeman Imperial Oregon Broncos Running Back Tony Jefferson Eastlake Oklahoma Ravens Safety Jordan Miller Oceanside Washington Redskins Cornerback Tim Patrick University City Utah Broncos Wide Receiver David Quessenberry La Costa Canyon San Jose State Titans Tackle Scott Quessenberry La Costa Canyon UCLA Chargers Center Kenny Stills La Costa Canyon Oklahoma Texans Wide Receiver Levine Toiolo Helix Stanford 49ers Tight End Fred Warner Mission Hills Brigham Young 49ers Linebacker Damian Williams Mira Mesa Oklahoma Chiefs Running Back SCOTS STEP ...

Corona Centennial did not make an appearance at Cathedral last week until less than 3 minutes before kickoff. The Huskies did not engage in the usual, pregame warmup. “Gamesmanship,” observed Don Carey, retired, longtime NFL official who now scouts high school officiating crews. If that was the late-arriving Riverside County powerhouse’s message to the Dons it seemed to ...

Cathedral Catholic takes on visiting Corona Centennial Friday night in a battle of elite privates and publics. Coach Sean Doyle’s private-school Dons defeated Arizona’s big one, Scottsdale Saguaro, 18-10, last week at home in the final of the Honor Bowl tripleheader. Public school Centennial, after a 42-12, opening-game loss to national No. 1 Santa Ana Mater Dei, ...

The girls were playing for a state playoff berth for the first time… …before the start of their regular seasons. That’s because the regular season still was in the spring in the San Diego Section, while the rest of California (and most other places where there is a court and a ball) plays basketball in the winter. Patrick ...

Torrey Pines’ 6-foot, 11-inch Chris Dudley was among the San Diego Section’s leading scorers with 438 points and a 16.8 average. A fine season  and a productive four years at Torrey  but not a blueprint for the future. The future stretched…and stretched. Dudley went on to play four years at Yale University and then embarked on a National ...

The game still was played from December until early March, but San Diego Section basketballers seemingly were playing more and scoring more. Ninety points, once considered elite, had become almost routine. 100 points no longer was surprising. There were more highs than lows but some stunning legislative moves captured the headlines, as usual caused by a “dreaded ...