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There would be state basketball playoffs this season and Morse liked its chances to represent the San Diego Section. Ray Epton, whose 25.0 average at Madison in 1981-82 was highest in the San Diego Section, had transferred to the school on Skyline Drive, where Epton joined 6-foot, 7-inch preseason all-America Lawrence West, 6-6 Shawn Bell, and  ...

Westbound traffic will pick up on Escondido’s Valley Parkway Friday night. A neighborhood bragging rights game is scheduled when revitalized Orange Glen motors West from the eastern edge of town on the old thoroughfare to visit big brother Escondido High. They’re only 4.5 miles apart, but the visiting Patriots and host Cougars haven’t met since 2015. Fortunes have ...

Football, which used to open with 90-degree practices under blazing Labor Day suns, is back with a now usual berginning in August’s semifinal week. The dates have changed, but not the weather. Cathedral is the San Diego Union-Tribune voting panel’s No. 1-ranked team in the first weekly poll. Dons coach Sean Doyle, who should become the 11th coach ...

“I’m confused,” said Sweetwater coach Gary Zarecky. “I’m baffled,” continued the Red Devils mentor. Zarecky also could have noted that he was dumfounded. Sweetwater had just beaten Castle Park, 94-1 Zarecky could have 1, in a Metropolitan Mesa League game, which followed an earlier, 106-37 Sweetwater rout of the Trojans. What made Zarecky (Zar-skee) figuratively scratch his head was that ...

Local teams were just that, local. That’s because San Diego Section bosses, most of whom did not  know if the ball was made of leather or composed of rubber, continued to defy the state CIF. –For the first time in the history of the game in San Diego County, going back at least 60 years, there was ...

Records are made to be broken, but it took 11 years, until Jan. 23, 1981, for  Bill Walton and Helix  to surrender the San Diego Section’s signature team scoring achievement. Helix slammed Mount Miguel, 127-31, in the 1969-70 season and the Highlanders’ record seldom was in trouble, other than a couple 122-point assaults by free-wheeling small ...

Moments from the season: 11/29/80 Nine players returned to the defending champion and preseason No. 1 Patrick Henry Patriots, including 1979-’80 San Diego Section player-of-the-year Steve Brown, fellow all-CIF selection Billy Washington, and Tom Dobyns, son of a 1957-58 Hoover standout. Five players also moved up from a 19-2 junior varsity. Coach Alan (Fritz) Ziegenfuss, offspring of long-time ...

Referees’ whistles echoed throughout the Bonita Vista gymnasium. From a 1/14/81 the account of a Metropolitan League game by Linda Murphy of The San Diego Union: Seven-foot, one-inch Bonita Vista center Larry Irwin was fouled by Chula Vista’s Louie Romero as Irvin went up for a rebound.  Bonita Vista led, 65-61, with 26 seconds remaining in the ...

The San Diego Section’s decision this school year to realign into three divisions, 3-A, 2-A, 1-A, based on enrollment and breaking from the 19-year, large school-small school arrangement, seemed like a good idea, but allocation of playoff berths left some good teams holding a bag of basketballs. The 3-A group included teams from the Eastern, Palomar, ...

The best of San Diego almost always does not measure up to the best of Southern California. It’s the law of geography and population. There were a little less than 2 million persons in the County this year, compared with more than 8 million in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and most of Los Angeles County, which comprise ...

Gordon Nash retired, taking with him a legacy of great teams and great players, and a sour finish. Nash’s coaching record of 259 wins against 69 losses for a won-loss of .790 was forged over 11 seasons in which Helix won two San Diego Section championships, appeared in five title games, was runner-up three times, and ...

It was perhaps the finest track-and-field season in San Diego Section history. There not only were a record seven gold medal winners (compared to five in 1974) in last week’s state championships in Clovis but area thinclads also had state best performances in five boys and girls events. Kenon Christon was No. 1, not only in medals ...

It wasn’t just Kenan Christon’s powerful sweep in the 100 and 200 meters.  San Diego Section athletes earned an unprecedented 7 gold medals in the 101st state track finals at Clovis Buchanan High. –Christon equaled the 100-meter meet record of :10.30, set  by Riley Washington of San Diego Southwest in 1992, and roared down the stretch ...

Twenty-five San Diego Section entries qualified in 22 events for tonight’s 101st state track finals at Clovis Buchanan High. 12 boys advanced in 9 events and 11 girls in 11 events plus two relay teams. Madison’s Kenon Christon will attempt to become the section’s first winner in the 100 sionce 1993 and the first double winner ...

The San Diego Section qualified more than 100 boys and girls athletes for the Friday-Saturday, 101st state track championships at Clovis Buchanan High. The top three finishers in the San Diego Section meet last week and others who met the state qualifying standard earned the 340-mile trip to the Fresno suburb. Coronado’s Alysha Hickey will defend the ...

Those pesky uprights. San Diego High’s presumed run to a state championship was blindsided when Ed Pohl, leading as he approached the final obstacle in the 220-yard hurdles, slammed into a 30-inch barrier at San Jose State’s Spartan Stadium. Pohl stumbled and tried to recover but tripped across the rail separating the field from the track, fell ...

Kenan Christon sat still and endured three false starts in the 100 meters, cautiously came out of his starting blocks on the field’s fourth attempt, and still smoked a wind-assisted:10.26 in the San Diego Section trials last week at Mt. Carmel. Christon continued his monster, late-season run later in the afternoon by taking the national lead ...

The arrival of San Diego County’s first 30-points-a-game scorer this year was via a curious journey, from Iceland to Pacific Beach, to Linda Vista, and to North Clairemont, where Marshall and Mitchell Lilly landed at Madison High. The twins, who spent the 1974-75 school year in the near-Arctic Circle country (see 1975-76: Patrick Henry, University Played…) ...

San Diego Section seasonal bests were recorded in four events, 2 each in girls and boys, as the 16 leagues participated in their championships last week. Scripps Ranch’s Jaymie Rustkovich logged a wind-aided 24.41 200 and ran a leg on the the Falcons’ 4×400 relay team, anchored by Brianna Sproles, daughter of Darren, the popular former ...

—Patrick Henry and University struggled through a twilight zone of 8 overtimes in a season that had at least 24 games that went beyond regulation, including a four-overtime contest, a three-overtime joust, and three of two overtimes. —Grossmont League bosses were overruled after they socked Valhalla with 16 league losses, before it played a game. —Chula Vista ...