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Four city schools made the final Union-Tribune Top 10, an outstanding achievement for an area, once the most powerful in the County but lately looking up. No. 1 Cathedral, 3 St. Augustine, 8 Lincoln, and 9 Morse all are in the Southern California playoffs this week, and San Diego, which accumulated a healthy amount of voting ...

Second in a series this week on San Diego Section playoff matchups: A month ago St. Augustine was an unlikely candidate for a Southern California playoff spot. The Saints were coming off a shocking, 27-24 loss to Madison in a game that had been postponed because of lightning bolts three days before, at a point in the ...

First in a series this week on San Diego Section Southern California playoff matchups. DIVISION 1-AA Two of the state’s most successful coaches will square off at Cathedral Friday night at 7:30 in this repeat of a Southern California playoff in 2016, when Cathedral defeated the Narbonne Gauchos, 35-28, en route to a 15-0 season and the ...

To all our friends and visitors, we are taking the week off for Thanksgiving and will resume on Sunday, Nov. 25. Here’s to a San Diego State victory over Iowa State today. Rick Smith & Henrik Jonson.

Cathedral and Torrey Pines, 1.8 miles apart on San Diego’s Del Mar Heights Road, meet in  the region’s biggest game Saturday night at Southwestern College in Bonita, more than 30 miles away. Southwestern’s Jaguar Stadium is a terrific venue which probably could squeeze 10,000 persons into its concrete stands and is the only edifice capable of ...

Helix won its third championship in the last six seasons, but the Highlanders were just breaking ground. The best was yet to come, thanks to Bill Walton, a once-in-a-lifetime player. Meanwhile, the ball continued to swish through the net. A record twenty-three players scored at least 400 points and junior Paul Halupa of Bonita Vista averaged 28.7, ...

The Santana Sultans, not usually compared to the St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show on Earth” of a generation ago, or today’s L.A. Rams, almost short-circuited the scoreboard. Coach Tim Estes’ squad defeated La Jolla Country Day, 76-55, in an opening-round game in the Division IV playoffs. This was not eight-man football. The score represented the highest total by ...

The move away from the ubiquitous and arcane “Power Ratings” to those offered by Max Preps and Cal Preps.com, preferred by the coaches, did not evoke the usual shouts of “We wuz robbed,” but still was painful to Scripps Ranch. The Falcons, who moved to the City League from the Eastern this season, are the only ...

Torrey Pines’ Mac Bingham banged Oceanside for a San Diego Section, record-tying eight touchdowns in a 71-41 win and will lead the Falcons against La Costa Canyon this week, hoping to tie up the Avocado League championship, earn a first-round bye and top seed in the playoffs, and get the Falcons to 9-0 for the ...

The Oscar Foster era was ending and so was the greatest three-year run in San Diego High’s storied basketball history. The 6-foot, 7-inch forward never was first in scoring among San Diego Section players but set a career scoring record; led the Cavers to two championships in three seasons, established a school record with 41 points ...

Friday Night Lights turned into Friday Night Lightning. Games were shortened, postponed, or called because of torrential rain and bolts from the sky. The score at the time of mass evacuations from the field and stands stood as final for many of the games.  Some, as in the Avocado League, were declared “no contest” and would not ...

“A Good Big Man Will Always Beat a Good Little Man” Sounds like an observation from that noted philosopher Aristotle. The above doesn’t mean that Cathedral will beat Christian in a battle of Division 1 and D-3 powers, but the adage will be tested when these two teams meet for the first time Friday night at Cathedral. Christian, on ...

Von Jacobsen set the records and Crawford set the pace, but it was defense, played by the champion Helix Highlanders, which narrated the season. “I can’t understand why more teams don’t stress defense,” wondered Bob Speidel, coach of the 23-4 Scots, who parlayed playing without the ball to drive opponents into submission, as witnessed by the  ...

Christian, El Centro Central, Francis Parker, Kearny, and Torrey Pines continue to set the pace, each with a 6-0 record.  Seven teams, Valhalla, Patrick Henry, Ocean View, El Cajon Valley, Hoover, Mabel O’Farrell, and Clairemont, are setting a reverse pace, each without a win. La Costa Canyon, which I had voted as the top team in ...

Arthur (Hambone) Williams was 28, out of college for four years but still hoping to get a shot. San Diego sportsman Bob Breitbard had recently been awarded an expansion franchise in the National Basketball Association for the 1967-68 season and Breitbard, after a visit from Merrill Douglas, who was Williams’ coach during Hambone’s two brilliant seasons ...

Forty-five teams begin league play this week.  Twenty-three more will commence next week, and 22 already have started down that road as the season reaches Week 7 and the final month of the regular season. It seems that every team in the San Diego Section will make the playoffs.  Although that is not the case it ...

Nels Olsen stood at the free throw line, shooting one and one, the crowd screaming, challenging the San Diego High forward to falter in the charged atmosphere and din of the Lincoln gymnasium. San Diego trailed, 68-67. Two seconds remained in the game. Olsen drained the bottom of the net with each free throw attempt.  The Cavers thought they ...

Of the 1,694 players on active NFL rosters on Kickoff Weekend earlier this month, 18 were from San Diego Section schools, six more than in 2017. (There is an error in the table below.  Alex Mack did attend San Marcos High, in Santa Barbara, not at our local San Marcos). Helix and La Costa Canyon were among ...

Call it the Battle of Banner Grade, because a chunk of the 32-mile trip from Julian to Borrego Springs on California 78 traverses the circuitous path of the vintage East County road, past the 19th Century gold-mining community of Banner, until the final stretch of the approximately 50-minute drive turns to County Road S2. Julian Union ...

Helix and Cathedral collide this week while La Costa Canyon and Torrey Pines are on a collision course. The Cathedral Dons, 5-7 last season and missing stud running back Shawn Poma much of the year, made a statement last week with a 42-21 win over high-powered Gardena Serra, the state’s 10th-ranked team, according to Cal-Hi Sports.  Poma, ...