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Note:  Westlake Village Oaks Christian closed school today because of smoke and ash from the nearby wildfires. Helix is scheduled to play there Friday night, Dec. 7. The field at Southwestern  faces south to North but the football moved east. Helix, Steele Canyon, and Monte Vista, from the two Grossmont leagues in the foothills of San Diego ...

“Elevator! Elevator! We Got The Shaft!”  The shout is almost as old as the game.  Visiting teams’ supporters furious that the referees or the timekeeper were unjust, a polite term for being “homered”. The Huntington Beach Oilers felt that way when the Oilers, 4-0 on the season and a reported 20-1 in 1944-45, were on the ...

The so-named expert is trying his hand again as 10 San Diego Section teams come together for the playoff finals at Southwestern College Friday and Saturday. I tied the Union-Tribune’s resident genius, prep honcho John Maffei, each of us picking seven out of 10 winners last week.  My bad was a stinko choice of Hilltop over ...

Fledgling Lincoln High began to create its great athletic legacy after Luther Hayes, a vital member of San Diego high’s 1955 Southern California championship team, transferred to the young school at 49th Street and Imperial Avenue. Hayes, 78, who passed on Thanksgiving Day, surrounded by his wife, Anita, and family at his home in Palos Verdes ...

Here they are, our predictions for the five San Diego Section semifinals and one final this week. I pretty much went with the seeds, although there are a few strays from chalk.  I’m not Colin Cowherd or the late “Jimmy the Greek,” so take these picks for what they’re worth. OPEN DIVISION 3 SAN MARCOS (9-2) @2 ...

Two young coaches destined to become legendary in San Diego basketball lore arrived as varsity mentors at the city’s two prep powerhouses. Rickey Wilson, a former San Diego High player, succeeded Lawrence Carr at Hoover and Merrill Douglas, a transplanted Montanan, took over for Bill Schutte at San Diego High. The schools  continued to be San Diego’s ...

CIF boss Jerry Schniepp had a thoughtful response recently to criticism of the San Diego Section playoff formula by writer John Maffei, but even if Schniepp’s assertion that the system implemented this year is the best of several that have been tried, teams like Bonita Vista. 0-11 and counting, continue to get postseason invitations. Bonita Vista ...

A doffing of the fedora to the 16, playoff-bound teams that won league championships: LEAGUE TEAM RECORD PREVIOUS Avocado Mission Hills 10-0 2013 Central San Diego 10-0 1960* City University City 9-1 2012 Coastal The Bishop’s 9-0 2016 Eastern Lincoln 8-2 1991+ Grossmont Hills Helix 9-1 2016 Grossmont Valley Granite Hills 8-2 2016 Imperial Valley El Centro Southwest 10-0 2010 Manzanita Calexico Vincent Memorial 8-2 2002# Metro Mesa Otay Ranch 7-3 NA^ Metro Pacific Montgomery 7-3 NA^^ Metro South Bay Hilltop 6-4 2013 Pacific Maranatha 6-3 2014** Palomar Ramona 10-0 2013 Valley Valley Center 9-1 2016 Western St. Augustine 7-3 2015++ *Tied for Eastern League championship, 1974. +Tied for Eastern League championship, 1994. #Won championship as member of Desert League; tied for Manzanita championship, 2016. ^First championship ...

What is it when Grossmont plays Helix? The Highlanders exercised their annual domination over the Foothillers, 57-3, last week. Grossmont had scored 157 points in its previous three games, wins of 51-14 over Steele Canyon, 54-26, over Valhalla, and 51-7 over El Capitan. Those scores matched up well with Helix’ victories of 58-7 against El Capitan and 41-7 ...

Chula Vista’s basketball history was brief and uninspiring. Two seasons, 12 wins, 18 losses, seventh and fourth-place-tie finishes in the Metropolitan League. No problem.  The Spartans emerged from the pack to win a Southern California championship this season. It was a nice accomplishment for the fledgling South Bay power, but not without a few assists, beginning a ...

Grossmont probably wouldn’t recognize the musket trophy if it defeats Helix this week. The Foothillers (6-2) and Highlanders (7-1) meet for the 61st time in what is known as the battle of the musket, although there has been only carnage lately. Helix has won the last 19 meetings, by an average score of 39-10. Since 2008, the average ...

Four outstanding athletes who graced the San Diego sports scene were among those who passed in the past months. HORACE TUCKER He was late reporting for football practice at San Diego High in 1952, because Tucker and teammate Floyd Robinson were involved with the American Legion Post 364 baseball team that was runner-up to a Cincinnati squad ...

San Diego continued to impress; coaches moved on leaders in all-time victories, and St. Augustine rebounded. San Diego improved to 7-0 with a 34-7 over Kearny, which took a 6-0 record into the game, as big, fast Raiden Hunter rushed for 270 yards in 17 carries and scored two touchdowns. An impressive Central League turnout of about ...

The dateline said San Diego, not somewhere in the High Sierra or North Dakota. Snow had forced postponement of two games. In the dead of winter a couple high school basketball contests in San Diego County were called off because of the flaky white stuff. Southern Prep League games sending Brown Military to Mountain Empire in Campo and ...

There was no Week 6 blog, with the attendant rankings from The San Diego Union, because we were celebrating my beautiful bride’s birthday on a seven-day cruise south, along the Mexican Riviera. I had a fat attack, unable to resist the relentless, daily, gastronomic temptations. There are several interesting games this week, two in particular:  San ...

Twelve former San Diego Section stars made the 32-team NFL rosters of 1,693 players at the start of the 2017 season. Thirteen made the list in 2016 and 15 in 2015. Helix was one of 40 schools with 3 players active.  St. Thomas Aquinas of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had 12, followed by Long Beach Poly with 7, ...

Opinions are like a certain area of the anatomy.  Most of us have one. The opinion of Scouts.com, which maintains a running list of  who’s who in high school football and who is being recruited by whom, is that the following table is indicative of the probable 10 best players in the San Diego Section. The table ...

How significant is 4-0? Depends on your perspective. Nice, but, hey, we’re used to being there, would be the reaction from Mission Hills, Calexico Vincent Memorial, Christian, Crawford, El Centro Southwest, San Marcos, and Calvin Christian. All of those teams have reached the above juncture at least once since 2013. Madison, La Costa Canyon, and El Centro Central have ...

San Diego was leaving the Southern Section at the end of the school year but was going out with an unprecedented show of force. Hoover was ranked No. 1 and Helix No. 2 in seeding for the 32-team major playoffs.  Glendale, beaten by both Hoover and San Diego, was seeded fourth. Hoover’s undefeated regular season and the ...

Seldom was a defeat as disappointing as that which knocked out Hoover in the semifinals of San Diego’s swansong in the CIF Southern Section playoffs. The Cardinals sustained a numbing, 39-34 loss to Anaheim in the round of  four in a season when they were unbeaten for 26* straight games. Coach Charlie Hampton had returned several key ...