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San Diego High fell with a resounding thud in quarterfinals of the Southern Section playoffs. A 26-18 loss to old nemesis Long Beach Poly in Balboa Stadium was surprising in its decisiveness, devastating in its finality. Especially for coach Duane Maley, who announced his intention to retire from coaching and go into administration at the end of ...

The CIF power ratings are holding up fairly well as the final round of San Diego Section play takes place Friday and Saturday at Southwestern College. The two highest power rated clubs will meet in the Open Division and in D-1 and D-3. Winning teams will progress to a variety of divisions in a Southern California round ...

First athletes and then coaches, each experience leaving a lifetime of memories. BOBBY KENNEDY The San Diego State graduate was  head baseball coach at Chula Vista from 1957-82, his teams winning six Metropolitan League titles, earning 19 playoff appearances, and compiling an overall record of 329-266. Kennedy also was a championship softball player, almost to the end, participating ...

Power ratings honcho John LaBeta can look at the semifinals pairings in this week’s San Diego Section playoffs and feel pretty good, if not vindicated, about the controversial seedings process. History has not recorded a season in which all teams and coaches involved were happy with the results, be they computer generated or by the human eye ...

A sneeze at a military facility near Junction City, Kansas, turned into a cold that led to a fever that led to a death that led to a global pandemic. The so-called “Spanish Flu”, which is said to have first struck World War I soldiers processing in and out of Camp Funston on the Fort Riley ...

The sportswriters and broadcasters and CIF power ratings maven John LaBeta have spoken and there is some agreement. Cathedral, Rancho Bernardo, and Helix, 1-2-3 in The San Diego Union final regular-season poll, are the top three seeds in the Open Division playoffs, which begin Nov. 18 with quarterfinals play. But there were some surprises and shock waves in other ...

A celebration of Don Donnelly’s life will be held at the La Mesa Community Center on Nov. 14 from 2:30-5:30 p.m. Donnelly, 87, passed recently after a lifetime of athletics and coaching, principally track and field and cross country. A 1947 graduate of Hoover High, where he played football and competed in track, Donnelly got into coaching ...

Hoover did it. The Cardinals scored, not once but twice, in a 49-14 loss to Patrick Henry. Hoover had not even registered a blip in its first eight games and was closing in on a record set in 1976 by San Diego Southwest. The Southwest Raiders were blanked on the field in a 0-9 season in 1976 but scored ...

Take a good look at this week’s Union-Tribune Top 10 poll.  It won’t be the same next Tuesday and likely will change even more after the last of several blockbuster matchups take place 10 days from now on the final Friday of the regular season. THIS WEEK   No. 1 Cathedral (8-0) meets Western League rival No. 6 St. ...

Six teams are  7-0 (Calvin Christian is 6-0)  and the trend figures to continue as San Diego Section clubs head into the stretch run of the regular season. The Bishop’s (7-0) visits La Jolla Country Day (6-1) in the feature game involving one of of the unbeatens. The Knights, who have bigger things in mind, can salt away away their second ...

It’s not a stretch to declare that this was the year San Diego, the growing city at the geographical bottom of California, stepped into the modern age. The vision and determination of San Diego’s civic leaders launched the successful Panama-California Exposition on Jan. 1, 1915, even though in competition with the larger, federally-funded expo in San ...

Paul Douglas (Pete) Jernigan, one of the San Diego area’s most accomplished athletes and coaches, passed away recently at his home in Hereford, Arizona. Jernigan, 75, played 10 seasons of professional baseball and later coached successful high school and Under 18 softball teams. He was named “Mr. Youth Sports” by the El Cajon Parks and Recreation Department ...

Theirs is not as old a rivalry or as traditional as Grossmont-Helix, but Grossmont-Valhalla will come close this week when the  undefeated East County powers roll in the dirt in a Grossmont Hills League game. The winner probably will determine who challenges Helix for the championship. Valhalla’s 6-0 record represents its best start since racing to 7-0 in 2005.  Grossmont, also ...

It had been almost 25 years since Rutgers University and Princeton played in the first American football game in 1867. A generation later the gridiron sport, more like Australia’s rugby, had made its way West. To an expanse near the San Diego Bay. Students from the Russ High School met adults from the “San Diego Football Club” on ...

One week before the 1969 football season A.J. (Art) Sisk resigned as coach at Hilltop High to pursue a career in publishing for the McGraw-Hill Company. Sisk began selling textbooks to schools in the San Diego area, launching a publishing career that led to real estate on both coasts, and other ventures. The graduate of Redlands High ...

The Western League  race begins  this week with the season’s premier matchup to date:  No. 1 St. Augustine (5-0) plays host to No. 6 Madison (4-1) at Mesa College on Friday. Two of the San Diego Section’s most successful coaches will be on opposite sidelines. Madison’s Rick Jackson has a 112-35-1 record in 13 seasons at the ...

The first athlete inducted into the Sweetwater High Hall of Fame, Roger Lively was a standout in the major sports and a steady, vital presence in a remarkable run by the Red Devils in the 1956-57 basketball season. The 6-foot, 3-inch Lively, who passed at age 77 earlier this month, played center for coach Wells Gorman’s ...

Mission Hills is at Mater Dei in this week’s top game as many clubs are idle, prepping for the beginning of league races next week. Cathedral, 49-7 winner over a Bakersfield Liberty team that won the Central Section Division I title a year ago, is eighth in the latest Cal-Hi Sports rankings. St. Augustine, which meets the ...

Editor’s Note:  A couple sharp-eyed readers, Gregg Durrant and Justin Schaeffer, noticed a couple whiffs as soon as this article appeared.  I listed Tony Jefferson as a wide receiver when he is a safety and  overlooked kicker Jason Myers of Jacksonville. I should have caught the error that cited Myers as a Mater Dei/Santa Ana graduate ...

St. Augustine and Cathedral  are on a collision course and, unless Madison gums up their plans, will meet for the Western League championship at Mesa College in  Week 9, the winner being the favorite for the top seed in the San Diego Section Open Division playoffs. Cathedral showed resolve last week, overcoming Helix leads of 21-0 and ...