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There were no state championships, but it was a solid season in San Diego Section  basketball. Foothills Christian, behind McDonald’s all-star T.J. Leaf, was third in the state in Cal-Hi Sports‘ final boys Top 40 rankings. Cathedral ranked 14th and St. Augustine 23rd. The 2015-16 finish showed marked improvement  over the 2014-15 Cal-Hi rankings, in which St. Augustine was 23rd, Torrey Pines 24th, ...

Army-Navy had a 5-0 record.  San Diego High (4-1) had just been run off the field,  51-0 by the 5-0 Long Beach Poly Jackrabbits. Did Army-Navy have a chance the following week against the Hilltoppers and their 24-year-old, rookie head coach, John Perry. No. Perry addressed a school assembly the day before his team would meet coach Paul ...

Bill Walton was 33-0 in his senior season at Helix.  T.J. Leaf was 25-5 at Foothills Christian. Walton’s Helix team dominated the San Diego Section, but the Highlanders’ 70-56 victory over Chula Vista in the AA finals in 1970 marked the end of season. Southern California playoffs were reserved only for Southern Section squads. Leaf’s Foothills Christian team, benefiting ...

It was five and out for the San Diego Section in the Southern California regional semifinals last night. Most of the road-weary locals were in their ball games at halftime but faded thereafter, memories of terrific seasons and bus rides of up to 150 miles ahead as they made their way home. Foothills Christian (25-5) trailed, 37-30, after 16 ...

The few, the proud…. Five teams from the San Diego Section still are around  as the Southern California regional playoffs reach the semifinals round tomorrow. —Foothills Christian (25-4) will try to stop the No. 1 team in the country when it challenges Chino Hills (31-0) at Colony High in Ontario, a “neutral” site 11 miles and 20 ...

Greater challenges lie ahead, but San Diego Section teams in the Southern California regional playoffs were successful in three of four Open Division quarterfinals games last night. —The Foothills Christian Knights stunned Santa Ana Mater Dei, dealing the Monarchs their first loss at home in 10 years, 50-46, and moving on to Tuesday’s semifinals and a ...

Despite being seeded in the nether regions of the Southern California regional playoffs, No. 15 Kearny and No. 12 St. Augustine scored significant road victories last night, while most other San Diego Section squads, including all 13 girls’ teams in action, were stowing their gear today. Kearny (31-3) overcame a 53-47, fourth-quarter deficit to upset No. 2-ranked and host Huntington Beach ...

Army-Navy Academy in Pacific Beach couldn’t rely on a six-game County League schedule to complement a full slate of games. As reported in The San Diego Union,”…through an error at the beginning of the County League the eleven was omitted.” If that report is to be believed, the person who drew up the County League schedule “forgot” ...

Records through Monday, March 7: Rank Team Record Points Last Poll 1 Foothills Christian (11) 24-4 110 1 2 Cathedral 20-6 96 2 3 St. Augustine 22-7 79 4 4 Kearny 30-3* 77 7 5 Torrey Pines 25-5** 71 3 6 El Camino 27-6 50 5 7 Army-Navy 21-10 42 6 8 La Jolla Country Day 28-5 33 NR 9 Mission Bay 21-8 25 8 10 Poway 24-8 13 9 **Forfeited 73-64 victory over Manhattan Beach Mira Costa Dec. 26.                                    *Forfeited 57-37 victory Dec. 5 over Horizon.                 ...

San Diego’s eternal quest for respect from the Southern Section renews this week with opening rounds of the state regional playoffs. Respect still is to be earned. Only one of 15 boys teams is seeded higher than its opponent in the six divisions, Open and I-V, brackets for which were announced yesterday by the state CIF office ...

Jerry Ralph made history earlier this week when he was announced as the head football coach at El Camino High in Oceanside, becoming the first to lead five different San Diego Section programs. Ralph has compiled a 123-76-2  (.614) record in 18 seasons, beginning in 1997 at Santana, followed by stints at St. Augustine, Del Norte, ...

Open Division teams, representing the elite of San Diego Section basketball as determined by the power ratings system, don’t get under way in the  playoffs until Friday (Girls) and Saturday (Boys). Divisions I-V begin play tonight (Girls) and tomorrow (Boys). Several factors go into the power ratings, administered by assistant commissioner John LaBeta, who heard some complaints regarding North ...

Assistant commissioner John LaBeta will be up into the early morning hours Saturday and, hopefully after a few hours sleep, at it again when the sun rises. Basketball’s most important weekend is at hand. LaBeta is the ratings maven for the San Diego Section. The regular season ends Friday night and teams will have until midnight to get ...

Who saw the game and who didn’t commanded almost as much attention as Kearny’s semifinals playoff victory over Escondido. President John F. Kennedy’s death and the resulting week’s postponement generated several more days of pregame coverage by area media outlets and contributed to a building buzz about the game. And some unforeseen problems. The estimated attendance of 17,000 was the largest for a high ...

On Nov. 22, 1963, my address was an apartment at 2742 B Street in the Brooklyn-Golden Hill neighborhood.  It was about 9:30  on a Friday morning.  I had a free day until covering the Escondido-Kearny playoff that night in Balboa Stadium. I don’t remember if I was watching television or listening to the radio, but within minutes there ...

Lewis Edward Sanclemente, 92, passed away  recently, leaving behind a multitude of friends and admirers and memories of a lifetime spent in or around baseball. Ed Sanclemente grew up near the University Heights playground, where he shagged baseballs for young slugger Ted Williams and honed a game that would take Sanclemente to national championships on two levels. Sanclemente played for coach Mike ...

Foothills Christian’s national cred will be tested this week when the Knights take on Santa Ana Mater Dei in a Nike event Saturday night. Foothills (16-3)  is  fourth in the latest Cal-Hi Sports rankings,  16th in USA Today,  and No. 1 in San Diego. Mater Dei (21-3) is fifth in Cal-Hi Sports and out of USA Today‘s Top 25, ...

Try playing a game without officials. Hilltop and Escondido tried, with disastrous results for the visiting Cougars, who were upset, 18-13, by the homecoming-enthused Lancers in the season’s final regular season game. Twenty minutes before kickoff Hilltop coach Bob Tomlinson noticed that the game referee and his crew, usually already on site, had not checked in. Tomlinson waited a few ...

Foothills Christian blew past a couple Coastal League opponents last week and retained its ranking as No. 1 in San Diego, No. 4 in California, and No. 17 in the United States. The rankings are from the Union-Tribune, Cal-Hi Sports, and USA Today, respectively. Foothills Christian, which defeated La Jolla Country Day, 68-42, and The Bishop’s, 69-37 ...

Thirty-three players with San Diego Section or Southern Section connections have played in the 49 Super Bowls. Denver and Carolina meet in Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7 in Santa Clara. Carolina Defensive tackle Nate Chandler from Mira Mesa, who signed with the Panthers as an undrafted free agent in 2012, is the only San Diego-connected player ...