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Foothills Christian is No. 1 in the UT-San Diego poll, but the Knights  got there wondering what if. Foothills is 8-6 and has a “woulda-coulda” lament. The Knights forfeited two early, blowout victories because of the ubiquitous and Dreaded Administrative Glitch involving player eligibility and they’ve dropped two of their last three following the loss of their star. Coach Troy Leaf’s ...

Jason Bott of the Union-Tribune said it best: “Sometimes the best man for the job is a woman.” Her name is Andy Wharton and she hammered a 29-yard field goal with nine seconds left in the game to give West Hills a 31-28 victory over Serra. “I thought the play was stopped,” said Wharton, “but when I ...

Like mile markers on the interstate, coaching victories progress at their own pace and gradually add up. Monte Vista’s Ron Hamamoto became the eighth  to win 200 games this season and Madison’s Rick Jackson was the 39th to reach 100. Hamamoto (201-127-4), a 30-year veteran of San Diego high school wars, was at University (Cathedral), Rancho Bernardo, and Lincoln before moving to ...

Foothills Christian is second in UT-San Diego‘s basketball poll, but the Knights are 18th in the Cal-Hi Sports state vote, ahead of San Diego Section rankings leader La Costa Canyon. La Costa received all 11 first-place votes in the local balloting, but the Mavericks  received on-the-bubble status and are out of the top 20 in the state-wide publication’s weekly ratings. The ...

Oh, my! This had to be the worst weekend of football in San Diego County prep history. Two state championship games, one a devastating blowout, the other an almost certain victory flushed in the final two minutes. If John Carroll was thinking of retiring, and we have no idea what he’s thinking, would the great Oceanside coach  want to go out with such a ...

Oceanside and El Capitan forged a Division I & III parlay into the state championships with convincing victories in the Southern California regional playoffs but now will take on two, explosive 15-0 teams  this week in Carson. Oceanside (14-0) ran Central Section champion Fresno Edison off the field, 30-6  at halftime, and cruised, 37-22, last week, ...

La Costa Canyon, which began and ended the 2013-14 campaign as the No. 1 team in the San Diego Section weekly poll (it fell to fifth during the season)  is again at the top of the UT-San Diego inaugural basketball voting. The Mavericks returned four starters (another reportedly tranferred to a prep school in New Hampshire) from ...

Oceanside was the unanimous choice of 19 voters as the No. 1 San Diego Section team in the final UT-San Diego poll. The Pirates are fifth in Cal-Hi Sports‘ state rankings with a state playoff game against Fresno Edison this week and potentially a State Division I championship game in two weeks. The Pirates were helped in the Cal-Hi ...

Unprecedented. That’s the way pairings shook out for San Diego Section teams today when CIF state commissioner Roger Blake announced that three area squads will host games in the first round of the state playoffs. Officially titled the 2014 CIF Regional Championship Bowl games, the schedule calls for two games here Friday night, Dec. 12, and one on Saturday, ...

John Carroll hasn’t won 247 games for nothing. Thrown off by Helix’ speed and quick start, Carroll, coaching from the Southwestern College press box, went to a no-huddle offense late in the third quarter and Oceanside scored the game’s last 17 points to put away Helix, 20-13, in the San Diego Section Open Division final. “We had the ...

The St.Charles Borromeo Church was filled to its football-field-sized capacity Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, as family members and friends said goodbye to Elena Casanova Cota, who accomplished much in her 94 years. Mrs. Cota raised five sons and a daughter and three of those sons created an athletic legacy at St. Augustine High. Eldest son Paul was a standout ...

The San Diego Section could get as many as three teams and as few as none in the upcoming state football playoffs. OPEN DIVISION Oceanside, now ranked fifth in Cal-Hi Sports’ top 25  (the highest a San Diego Section team has been since the ‘Side finished third in 2009), is a probable lock for a Division I berth ...

No less than seven teams still alive in the San Diego Section playoffs haven’t been this far in at least 10 years. Sixteen teams are preparing for eight semifinal games this week, with the computer-oriented seeding process playing out well, but not much differently than when  it was with coaches hollering and screaming on Selection Saturday. El Capitan, the 24th-ranked team ...

The real racing in the San Diego Section playoffs, including competition in the Open Division, begins tonight with quarterfinals games on fields drying out from recent rain. Teams with championship hopes also have their sights set beyond, to the state playoffs which begin in  three weeks,  following section championships. Oceanside is seventh in Cal-Hi Sports‘ Top 25 ...

Sixty-four playoff teams became 32, but the action was more like an 11th regular-season game, everyone awaiting the real postseason. It all should change this week, with Open Division competition beginning in the quarterfinals and with some decent offerings. Eastlake (7-3), seeded fifth in the Open, visits No. 4 Mission Hills (8-2). Division I sends 6 Vista (6-5) ...

The computer and the writers, broadcasters, and administrative honchos are in agreement. The elite, top 10 teams in the UT-San Diego poll won’t be asked to mingle with the proletariat in the first round of the Division I-V postseason. The CIF’s computer-based seedings  byed each team, from Oceanside to San Marcos.  The top 10 clubs have a combined, 89-11 record. The poll ...

Virtues and moments that identify high school football: Overflow crowd of more than 4,000 at San Pasqual High, under Friday night lights, for neighborhood bragging rights. Tom Kirovski carried the ball on 24 of San Pasqual’s 28 second-half possessions and gained 155 of his game total of 173 yards as the Eagles defeated Orange Glen, 28-17, in the “Battle of ...

What a difference 70 years makes. Jerry Ralph’s speedy, competitive Hoover Cardinals took a 63-0 halftime lead and then called off the jam, activated the running clock, and ran out the game against former arch rival San Diego. The 63-point victory gave Hoover the City League championship and its first outright league title since Roy Engle’s 1963 club won ...

A panelist who voted for Helix as the No. 1 team in the UT-San Diego top 10 in the last two polls apparently was dissatisfied and cast his vote for Oceanside this week. Helix’ 56-10 victory over Grossmont last week seemingly was not impressive enough when compared to Oceanside’s 35-6 win over La Costa Canyon. Oceanside is 9-0 but had seen first-place votes dwindle ...

Bennie Edens was pissed. “I don’t appreciate being embarrassed,” Edens heatedly responded to a question from Paula Mascari-Bott of the Union-Tribune. “Playing your starters in the fourth quarter, it’s poor sportsmanship,” steamed Edens. “I’ve been coaching forty-one years and I’ve never embarrassed anyone when they’re that far behind.  That’s wrong.” The Pointers had just finished on the ...