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The weekly UT-San Diego football poll went through a topsy-turvy Week 5, beginning with Oceanside’s loss to Mission Hills,  and flip-flopping all the way down to El Capitan’s high-powered Vaqueros, making their bow in the Top 10. I differed on a few of the vote’s results. My essential disagreement with colleagues was over No. 2.  I had ...

Corporate shakeups have nothing on the expected  San Diego Section football poll next week. Numbers 1, 3, and 7 were beaten and Cathedral rocked Southern Section rankings when it handled visiting No. 4 Vista Murrieta, 35-28. Mission Hills, which sat second in the UT-San Diego poll behind Oceanside since Week 1, hammered the Pirates 30-6 before more ...

Don Hegerle, a leader and playmaker for 1950s San Diego State basketball teams and who later coached at Escondido High, passed away on Sept. 9. Hegerle, 82, was a fast, slashing guard who fearlessly drove to the basket and fired jump shots for one of the best teams in Aztecs history. He was a vital player on ...

Three traditional strongholds among the San Diego Section’s smaller schools are a combined 12-0 and staking their turf in Division III. Christian, Francis Parker, and The Bishop’s each is 4-0.  Christian, of the Central League, will take on the Coastal League’s The Bishop’s in Week  5 in a possible, midseason playoff preview. Christian was ranked second in ...

The Helix Highlanders had four graduates on NFL rosters when teams reached the 53-man limit earlier this month. Scots alums include running back Reggie Bush of Detroit, quarterback Alex Smith of Kansas City, cornerback Jaemar Taylor of Miami, and tight end Levine Toilolo of Atlanta. A total of 16 players from the San Diego Section made NFL ...

North County’s game of the year is  Friday night, when  Oceanside and Mission Hills, ranked 1-2 in the UT-San Diego football voting, will roll in the dirt for more than just neighborhood bragging rights. Mission Hills (4-0), which  became a San Diego Section force under former Vista coach Chris Hauser, seeks its first-ever win over John ...

Gary Mayer, who led a 1958 Ramona High team that raced to an 11-0 record and won the Southern California small schools championship, passed away at age 72  on Sept. 19 in Rialto, where he had resided since 1966. Mayer scored 25 touchdowns and scored 43 points after touchdown in 1958 for a total of 193 ...

Oceanside (24), Mission Hills (6), and San Pasqual (1) all received first-place votes in balloting after for the Week 4 CIF San Diego Section football poll. Ramona, at 9, and Carlsbad, at 10, are new to the top 10. Team/1st Place Votes in ( ) 2013 Record Points* Last Week 1 Oceanside (24) 2-1 301 1 2 Mission Hills (6) 3-0 267 2 3 Madison 3-0 238 3 4 Helix 2-1 224 5 5 San Pasqual 3-0 154 8 6 Cathedral 2-1 141 4 7 St. Augustine 2-1 132 7 8 Eastlake 2-1 89 10 9 Ramona 3-0 76 — 10 Carlsbad 3-0 43 — *Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.     ...

Royce Freeman is about to become the most famous Imperial High athlete and eventually perhaps its most notable alumnus. Freeman ran for 315 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 42-21 victory over Sweetwater and is nearing the San Diego Section career rushing record.  Freeman has 5,638 yards.  Rickey Seale of Escondido set the record in 2009 ...

Nick Pascarella delivered the cruelest rejection. The Carlsbad running back rushed for 125 yards in 12 carries and scored two touchdowns as the Lancers pulled away from Rancho Bernardo to win, 40-16. The same Rancho Bernardo which Pascarella attended and who was a member of the Broncos team that defeated the Lancers 24-21 in 2005. The Broncos held ...

A memorial service for William (Birt) Slater, legendary Kearny High football coach, will be held in the Kearny gymnasium on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013, at 1 p.m. Slater, 89, passed away recently after a long illness. Slater was head coach at Kearny from 1959-76, posting a record of 134 victories, 41 losses, and 9 ties for a ...

Oceanside gave up one first-place vote to Mission Hills, Poway made the top 10 after being idle in Week 1, and San Pasqual moved up. All was almost quiet on the U-T San Diego prep football front. The only significant changes took place in the “Others” category, which thinned out from a total 14 teams receiving votes ...

We made five big mistakes,” Oceanside coach John Carroll revealed to the U-T San Diego’s John Maffei, “and nearly every one of them was because of cramps.” In the high heat of an Oceanside evening, Carroll’s Pirates took a 39-36 lead well into the fourth quarter when a couple lapses were turned into touchdowns by the ...

BY GARY MARSHALL The new Sage Creek High School in Carlsbad is beautiful. The back-to-back baseball/softball diamonds and tennis courts are woven into a school complex that blends smoothly into the canyon hillside. It is a tribute to our community. The facility that excited me the most was the new football stadium, with its sharply lined synthetic ...

I was informed this morning that Birt Slater, the legendary coach at Kearny and San Diego High, had passed away yesterday afternoon , Sept. 3, 2013. I hope to soon have more information to pass along.

Oceanside, unapproachable in the first half and approachable in the second half of a 47-28 win over St. Augustine, picked up additional support in this week’s UT-San Diego prep football poll. The Pirates, who led 28-0 at halftime against the Saints, will need all hands on deck for all four quarters this week when they play ...

Oceanside, Helix, Mission Hills, Cathedral, and Eastlake, five of the San Diego Section’s best, posted a combined, 3-2 record and scored a couple impressive, intersectional victories in the Under Armour Brothers in Arms San Diego Classic games on the season’s first weekend. Most impressive was Cathedral’s 38-6 victory over Sandy of Jordan, Utah, ranked 25th in ...

High school football has become all about ratings in California. Cal-Hi Sports is out with its first poll of the 2013 campaign and already has Concord De La Salle representing the North in the State Open Division championship game, probably against Corona Centennial,  Bellflower St. John Bosco, or Gardena Serra. Serra comes South in Week 2 to ...

    Team/1st Place Votes in ( ) 2012 Record Points* Last Year 1 Oceanside (19) 12-1 288 1 2 Mission Hills (9) 7-4-1 251 5 3 Madison (3) 14-1 208 4 4 Helix 10-3 197 6 5 St. Augustine 11-2 180 8 6 Cathedral 0-10# 179 9 7 Grossmont 9-3 87  — 8 Eastlake 10-3 56 — 9 La Costa Canyon 7-4-1 38 — 10 San Pasqual 7-5 35  — *Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.                                                                     #Cathedral ...

A reader submitted that a Torrey Pines team coached by Ed Burke should be considered as having the all-time best defense among San Diego Section championship teams. Burke’s 2003 Falcons posted a 12-1 record, defeated Fallbrook, 7-3, in the Division I finals, scored 369 points, and allowed their 13 opponents only 69 points, an average of ...