Deon Randall, his jersey in tatters and his high school career at an end, walked off the Carson Home Depot Field.

“It’s a great parallel,” Randall said, “a great analogy, a great symbol to how the game went…it was a rough game.”

Randall was a warrior in the State Small Schools Bowl.  He rushed for 276 yards in 36 carries and scored three touchdowns, but Modesto Central Catholic hung on for a 44-40 victory

IT’S ON ME

The Francis Parker quarterback pointed to the middle of his jersey (“It was my call”) when asked about the play that brought an end to Parker’s season.

Randall said it was his decision to check from a run to a pass on fourth down with 1:43 left in the game and Parker on the Crusaders’ two-yard line.

The receiver, Dalante Dunklin, caught the pass, but was smothered at the five-yard line.  Game over.

So was Randall’s brilliant career at the little school on Linda Vista Road.

Writer Steve Brand sought out Parker coach John Morrison.

“I would never second-guess him,” said Morrison of his signal caller, who scored 70 touchdowns in his final two seasons.

“I wanted him to make those decisions,” the coach added.  “If that’s what he decided, it was the right call.  He’s not just a great athlete but he’s very smart—heady.  I’d never question his call, never.”

DISAPPOINTMENT IN 2008

A year before Randall scored 40 touchdowns and rushed and passed for more than 3,000 yards in a 12-1 season.

It wasn’t enough.

Parker was bypassed for the State Bowl Series when Capistrano St. Margaret, undefeated at 13-0 and riding a 42-game winning streak, was selected.

Parker had averaged 52 points a game and was convinced it could beat any Division V team.

A YEAR LATER

To get to a state bowl game this season  the Lancers would have to defeat St. Margaret, either in the eyes of the selectors or in head-to-head competition.

Parker and St. Margaret agreed to play the second week of the season in a quaint stadium with an all-weather field and a view of the Mission San Juan Capistrano.

The game wasn’t that close.  Parker opened a 28-13 lead and won convincingly, 28-20.  Randall raced 86 yards for one touchdown and passed 29 yards to Roland Jackson for another.

“I thought we did a great job on Randall except for two or three plays, but great players make you pay on those plays,” said Tartans coach Harry Welch.

Randall took his  football  East to Yale  and was a star in 2013.

The 5-foot-9, 180-pounder was the Bulldogs’ leading receiver with 85 catches for a 9.3 average and 8 touchdowns, and  scored three rushing touchdowns and averaged 5.3 yards for 33 attempts.

A greater achievement for Randall came during the team’s season-ending awards dinner. He was named captain of the 2014 team, the 137th in Yale’s storied history.

UNDEFEATED MISMATCH

Valley Center was 8-0, ranked sixth in the San Diego Section, and awaiting a visit from Oceanside, No. 1 in Southern California among D-I squads and fourth in the state.

The Jaguars didn’t score until 23.4 seconds remained in the game and could amass only 40 total yards as the Pirates won, 45-7.

Heeding coach John Carroll’s command to “read the keys and get off to a fast start,” Noah Tarrant returned an intercepted  pass for a touchdown on Valley Center’s third play and raced  12 yards with a botched punt for another touchdown in the first quarter.

The Pirates led, 24-0, after 12 minutes.

ANOTHER TITLE ROMP

Oceanside never looked back.

The Pirates rolled past Ramona, 52-6, the following week, a season after the Bulldogs “upset” the Pirates in a 33-33 tie.

Helix was a 26-10 victim in the San Diego Section D-II championship and Oceanside overcame a 13-3, second-quarter deficit at Carson to defeat San Jose Bellarmine Prep, 24-19, in the State D-I title game, ending the season with 17 consecutive victories, unbeaten in 39 games, and ranked third in the state with a 14-0 record by Cal-Hi Sports.

“Other Oceanside teams may equal this (two championships in three years), but no one will ever beat it,” said Carroll.

FACIAL WEAR

Reggie Bush had his San Diego hometown area code 619 penciled onto the eye black he affected at USC.

Escondido’s Ricky Seale also wore taped eye black, honoring “Aunt Jackie”, according to Don Norcross of The San Diego Union. “Aunt” was on one eyeblack, “Jackie” on the other.

Aunt Jackie was Ricky’s father’s sister, who died in 2008.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

“After a Pop Warner game she told me, ‘I can’t wait to see you play in the big time,’” Ricky remembered.  “Yet she was the type of person, she knew when I wasn’t trying the hardest and she told me.”

That wasn’t very often. The son of Sammy Seale, a 10-year NFL player (4 with the Chargers), who became an NFL college scout, Ricky went on to set the San Diego Section career rushing record, although finishing his prep career on crutches.

Seale injured his left knee in the second quarter after gaining 55 yards in 13 carries in a 35-14, semifinal playoff loss to Eastlake.

Seale had 6,690 career rushing yards and was the only San Diego Section athlete to surpass 6,000 yards. He moved on to play at Stanford University.

DUELING RUNNING BACKS

On the night Ricky Seale rushed for 404 yards against San Pasqual, Kenneth James, Jr., of Mt. Carmel rushed for 424 against Westview, breaking the record of 410 by Escondido’s Darrick Jackson in 2003.

BAXTER BLOW OUT

Dillon Baxter made a promise as a ninth grader when he joined the Mission Bay varsity.

“I told him I’d get him a ring,” Baxter said before he gave coach Willie Matson a hug.

Baxter fulfilled his promise by almost single handedly knocking out Valley Center in the Buccaneers’ D-IV championship, 48-17 victory.

The 6-foot, 205-pounder rushed for 384 yards in 26 carries and scored seven touchdowns.  Along the way Baxter erased Tyler Gaffney’s year-old season rushing record and tied the Section record with 7 touchdowns.

Baxter’s touchdowns were on runs of 6, 21, 9, 92, 87, 1, and 46 yards.

Baxter finished with 2,974 rushing yards in 13 games.  Gaffney had 2,866 in 14.  Baxter came close with 53 season touchdowns but Gaffney held on to the record, having scored 56 in 2008.

The Mission Bay quarterback set a state record with 77 rushing and passing touchdowns, burying the record of 64 by Ventura St. Bonaventure’s Tyler Ebell in 2000. Baxter’s 919 career points and 468 rushing and passing points this season also set state records.

A brilliant career start was short circuited in Baxter’s second year at USC and was followed by a brief stint at San Diego State. He finished his collegiate career in 2013 at NAIA Baker University in Kansas.

BEWARE OF THE SHADOW

Ray Herring’s response to a question from writer Steve Brand on why Herring continued to run so hard after he broke into the clear on a 91-yard interception return:

“I saw a shadow and thought someone was after me, but it was my own shadow.”

Herring also teamed with quarterback Dillon Baxter as Mission Bay ran past Point Loma, 49-27.

Baxter accounted for his almost usual 300 yards in total offense, but Herring shared the spotlight with four catches of Baxter passes for 132 yards, including touchdowns of 59 and 51 yards, and intercepted two passes.

RING THE BELL

Writer Don Norcross’ game account captured the moment and the tapestry of the annual Imperial County “Bell Game” between El Centro Central and Brawley.

The 9-1 Central Spartans won, 23-18, and now trail Brawley (7-3), 41-24-1 since the Bell was first rung in 1944.

However, the rivalry goes back to 1921, and until 2004, the Spartans and Wildcats teed it up for desert bragging rights twice a year.

Norcross pointed out that fans began lining up outside Cal Jones Field in El Centro at 2:30 p.m.

By 5:30 a crowd of 6,000 had filled  the stands and the fire marshal warned that the game wouldn’t start until the aisles were cleared.

Booster Club sales at El Centro normally grossed about $2,500, but upwards of $10,000 worth of merchandise is realized on this night.

MARKETING PAYS OFF

A total of 450 “Bell Game” T-shirts, at $12 apiece, was sold to students and the boosters used the $4,600 profit to buy “Bell Game” black jerseys for the Spartans.

El Centro players didn’t see the jerseys until they returned to their locker room after warmups.

WHISTLE BLOWERS FROM LONG DISTANCE

Members of the San Diego County Officials’ Association worked the Bell game, instead of representatives from the Imperial County association.

San Diego official Jacob Whittler explained that a perceived bad call could result in recriminations for a local official making the call.

Aggrieved fans could boycott the official’s business and “they’d know where his house is,” said the San Diego arbiter.

WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME

A  minute remained in the first half of the Castle Park-Chula Vista season opener when the stadium public address reminded students that progress reports would be coming the following Tuesday.

The announcer was drowned out by a chorus of boos.

“Who invited this guy to the party?” wondered writer Kirk Kenney.

It was a party for Chula Vista, which routed its neighborhood rival, 41-10.

POISON THREAT

Arsenic is believed to have been around since the Bronze Age, but it was 2,500 years later when discovered at Carlsbad High.

The school was being renovated in 2008 and excess levels of the poison element were discovered in a routine soil check.

Swede Krcmar Field, named after the original Lancers coach, was condemned.

The team was forced to play all games in ’08 and ’09 away from its campus, with home designations at La Costa Canyon in ’08 and El Camino and Oceanside this year.

Carlsbad was 7-6 in 2008 and 3-8 this season.

The Lancers’ theme song might have been the 1961 Ray Charles  favorite, “Hit the Road, Jack!”.

TOP THIS

When St. Augustine coach Richard Sanchez heard that Carlsbad had played away from home for 22 consecutive weeks, Sanchez remarked, “Twenty-two games? We haven’t had a home game since 1922.”

The Saints’ 7 ½-acre site in North Park has no football field.  Their “home” games usually are at Mesa College, Southwestern College, or Balboa Stadium.

4.1 MILES & 47 YEARS

That was the distance and that was how long neighboring schools Morse and Mount Miguel had waited to play a regular-season game.

It was an eight-minute drive from Morse’s Skyline Drive campus to Jamacha Road to Blossom Road, site of the Mount Miguel facility in Spring Valley.

But the teams met only once, in the 1987 playoffs, after Morse opened in 1962.

The Tigers played 500 regular-season games before they visited Mount Miguel in the opening game of the this season.

No specific reason could be offered as to why the teams had not met.

The stars apparently never were aligned.

Mount Miguel is a County school and Morse is in the city.  The schools had other rivalries. Schedules conflicted.

A game was to be played at Mount Miguel in 2003 but canceled and forfeited by Morse when a school official was warned that undesirables would be present with weapons.

Mount Miguel dedicated its new turf field with a 35-14 victory over the Tigers.

AND ANOTHER ONE

Mount Miguel didn’t stop there.  The Matadors defeated Helix for the first time since 1987, giving the rivalry spoils, a Scottish Claymore sword, a new address after the 44-21 win.

RARE IS THE DAY…

…that teams play to an 11-7 final score.  When Fallbrook won at El Camino by those numbers it was only the third time in San Diego County history that a contest ended with that point total. Madison defeated the host Hoover Cardinals in 1995 and Point Loma won at Fallbrook in 2007.

DON’T CROSTH ME

Quote Cathedral’s 6-foot-5, 307-pound Alex Crosthwaite, headed for California-Berkeley:  “I just want to kick someone’s (behind).  If I don’t pancake the guy I’m blocking, it’s not a complete block for me.”

WHO WRITES HIS STUFF?

Writer Don Norcross enjoyed the announcements by Scripps Ranch’s public address announcer Will Bailey, an English teacher at the school:

“Keep the car in neutral, grandma.  There’s flags on the field.”

“Break out your caliper, your abacus, your slide rule, and your yardstick.  Time for a measurement.”

PIRATES CATCH JACKRABBITS

Oceanside  scored a rare San Diego Section victory when the Pirates knocked off Long Beach Poly, 14-7.  The Jackrabbits fell to 1-3, having also lost to No. 2 Ventura St. Bonaventure and No. 4 Anaheim Servite.

La Costa Canyon, No. 2 in San Diego, defeated Rancho Santa Margarita, 28-14, and Vista, No. 4, was hammered by Mission Viejo, 41-17, in other  matchups with Southern Section powers.

BOUNCE BACKS

Mar Vista had not beaten Castle Park since 1988 and, after dropping the Trojans from its schedule from 1994-2000, the Mariners began a decade in which the average score was 43-7 in Castle Park’s favor.

Enter Danny Salazar.  The Mariners’ senior kicker booted field goals of 46, 42, and 35 yards as Mar Vista lashed back at its South Bay neighbor, winning, 23-0.

Another long wait was over at Valhalla, which claimed the Grossmont South championship. The 14-7 victory over Steele Canyon was the Norsemen’s first league title in the school’s 35 years.

Valhalla held on for the win after a game official ruled “no catch”, nullifying a 35-yard passing gain which would have put the Cougars on the Norsemen’s 7-yard line with 1:20 remaining.

Valhalla safety Hansell Wilson told Bill Dickens of The San Diego Union that “we both had our hands on the ball, but I was able to strip it loose…the ref made the right call.”

TRUE GRID

Eastlake  spent part of the day shooting a team picture at Qualcomm Stadium the day of the playoff finals…the Titans defeated Vista, 21-14 for the D-I crown…Clairemont forfeited its opener to La Jolla when 12 players were busted for breaking school rules and the Chieftains didn’t have enough players…Grossmont beat Otay Ranch, 16-14,  on Chance House’s 19-yard field goal with 5.2 seconds remaining, one year after the Foothillers missed a 40-yard field goal on the last play that would have won at Otay Ranch…the West Hills pep band’s timing was curious…it played Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust!”, after the Wolf Pack had just fumbled and lost a second-quarter kickoff and with Valhalla leading, 20-0 on its way to 48-7…West Hills unveiled its new, two-tone, all-weather field but again the timing was not good…Steele Canyon beat the Wolf Pack 48-23, in the inaugural game…Point Loma blocked two field goals and sacked El Capitan quarterbacks nine times in a 9-7 victory.. despite a 10-0 record, Eastlake did not receive a first-round playoff bye in D-IV….Mission Bay (10-0) and Valley Center (9-1), more established programs which played tougher schedules, warranted byes in the opinion of the selection committee….

Lincoln could have used Norman Powell last night at St. Augustine, but Powell is busy rising  at UCLA under first-year coach Steve Alford.

It should have been expected. There’s a connection between Powell and Alford.

That was apparent three years ago at a Lincoln-St. Augustine game in the Saints’ old Daugherty Gym.

The date, Feb. 15, 2011.

Alford, then coaching New Mexico, arrived in town for a game the next day at San Diego State.

The coach first took in the afternoon contest between the Hornets and Saints.

Alford was there to see Powell, who didn’t disappoint,  dunking and breaking away for 35 points on 14 of 19 shooting from the field, harassing the Saints on defense, and leading Lincoln to an 85-53 victory.

Powell didn’t go to New Mexico. He chose UCLA, but it wasn’t until Alford’s arrival on the Westwood campus this season that the 6-foot, 4-inch junior emerged.

Powell scored a season high 19 points earlier this week and was a stout defender as the No. 25 Bruins scored a 69-56 victory at No. 21 Colorado and put themselves firmly in the hunt for Pac-12 Conference and postseason honors.

“I don’t hang my hat on the offensive end,” Powell told a Los Angeles Times reporter. “Defense, defense, defense, defense.  That’s what coach tells us every time we go out to play a game.”

Alford had another view:  “Norman is a load when you give him freedom in the post and on drives to the basket.”

Meanwhile, Lincoln was woeful  in the Western League rivals’ first 2013-14 meeting.  The Saints entertained a full house  of mostly purple-clad fans and dismissed the Hornets, 70-45, after running to a 45-17 halftime lead.

BARNBURNER IN CARLSBAD

Tommy McCarthy drained a three-point looper with 1.3 seconds remaining to give La Costa Canyon a 54-52 victory over visiting Torrey Pines in a battle of North County squads.

La Costa Canyon, ranked third in the U-T San Diego poll, and top-ranked St Augustine will meet Monday evening at Francis Parker in the feature of many Martin Luther King holiday games around the San Diego Section. The undercard  matches  No. 4 Torrey Pines and the host  No. 8 Lancers.

Amid the flourishing mid-season “shootouts” is Point Loma High, among the increasing number of schools hosting all-day, nonleague “showcase” games.

The contests don’t always turn out to be showcases, because games often have to be scheduled a year in advance and teams’ fortunes change, ebbing and flowing for myriad reasons.

The Pointers call their  annual event Saturday, January 18,  the “Bennie Edens Basketball Classic.”

Let’s try that again.

The “Bennie Edens Basketball Classic”.

Yes, that’s what it’s known as.

Edens, who passed away in 2008,  was an outstanding coach at Point Loma from 1955-97. His teams won 239 football games, second highest total in San Diego Section history.

Bennie never  blew a whistle, diagrammed a play, or called a time out in  a high school basketball game.

Or got a technical foul.  At least not on the varsity level.

The Edens name still resonates, but a more likely coach to honor in the basketball context probably would have been  Hilbert Crosthwaite, who holds a singular distinction among all Point Loma hoop mentors.

(Lee Trepanier was a legend among girls’ basketball coaches, most notably with the 32-0 state championship team of 1983-84, led by Terri Mann).

Crosthwaite’s 1959-60 Pointers came out of the weeds to win the Southern California AA championship, the last by a local team before the San Diego Section became reality the following year.

Crosthwaite moved on after the championship run to coach the San Diego Junior College team  and took the Knights to the 1962-63 state championship game, losing to Fresno City, 76-69, and finishing with a 25-5 record.

The San Diego State graduate coached at Point for 11 seasons, from 1947-48 to 1951-52 and for five seasons beginning in 1954-55. Crosthwaite’s overall record at Point Loma was 116-116 and his last squad was playing at that pace for most of the season.

The Pointers tied coach Jim Poole’s Kearny Komets for first in the Western League but were only 12-10 overall when they launched their playoff run.

The Pointers won their opening game at Hemet High against Beaumont, 32-24, then defeated  Yucaipa at Redlands University, 55-23. They followed by knocking off Rosemead Bosco Tech, 54-37, and Lompoc, 54-40, in quarterfinals and semifinals games at home, and San Marino, 52-36, in finals at Los Angeles State.

That Point Loma probably was the school with the largest enrollment in the AA division was not lost on the straight-shooting Crosthwaite.  “We had everything to lose.” he said.  “We couldn’t have walked out of here unless we won.”

Crosthwaite and forward Winston Yetta didn’t have to walk.  They were paraded around the court after the victory on the shoulders of the other Pointers before a crowd of about 5,200.

As Jerry Magee of The San Diego Union said, paraphrasing Winston Churchill,  who spoke after the British Royal Air Force had defeated the more heavily armed German Luftwaffe in World War II: “Winston (Winnie) Yetta enjoyed his finest basketball hour here tonight, collecting 22 points….”

The 6-foot Yetta was joined in the starting lineup by 6-1 Don Sada, 6-2 Larry Moore, 6-0 Mike Dolphin, and 6-0 Doug Lawrence, or 6-6 1/2 Dick Walden.

Meanwhile, action was slow in the UT-San Diego Top 10 last week.  Francis Parker dropped a 53-52 decision to 21-0 Brentwood Buckley and went from sixth to eighth. Eastlake replaced Poway at 10th.

Hoover, apparently gaining traction, elevated to ninth after victories of 71-65 over Serra and 73-65 over Woodland Hills Taft.

#	Team (1st place votes)	W-L*	Points**	Previous*
1	St. Augustine (9)	14-2	121	1
2	Mater Dei Catholic (2)	14-2	118	2
3	La Costa Canyon (1)	15-2	105	3
4	Torrey Pines	13-2	91	4
5	Sweetwater (1)	12-0	67	5
6	El Camino	13-3	60	6T
7	San Marcos	11-4	48	8
8	Francis Parker	14-2	47	6T
9	Hoover	10-7	14	10
10	Eastlake	15-3	9	NR

*Last week.
**Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis
NR–Not ranked.

Others receiving votes: Cathedral, 6; Foothills Christian, Grossmont, 5 each; Mission Hills, 4; Escondido, 3; Steele Canyon, 1.

Thirteen sportswriters, sportscasters and CIF representatives from throughout San Diego County vote in the weekly poll:
John Maffei, Craig Malveaux and Don Norcross (U-T San Diego);
Terry Monahan (U-T San Diego correspondent);
Bill Dickens, Andrew Smith (eastcountysports.com);
Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions);
John Kentera and Jack Cronin (The Mighty 1090);
John Labeta (CIF San Diego Section office); Rick Smith (Partletonsports.com); Bodie DeSilva (sandiegopreps.com); Aaron Burgin (fulltimehoops.tumblr.com).

No state champions, but there were four San Diego Section teams in Cal-Hi Sports‘ final, overall top 25.

San Diego tied for second with the Sac-Joaquin Section in number of top 25 squads from the 10 state sections.

Mission Hills (11-2) was 11th,  Oceanside (10-3) 13th.  St. Augustine and Cathedral, each 11-2, were 24th and 25th, respectively.

The vast Southern Section placed six of the first seven teams and 11 of the top 25.  St. John Bosco was 16-0 and number one after a 20-14 victory over No. 2 Concord De La Salle in the  Open Division championship.

De La Salle was the only North Coast Section squad in the top 25.

No. 6 Folsom was the highest of the four from the Sac-Joaquin Section.

Other sections with ranked representatives included the Central Coast (2) and the Central (1) and Los Angeles City (1).  The Northern, San Francisco, and Oakland Sections were blanked.

San Diego teams  in Cal-Hi Sports‘  top four divisions were 11-6 in intersectional games but  1-2 in arguably the season’s three biggest.

Oceanside was beaten 50-39 by Gardena Serra (13-1), which finished No. 4 overall.  Mission Hills lost a state playoff, 35-28, to No. 10 Bakersfield (13-2). Cathedral defeated No. 26 Vista Murrieta (12-2), 35-28.

Cal-Hi Sports‘ state rankings by its traditional format of five divisions:

DIVISION I

1–Bellflower St. John Bosco.  10–Oceanside.  11–Eastlake.

II

1–West Hills Chaminade.  3–Mission Hills.  8–San Pasqual.

III

1–Newport Beach Corona del Mar.  2–St. Augustine.  3–Cathedral.  11–Mission Bay.  13–Madison.

IV

1–Modesto Central Catholic.  3–Christian.

V

1–Le Grand.  9–Holtville.

SOUTH D-I

1–Bellflower St. John Bosco.  7–Mission Hills.  9–Oceanside.  10–Eastlake. 13-Cathedral.   14–San Pasqual (10-2).

SOUTH D-II

1–West Hills Chaminade.  4–St. Augustine.  12. Mission Bay (12-2).  14–Madison (9-2). 19–Christian (12-1).

SOUTH D-III

1–Newport Beach Coronado del Mar. 14–Sweetwater.

SOUTH D-IV

1–Bakersfield Christian.  (no San Diego Section teams)

FREEMAN, PATRIOT COACH HONORED

Imperial’s Royce Freeman was state medium schools player of the year and Christian coach Mike Ward was state small schools coach of the year.

Freeman, who set a San Diego Section career rushing record with 7,601 yards in four seasons and who rushed for 2,819 yards in 2013, is the fourth San Diego Section medium schools player of the year in the last six.

Others include Madison’s Pierre Cormier, 2012; Mission Bay’s Dillon Baxter, 2009, and Cathedral’s Tyler Gaffney, 2008.  Gaffney and Baxter were overall state players of the year.

Ward, who guided Christian to a  12-1 record and the San Diego Section D-III championship, also was coach of the year in 2011.  A previous winner was Ramona’s Glenn Forsythe, who led the Bulldogs to an 11-0 record and the Southern Section smallest schools championship in 1958.

 

 

Rumblings out of the South Bay have become a roar.

Mater Dei Catholic and Sweetwater barged into the upper half of the ratings in the U-T San Diego poll this week.

Mater Dei, a 26-7 squad and Southern California Division  IV regional semifinalist in 2012-13, is no surprise, posting a 12-2 record and losing only to San Juan Capistrano JSerra and West Hills Chaminade, two schools from higher divisions.

The second-ranked Crusaders received two first place votes and their 118 points are only one less than top-ranked St. Augustine.

Sweetwater’s Running Red Devils went from  unranked to No. 5.

At 12-0, the Red Devils are the only unbeaten team in the top 10 and adamantly made their intentions known in a 91-56 victory over a regarded Poway club last week.

The Red Devils are in their fourth season under coach Jesse Aguirre, who took over a team that was 0-23 in 2009-10.  the Red Devils were  13-11, 17-12, and 12-13 in Aguirre’s first three seasons.

SAINTS RECOVER

Despite two losses in the Under Armour Tournament at Torrey Pines during the Christmas break, St. Augustine  stayed on top.

The Saints regrouped with a 73-63, home victory over La Verne Damien, which was 13-1 coming into the game.

The Saints were muscled in a 66-55 loss to Chino Hills and beaten, 62-61, by a mid-level Lakewood Mayfair squad in the Torrey Pines event.

#	Team (1st place votes)	W-L*	Points**	Last Week
1	St. Augustine (8)	13-2	119	1
2	Mater Dei Catholic (2)	13-2	118	6
3	La Costa Canyon (2)	13-2	107	2
4	Torrey Pines	13-2	93	T3
5	Sweetwater (1)	12-0	67	NR
6	Francis Parker	12-1	54	9
7	El Camino	12-3	54	9
8	San Marcos	11-4	53	5
9	Poway	9-5	14	10
10	Hoover	7-6	7	T3

**Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis
NR Not ranked.

Others receiving votes: Lincoln, Cathedral Catholic, 6 each; Foothills Christian, 5; Mission Hills, Grossmont, 3 each; Escondido, Eastlake, 2 each.

Thirteen sportswriters, sportscasters and CIF representatives from throughout San Diego County vote in the weekly poll:
John Maffei, Craig Malveaux, Don Norcross (U-T San Diego);
Terry Monahan (U-T San Diego correspondent);
Bill Dickens, Andrew Smith (eastcountysports.com);
Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions);
John Kentera and Jack Cronin (The Mighty 1090);
John Labeta (CIF San Diego Section office);
Rick Smith (Partletonsports.com);
Bodie DeSilva (sandiegopreps.com);
Aaron Burgin (fulltimehoops.tumblr.com).

St. Augustine saw an 18-point lead in the third quarter dwindle to 4 but finally put away La Verne Damien, 73-63, as a full house of about 800 persons nervously looked on at St. Augustine Saturday night.

Trey Kell had 22 points for the winners but it was six free throws in the final 38.7 seconds by sophomore Martin Tombe that got the Saints over the finish line against the resilient visitors, who were 13-1 coming in.

St. Augustine, which led 41-25 at halftime and 50-32 midway in the third quarter, improved to 13-2.

Damien formerly was Pomona Catholic and is the alma mater of baseball slugger Mark McGwire and former San Diego State quarterbacks Dennis Shaw and Dan McGwire.