Duane Maley felt like the guy who discovered that his wallet had been lifted after being jostled in a crowded theater.

Maley  ended up on the wrong side of the coin minutes after conclusion of a tight, competitive City Prep League season.  Maley’s San Diego Cavemen and Walt Harvey’s La Jolla Vikings, each with a 5-1 record, tied for first.

Lawrence Carr, the President of the City Prep League, conducted a telephonic coin flip which went in favor of the Vikings, propelling Harvey’s club into the Southern California playoffs for the first time since 1938.

Only one CPL representative could be chosen for the playoffs.

You couldn’t blame Maley if he hollered.

That Carr resided in La Jolla and had been the Vikings’ head coach from 1932-35 was a coincidence, but Carr also was one of Maley’s bosses!

Carr was the boys’ vice principal at San Diego High.

Maley’s unpleasant playoff fate was shared by the tall, gentlemanly Carr, who had a long history in athletics (three-sport star at Grossmont) and coaching (La Jolla football and Hoover basketball and track), and empathized with his frustrated colleague.

To add to the discomfort, Carr also carried a legacy that went back almost a half century at San Diego High.  His father taught math there for many years and was the Hilltoppers’ baseball coach in 1911.

VIKINGS MOST DESERVING?

Supporters of each team could mount a strong argument for their favorite.

La Jolla beat the Cavers, 7-6,  in their head-to-head matchup in Week 4.  The Vikings,  perhaps looking forward to their game with San Diego, ran afoul of Hoover, 20-0, the previous week.

San Diego beat Hoover 13-6 in the season finale.  Both teams had wins over third-place Point Loma.

La Jolla won a taut, 21-14 struggle at Point Loma (“That last five minutes, my goodness, I thought the game never would end,” said  Harvey) on the last afternoon of the regular season and took home the bronze “Shoe”, emblematic of the schools’ long rivalry.

San Diego topped the Pointers 15-6 in Week 6 with defense and the kicking game. The Hillers’ Jim Duschel blocked a punt out of the end zone for a safety and Terry Dale averaged 40 yards on six punts and coffin-cornered three at the Pointers’ 10, 8, and 5-yard lines.

BLOCK THAT KICK!

The La Jolla-San Diego game, before a fog-bound, afternoon capacity crowd of 5,000 at Scripps Field, turned when the  Vikings’ Stan Wyatt  blocked Terry Dale’s punt and Tom Tomaiko recovered the ball on San Diego’s seven-yard line in the third quarter.

A touchdown pass from Dick Greenfield to Tomaiko in the corner of the endzone and Greenfield’s successful conversion gave the Vikings a 7-6 lead.

The Jewel City club  held on for the last 19 minutes, 40 seconds, Harvey’s 4-4-3 defense keeping the fleet San Diego runners from mischief.

“We played the 4-4 but went to a six-man line on punts,” Harvey said in remembering the pivotal block.

Evening Tribune writer Jerry Brucker termed the La Jolla victory, which ended the Hillers’ 12-game, regular-season winning streak, “astounding.”

KEOUGH IS KEY

La Jolla also manned-up in its first-round playoff with Pomona at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, battling the favored Red Devils before bowing, 27-21.

Harvey’s team couldn’t overcome a blocked punt, which was recovered by the hosts and positioned Pomona at the Vikings’ one-yard line, resulting in a touchdown and 14-7 lead.

Quarterback Marty Keough, a future major league outfielder, also kept the Vikings on their heels, rushing for 92 yards and three touchdowns and completing 10 of 16 passes for 99 yards before a largely Pomona crowd of some 7,000 persons.

As Dick Corrick, the linebacker and blocking quarterback in La Jolla’s single wing observed, “That Keough, he was smooth as glass.”

Pomona went on to win the Southern California championship with a 26-13 victory over Monrovia.

‘NEEDY’ GOES OUT A WINNER

Coronado’s Hal Niedermeyer, who ended a 20-year coaching stint at Coronado after the 1950 season, guided the Southern California All-Stars to a 19-16 victory over the Los Angeles City All-Stars in the 1951, third annual  Breitbard College Prep game before 13,000 persons in Balboa Stadium.

Covina’s Jim Hanifan, a future NFL head coach with the St. Louis Cardinals and an assistant to Don Coryell at San Diego State, the Cardinals, and the San Diego Chargers, intercepted an L.A. pass and raced 30 yards for a touchdown that put the Southern Californians up, 19-10.

The game, played with a rubber football favored by Eastern teams in poor weather and not the traditional pigskin, involved recent high school graduates and had 10 San Diegans on the Southern roster, including San  Diego’s Charlie Powell.

Niedermeyer  joined the Coronado faculty in 1930, and posted a 62-54-10 football record in 14 seasons, beginning in 1937, and was 122-64 in basketball.  He bowed out with a co-Metropolitan League football championship.

A Long Beach Poly alum, Niedermeyer started at Coronado in 1930 and won a Southern Prep League championship his first season.

Niedermeyer’s successor, Lloyd (Jack) Whetstone, guided the Islanders to an 8-2 record this season.

The transbay team, behind halfback Harry Sykes, Swede Grimaud, John Hannon, and others, defeated Vista 32-0 in the first round of the lower division playoffs, and then bowed to eventual champion Brawley, 23-14, in the semifinals.

I WENT TO GROSSMONT, DIDN’T I?

For years actor and director Dennis Hopper said he was from Grossmont when asked where he went to high school.

A star in “Easy Rider”, “Hoosiers”, and other popular movies, including the 1955 classic “Rebel Without a Cause” with James Dean, Hopper was correct about attending classes at Grossmont, but may have had a memory lapse about which was his real alma mater.

Before he went on to a legendary Hollywood career, Hopper was voted most likely to succeed in the Helix graduation class of 1954.

Hopper’s freshman year was at Grossmont, but he was in the first wave of students at the new Helix High, which became the County’s 22^nd  high school when it opened in September, 1951.

Because the Helix campus still was under construction, Hopper and the rest of the new Highlanders attended split sessions at Grossmont.

School was for Grossmont students in the morning and Helix students in the afternoon.

COINCIDENCE, MAYBE

Hopper’s wasn’t the only Grossmont connection to “Rebel Without a Cause.” Beverly Long played the role of Helen, co-star Natalie Wood’s friend.

Beverly was a 1950 graduate of Grossmont and also appeared in television’s “Father Knows Best” before embarking on a long career as a casting director.

Was Beverly Long a possible connection to Hollywood for the aspiring Hopper?

Reader and Helix historian Roger Conlee pointed out that Hopper also acted in school plays at Helix and at San Diego’s Old Globe Theater before heading north.

FOOTBALL, TOO

The  60-odd candidates for coach Ken Maynard’s first Helix team weren’t able to take advantage of the split session and sleep in.  Football practice for Helix was at 9:30 a.m., followed by classes from 1 p.m. to 5:40 p.m.

Grossmont gridders weren’t taking the afternoon off at the beach.  Football practice began at 2 p.m. School classes went from 8 a.m. until noon.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

“West La Mesa High”, which was to open in September of this year, was admitted to the City Prep League when the CIF executive council  met in  Los Angeles in December, 1950.

Voters a month earlier had approved construction of the new “University Avenue High School”, which would be located  beyond the San Diego city limits in western La Mesa at 7323 University Avenue.

Neither of the school names were for long.  The name was changed in January, 1951, when the board of trustees of the Grossmont School district adopted “Helix”.

A board member suggested Helix in honor of the nearby, 1,365-foot Mount Helix, also known for religious services and a visible cross, erected at the peak in 1925.

HARBINGER 

Sophomore halfback C.R. Roberts provided a glimpse of the future, running 46 yards for a touchdown in Oceanside’s Week 2, 19-6 loss at Orange.

Roberts finished the season with five touchdowns and 30 points, a total he would match in single games more than once in his  junior and senior seasons.

HONORS

Tackle Andy Skief or La Jolla and guard Jim Schafer of San Diego were all-Southern California first team. Fullback George Stephenson and end John Van Hooser of Hoover were second team and halfback Frank Johnson of San Diego was third team.

Coronado center Wilson Whitmire and halfback Harry Sykes made the all-Southern California small schools team.

BIG GUYS SEPARATED

Hoover and San Diego did not meet in the final quarter of the 13^th annual City Schools’ carnival, in order to put other schools “on equal footing” with the two longtime giants, as school officials vaguely noted (read “jealousy”).

About 23,000 saw the West of Kearny, Hoover, and Point Loma beat the East’s Helix, La Jolla, and San Diego, 14-7.  Grossmont sat out.

Carnival squads operated under a new CIF rule that allowed a full, two-platoon system.  The system previously was allowed only on a limited basis.

CANDY CANES?

Hoover unveiled a new uniform of striped jerseys and matching socks when coach Bob Kirchhoff’s squad took the field in the carnival.

The Cardinals, who tied La Jolla,7-7, in the exhibition, were almost perfect in their usual season opener with San Bernardino.

Hoover defeated the host Cardinals 38-7 as George Stephenson rushed for 172 yards and three touchdowns.  The only glitch was in Hoover’s kicking game. John Clinger, who was more effective as an all-City tackle, had his last four conversion attempts blocked.

The Cardinals’ promising season was sidetracked when Stephenson’s backfield mate, Tom Chrones, went down with a season-ending injury in the third quarter of a 20-0 victory over La Jolla in Week 3.

Chrones had scored two touchdowns in the first game and three more in the second as Hoover defeated Helix, 32-6.

HOOVER’S WARRIOR

In what The San Diego Union writer Gene Earl said was a “season vibrant with excitement, explosive individual performances, close contests, and the unpredictable,” the play of George Stephenson in his final game for Hoover perhaps stood above all.

Stephenson touched the ball 40 times, either by running, catching or punting, and was unbowed, earning the admiration of the 11,000 fans in Balboa Stadium, despite the 13-6 loss to San Diego.

Stephenson was City League player of the year and enrolled at UCLA.

Unhappy, Stephenson  transferred to the University of California and was an unsuspecting participant in the breakup of the Pacific Coast Conference after Stephenson was interviewed by a Look Magazine writer who wrote of payoffs to players at conference schools.

Hoover coach Bob Kirchhoff remained friends with Stephenson, who was Kirchhoff’s partner on the sideline downs-and-markers, chain gang crew at San Diego Chargers games for more than 20 years.

QUICK KICKS

Harry Sykes of Coronado was the County’s leading scorer with 81 points, 11 more than runner-up Dick Greenfield of La Jolla…Mar Vista coach Gerry Spitler resigned after two seasons to take a position in the Marshall Islands as a recreation director…Helix coach Ken Maynard did not profit from the school split, inheriting only two lettermen and a few junior varsity and sophomore veterans…the lettermen were nuggets, halfback Ernie Merk and end Howard Fackrell…San Diego dominated old tormentor Long Beach Poly, 31-7, despite three first-half touchdowns called back because of penalties…the Cavers’ Week 2 game against L.A. Roosevelt was their first against an inner-city Los Angeles school since it met Manual Arts in 1925…freshman Karl Jordan  quarterbacked Helix in its first-ever game, a 19-13 win over St. Augustine…Kearny’s Kirby Woods ran 73 yards in the carnival, La Jolla’s Frankie Rivas 80 against Chula Vista, and San Diego’s Alex Hudson 83 against Long Beach Poly, but all were short of touchdowns…Rhode Island transfer John Mellekas became a second  team all-City lineman for San Diego, matriculated at Arizona, was drafted in the fourth round by the Chicago Bears, and played eight seasons in the NFL…Week 1 was bad for the Southern Prep League…Ramona, Mountain Empire, Army-Navy, Brown Military Academy, and Fallbrook were a combined 0-4-1…Ramona was beaten by Wildomar Elsinore 40-6, but was the only league team to score…Empire struggled to a scoreless tie with Calipatria…Erwin Hedstrom kicked a 30-yard field goal for the difference in Oceanside’s 9-7 win over San Dieguito, the first three-pointer in the County since four different players launched successful placements in 1942…Hoover’s John Clinger and San Diego’s Learnold Stallings, a pair of 200-pound tackles, each kicked 27-yard PAT’s after penalties set their teams back against La Jolla and Helix, respectively…press accounts of teams’ preseason prospects stressed whether the T formation was the offensive formation of choice  or the single and double wings, which some clubs still preferred…Hoover was offside on a kickoff return against Point Loma, negating a 65-yard return  by George Stephenson in a 14-0 loss…”We were terrible,” said Hoover’s Kirchhoff, whose team fell to 2-1 in league play…”It was like two sluggers pounding each other and we had the most punch,” said Point Loma’s Don Giddings, whose team went to 3-0 and added,  “Give all the credit to Hil Crosthwaite and Bennie Edens, who coach our defense”…San Diego’s 25-0 victory over Grossmont was vintage Cavers running game: Alex Hudson had 103 yards in 6 carries, Eddie Duncan 76 in 11, and Frank Johnson 64 in 6….

 

Army-Navy, Grossmont, Olympian, and Otay Ranch continue to win, each improving to a 6-0 won-loss record.  Calexico, Patrick Henry, Hoover, and West Hills all were beaten after winning their first five games.

Army-Navy scored a 1-0, forfeit win over Calvin Christian.  Grossmont defeated Granite Hills, 48-6.  Olympian beat El Capitan, 41-6, and Otay Ranch topped Bonita Vista, 40-10.

Week 7 will mark  showdowns in the second week of league play.

Otay Ranch visits Olympian in the Metro Mesa League.  Grossmont visitsSteele Canyon in the Grossmont Hills and Army-Navy is host to Maranatha Christian, which returned to 11-man football this season, in the Pacific League.

NO CHANGE IN TOP 10

As in Week 5, Oceanside is No. 1 in the North County Times Top 10 through Week 6, followed in the same order by La Costa Canyon, Helix,  Cathedral  Catholic, Mission Hills, Poway, Olympian, St. Augustine, Otay Ranch, and Grossmont.

COUNTRY DAY ENDS LOSSES

La Jolla Country Day’s 27-6 win over Francis Parker was its first over the Patriots since 1993.  The Torres snapped a 0-9-1 streak  to Parker, which holds a 20-8 edge since the series began in 1971.

SPARTANS’ MISERY

Chula Vista’s 49-21 loss to Eastlake embodied frustration.

The Spartans took the third quarter kickoff trailing, 34-21, and held the ball for 18 consecutive plays before settling for a field goal attempt, which was blocked and returned 88 yards by Kiefer Graham for a Titans touchdown.

TRUE GRID

Helix’ 5-foot, 9-inch, 260-pound defensive tackle Amu Milo was everywhere in the Scots’ win over Valhalla,  even passing on the halftime team meeting to be crowned Homecoming King…Orange Glen celebrated the school’s 50^th anniversary with a 24-20 victory over San Marcos…Rancho Buena Vista is 3-3 after 17 consecutive losses since 2010 and the 36-0 rout of Vista marked the Broncos’ first win over the Panthers since 2006…Oceanside’s cheerleaders were worn out after the 54-3 victory over Carlsbad, having dropped to the track at Simcox Field and doing pushups until matching the number of  points posted by the Pirates….

 

It has been said for years  that San Diego produces many  of the best of the best players, but falls short when matching up with teams from North of the County line. That holds true in 2012.

Not counting Imperial County members, San Diego Section squads were 29-25-2  in pre-league intersectional games this season, but many of those involved lower division or 8-man squads.

Well-regarded local clubs were 0-5 in high profile contests against ranked, Southern Section tough guys from Orange and Riverside Counties.

The breakdown, including up-to-date won-loss records of the Southern Section  teams in parenthesis:

(4-1) Temecula Chaparral 40, Oceanside 30.

(6-0) Mission Viejo 35, Mission Hills 21.

(4-2) San Clemente 21, La Costa Canyon 10.

(5-0) Vista Murrieta 21, Cathedral 10.

(6-0) El Toro 77, Valhalla 46.

There were exceptions:

LaCosta Canyon 42, Baldwin Park  0 (0-6).

Orange Glen 41, Oxnard Hueneme 7 (1-4).

Oceanside 34, Oakdale, Sac-Joaquin Section, 14 (4-1)

Steele Canyon 49, Canyon Country Canyon 49 (3-1-1).

Oceanside is the No. 1 team in the latest North County Times poll.  La Costa Canyon is second, Cathedral third, and Mission Hills fifth.  Valhalla is unranked.

Demographics, population areas, interest, and facilities aren’t that much different.  Most Orange and Riverside County  schools are within at least an hour from most of the San Diego schools.

Despite the losses, those San Diego coaches willing to schedule the tough nonleague games at the expense of wins and win streaks deserve some props.

WHAT GIVES?

 Why the domination?

“It’s the intensity of the programs up here,” says Dave Ogas.   “Nothing is overlooked.”

Ogas played for Don Coryell at San Diego State and was with the Oakland Raiders and Buffalo Bills in the NFL.  Ogas  was head coach for more than 20 years at Rancho Santiago College  in Santa Ana and coached in San Diego at Mount Miguel  and Mission Bay.

Intensity may be the answer if you’re to believe the report out of Orange County recently that the coach and team president  were offering bounties …to their Tustin Pop Warner League team.

Give those San Diego Section coaches credit  who are willing to schedule the tough nonleague games year in and year out.

Hoover, Otay Ranch, Olympian, Calexico, Grossmont, Army-Navy, Patrick Henry, and West Hills represent the  San Diego Section’s Elite 8 this week as teams reached the halfway pole in the season and get ready to open league play.

The eight teams are the only 5-0 squads of the 95 playing football in the San Diego Section.

Grossmont  (11) and Hoover (8), the oldest schools, have more 5-0 starts than the others combined.

5-0 prior to 2012:

Grossmont , 1925, ’33, ’34, 47, ’61, ’66, ’67, ’70, ’95, ’02, ’10.

Hoover, 1934, ’35, ’49, ’54, ’56, ’99, ’07, ’09.

Patrick Henry, 1971, ’74, ’96, ’97, ’99.

Army-Navy, 1987, ’90, ’02.

Otay Ranch, 2004, ’05.

West Hills, 1995.

Olympian, 2009.

Calexico’s 5-0 is its first in the San Diego Section.  The Bulldogs and other Imperial Valley schools  joined the San Diego Section in 2000 and prior records have not been researched.

ONE UNHAPPY POWEGIAN

No one is claiming a record, except on the frustration meter.

Poway’s Ryan Sharpe returned three second-quarter punts for touchdowns against Valley Center…and all three were nullified by penalties.

The Division II Titans still overpowered the Jaguars, 38-6.  It was the second straight smackdown for D-IV Valley Center, which stepped up to face D-I  Mission Hills in Week 4 and lost 38-14.

 

This could become a habit.  Vista won another 2-0 game.

The Panthers defeated Torrey Pines, with a safety the only score in the game last week.

It was the second safety-only game in the 758  Vista has played since the school opened in 1937.  Not a trend, but the Panthers are working on it.

Vista last won 2-0 when it defeated Palm Springs  in 1958.

Vista has won its last two  games and scored or been credited with three points…total!

After a 1-0 forfeit victory with the automatic score over Temecula Rancho Christian, the Panthers returned and rang up a couple more  points to edge the Torrey Pines Falcons, who never, in their 39-season history,  had been in a 2-0 contest.

There have been 11 other 2-0 games in the history of teams in San Diego County or the San Diego Section, covering pfobably more than 35,000 games, dating to the first recorded contest, San Diego High versus “The San Diego Football Club in 1891.

The list:
1915 — Sweetwater 2, Escondido Athletic Association 0.
1919 — San Diego 2, 32^nd Infantry 0.
1926 — San Diego 2, Glendale 0.
1940 — St. Augustine 2, Hoover Sophomores 0.
1958 — Vista 2, Palm Springs 0.
1963 — Point Loma 2, La Jolla 0.
1974 — Poway 2, La Jolla 0.
1978 — La Jolla 2, Lincoln 0.
1990 — Coronado 2, San Diego 0.
1997 — Calipatria 2, Wellton Antelope, Arizona, 0.
1997 — Granite Hills 2, Mt. Carmel 0.
2012 — Vista 2, Torrey Pines 0.

PASSES AND POINTS

Contrary to Vista-Torrey Pines, offense was alive and well when Valhalla took on El Toro.

Conner Manning of  El Toro threw for 613 yards and seven touchdowns as the Chargers, a 5-0, South Coast League power in the Southern Section, defeated the Norsemen  77-46.  The 123 points by both teams are the most ever involving a San Diego  Section 11-man team.

Rancho Bernardo and West Hills held the record with 119 points in a 71-48 R.B. playoff victory in 1999.

The San Diego County record for most points by both teams is 137, set in 1920, when San Diego High unloaded on Army-Navy, 130-7.

St. Joseph defeated Lutheran 94-76 in 2008 to set a record for most points by both teams (170)  in an 8-man game.

OCEANSIDE STAYS NO. 1

Despite an uneven performance in the second half, Oceanside’s 23-13 victory over Poway solidified the Pirates’ lead with 22 points in the North County Times‘  Week 4 football poll.

The Pirates jumped to a 23-0 halftime lead, but the Titans finished with a strong second half.

The same teams occupy the first five positions as last week, although there was movement.  La Costa Canyon remained second, but Helix went from fourth to third and Mission Hills from fifth to fourth.

Cathedral dropped from third to fifth place, although the Dons held a 14-10 lead on the road in the second half against Vista Murrieta, a Southern Section powerhouse which overcame Cathedral 21-10.

Three 4-0 newcomers were Chula Vista (8) and Grossmont and Otay Ranch, tied for ninth.

Oceanside plays host to Mission Hills in the County’s feature game this week at the Pirates’ new on-campus stadium.

 

#	Team	1st	W-L	Points	Prev#
1	Oceanside	22	3-1	261	1
2	La Costa Canyon	2	3-1	226	2
3	Helix	1	3-1	204	4
4	Mission Hills	2	3-1	189	5
5	Cathedral Catholic	0	2-2	149	3
6	Eastlake	0	3-1	127	9
7	Poway	0	2-2	85	6
8	Chula Vista	0	4-0	46	NR
9	Grossmont	0	4-0	34	NR
9	Otay Ranch	0	4-0	34	NR

Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis

1^st = 1^st place votes; Prev# = Last week #

Others receiving votes (points): Valley Center (31), Olympian (26), St. Augustine (23), San Pasqual (14), West Hills (7), Torrey Pines (4), Hoover (2).

At least five games have been canceled against San Diego Section teams this season and are being considered forfeited, not because of the usual Dreaded Administrative Glitch reasons of player academic ineligibility or residential  transfer no-no’s.

Temecula Rancho Christian suspended its season and fired the head coach after a 43-6 loss to Whittier La Serna in Rancho’s first-ever game.

Rancho Christian also was scheduled to play Orange Glen, Vista, Mater Dei, and Eastlake, which each would pick up a victory unless a substitute opponent could be found (Orange Glen scheduled a replacement game at Oxnard Hueneme and won 41-13).  Mission Hills’ game with West Adams Prep of Los Angeles also was canceled.

The President of Rancho Christian indicated that the superior quality of the team’s opponents were part of the problem.  “The schedule should never have been played,” Scott Treadway told Terry Monahan of the North County Times.

West County Prep, 6-6 in 2011 and a playoff team in the L.A. City section, lost its first two games this season, 56-0 to San Clemente and 53-0 to San Pedro.  “They’re not canceling the season, just the game,” Mission Hills athletic director Ken Putnam told the Times‘ John Maffei.

According to Putnam, Mission Hills thought the game still was on as late as the Thursday afternoon before last week’s Friday night game.  Sometime after 7 p.m. Thursday, West Adams Prep bailed.

FORFEITS=VICTORIES?

“There’s no other way to look at this,” San Diego Section assistant commissioner John LaBeta said to Monahan, citing the situation with two North County schools.

“Games were scheduled and contracts were signed,” said LaBeta.  “I’m sure Vista and Mission Hills will pursue some kind of financial restitution based on the contract.”

A larger issue also was in play.  “This now becomes a budget problem that superintendents and principals, who scream about revenue flow all the time, will have to address because it’s very difficult to recover from losing twenty per cent of your gate revenue,” said LaBeta.

The 20 per cent figure is based on teams generally playing five home games.

OCEANSIDE ON TOP AFTER WEEK 3

Cathedral Catholic shut down Helix, 16-9, last week and toppled the Highlanders from their perch atop the North County Times‘ prep football poll.

Oceanside routed Mira Mesa, 48-0, and now is No. 1, followed by La Costa Canyon, Cathedral, and Helix.  St. Augustine and Valley Center, each 3-0, are the only remaining undefeated teams in the Top 10.

Oceanside received 16 first-place votes.  LaCosta Canyon, despite a 21-10 loss to San Clemente, was accorded 4 first-place votes.  Cathedral and St. Augustine (2 each), and Valley Center and Torrey Pines also received first-place support.

 

Coach Troy Starr’s Helix Highlanders received all 27 first-place votes for a maximum 270 points in the North County Times sportswriters-sportscasters poll after defeating Vista 43-7 last week.

Helix had 13 first-place votes in the preseason poll and 20 after games of Week 1.

The Highlanders take on a third, ranked opponent from the San Diego Section when hit plays host to Cathedral this week.

Coach Troy Starr’s Helix Highlanders received all 27 first-place votes for a maximum 270 points in the North County Times sportswriters-sportscasters poll after defeating Vista 43-7 last week.

Helix had 13 first-place votes in the preseason poll and 20 after games of Week 1.

The Highlanders take on a third, ranked opponent from the San Diego Section when it plays host to Cathedral this week.

LaCosta Canyon moved up to second from fifth after a 10-9 victory over Poway and is home this week to San Clemente, which defeated the Mavericks 58-6 in 2011.

First-place votes in parenthesis

Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis

+Record +Points +Last Week

1. Helix (27) 1-0 270 1
2. La Costa Canyon 2-0 226 5
3. Oceanside 1-1 178 2
4. Mission Hills 1-1 146 6
5. Poway 1-1 136 4
6. Cathedral Catholic 1-1 124 3
7. Valley Center 2-0 103 7
8. St. Augustine 2-0 81 10.
9. Eastlake 1-1 67 8.
10.  San Pasqual 2-0 36 NR.

WHAT DID HE REALLY THINK?

“It was a mess offensively,” said quarterback Josh Harris, describing Helix’ victory over Vista.

How will Harris feel after the “mess” is cleaned up?

The Scots’ signal caller lost two fumbles but also completed 15 of 22 passes for 298 yards and four touchdowns.  “We did some good things, but we have a lot of things to improve,” said Harris.

DOWN GOES OCEANSIDE

Two offensive linemen were out and quarterback Tofi Paopao was not 100 per cent.  Temecula Chaparral, a strong Southern Section squad Oceanside defeated in 2010 and ’11, slapped the Pirates with a 40-30 defeat, the final score closer than the difference between the teams.

Chaparral is 3-0 with a big game coming up against the Las Flores Tesoro Titans.   The Pumas also defeated San Bernardino Cajon 42-0 and Moreno Valley Valley View 48-0.

A better read on Oceanside may be forthcoming after Chaparral plays the 4-0 Titans,  No. 6 in the Los Angeles Time Top 25 (Tesoro topped Chaparall 17-14 the following week).   

HOOVER HONORS MR. B

The refurbished Hoover High Stadium was renamed in honor of  Bob Breitbard, a 1937 Hoover graduate who founded the Breitbard Athletic Foundation out of an office at his father’s California Laundry business in 1946.

Breitbard played baseball and football at Hoover, was co-coach of the football team in 1944, and held the position of cheerleaders’ coordinator.  He honored San Diego athletes and promoted  sports in San Diego for more than 70 years.

The Cardinals dedicated Bob Breitbard Stadium, with new, permanent lights before a 27-14 home-game victory over Brawley in their first home game in two years.  Breitbard’s daughter and son-in-law took part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

For more than 60 years the Hoover gridiron was in a South-to-North configuration, end zones facing the gymnasium and Monroe Street. The wooden bleachers on the home, East side burned down in 1949. Steel-framed seating with lights were completed before the 1950 season and stood for years.

Several years ago the gridiron was reconfigured and now faces East and West.

SHADES OF ’58 SWEETWATER…ALMOST

Crawford used 13 minutes, 39 seconds of playing time, driving 75 yards in 26 plays, and converted three third downs and three fourth downs on its opening possession against San Pasqual Academy.

The Colts stalled at the Dragons’ 13-yard line and came up empty.

It would be difficult to find a longer possession or more total plays, but Sweetwater won an epic, 1958 playoff game at Anaheim with a touchdown drive of 24 plays and 83 yards, taking ball possession with two minutes remaining in the third quarter and scoring with two minutes left in the game.

The touchdown made the final score 7-7, but the Red Devils advanced to the Southern California semifinals with a 14-9 advantage in first downs.  The late Wayne Sevier, Sweetwater’s quarterback, once recalled  that the Red Devils won six third-down measurements and converted  a fourth and 24.

The fourth-and-forever,  drive-saving first down came on a flea-flicker pass  Sevier passed laterally to Mike Fogelsong, who threw back across the field to Sevier, who lumbered down the sideline.  “We made it by six inches,” Sevier said.

Also in the backfield for that Sweetwater team was Gil Warren, still coaching, and winning, at Olympian.