Oceanside and Mission Hills reached the end of the 10-game regular-season race in a flatfooted tie, each earning a first-place rating after they deadlocked with 276 points in the UT-San Diego poll of sportswriters and sportscasters.

Coach Chris Hauser’s Grizzlies, who shocked Oceanside, 30-6, in the regular season, are the top-seeded team in the San Diego Section Open Division playoffs, created this year to place teams not by enrollment but by records and past success, “power ratings”.

The criteria also is in place for Divisions I-V and means that teams will be moved up and down in future playoff seedings.  As an example, Crawford, 10-0 and favored in D-V this season, could automatically move up a division in 2014.

Mission Hills takes on No. 8 Steele Canyon (3-7) in the first round.  Second-seeded Eastlake, which finished third in the poll, meets No. 7 Poway (4-6).  Oceanside, seeded third, gets No. 6 Torrey Pines (6-4)  and fourth-seeded Helix takes on No. 5 La Costa Canyon (7-3).

If seeding goes to form, a blockbuster semifinal looms, Mission Hills meeting Helix and Eastlake battling Oceanside.

The playoff seeding meeting was anchored by a group of mostly retired coaches.  The coaches (seeding) and media (poll), not surprisingly, didn’t agree on Open Division placements, although they were in step regarding top seeds in D-I and  II.

As the  games begin the U-T‘s group will be on hiatus, with a final poll conducted after the playoffs.

#	Team (1st)	W-L	Pts*	Last Week
1	Oceanside (13)	8-2	276	1
1	Mission Hills (12)	9-1	276	2
3	Eastlake (5)	9-1	263	3
4	San Pasqual (1)	9-1	204	4
5	Helix	8-2	188	5
6	Madison	9-1	160	6
7	St. Augustine	8-2	118	7
8	Ramona	9-1	88	9
9	Cathedral Catholic	8-2	73	8
10	Mount Miguel	8-2	38	10

*Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
Others receiving votes: Carlsbad, 6; El Capitan, 4; Imperial, 3; Grossmont,  2; Mission Bay, Hoover, 1 each.

Thirty-one sportswriters, sportscasters and administrators vote each week, including:  John Maffei, Craig Malveaux, Dennis Lin, Don Norcross, Lisa Lane, and Andrew Burer, U-T-San Diego; Steve Brand, Terry Monahan, Bill Dickens, Tom Saxe, Rick Hoff, U-T-San Diego correspondents; Nick Pellegrino, East County Sports.com; Steve (Biff) Dolan, Rick (Red) Hill (107.9 FM The Mountain); Jeff Kurtz, playonsports.com; Ernie Martinez, XTRA Sports 1360; John Kentera, Jack Cronin, Ted Mendenhall, Bob Petinak, Jordan Carruth, Bobby Wooldridge, Mark Chiebowski (The Mighty 1090;  Rick Willis, Brandon Stone, Jake Fadden, KUSI-TV; Craig Elsten, 619sports.net; Rick Smith, Partletonsports.com; Jerry Schniepp, John Labeta, CIF San Diego Section, and Bruce Ward, San Diego Unified School District.

We must be in an era of entitlement.

How else can you explain that 64 of 97 San Diego Section teams were invited to participate in the playoffs?

And 25 don’t even have winning records.

Seventeen losing teams and eight with .500 records are in.

They’ll vie for 6 divisional championships.

Sixty of 96 teams, including seven with losing records, made the five-division postseason in 2012.

Division IV this year includes one winning team out of 12, Sweetwater’s 6-4 Red Devils.

La Jolla, with a 4-6 record, gets a first-round bye.

El Cajon, 2-8 with a record of 0-4 and a negative point differential of 191-7 in the Grossmont Valley League, is in the IV playoffs.

ADDITIONAL BRACKET

The CIF created an Open Division this year in hopes of getting the elite teams competing in one bracket.  “Only” two losing teams, 3-7 Steele Canyon and 4-6 Poway are in the Open Division.

The top seeds are Mission Hills (9-1), Open; San Pasqual, 9-1, D-I; Madison, 9-1, D-II; Francis Parker, 10-0, D-III; Monte Vista, 5-5, D-IV, and Crawford, 10-0, D-V.

FIRST ROUND CHOICES

Best first-round matchups:

Open–La Costa Canyon (5) at Helix (4).

DI—None.

DII—Brawley (9)  versus Mission Bay (8) at site to be determined. Scripps Ranch (10) at West Hills (7).

DIII—The Bishop’s (7) at Morse (10).

DIV—None.

DV—Army-Navy (5) at Blythe Palo Verde (4-6).

San Diego High’s football program has bottomed out.

The Cavers forfeited to Hoover on the Monday before the Friday game this week.  The reason given was that they had less than 20 players and unable to field a full squad.

There was a time when that many running backs turned out for football at San Diego High.

San Diego’s fall from the heady decade of the 1950s, when the Cavers’ 85-15 record was the best in California and their 1955 team was acclaimed national champion, followed  the retirement of Duane Maley after the 1959 season.

San Diego experienced its first winless season in 53 years just two seasons later, going 0-6-2 in 1961 (they were 0-5-1 in 1908, 0-10 in 1984 and 1997, and 0-9 in 2013).

The Cavers have had some successful records since Maley’s retirement and were 7-4 as recently as 2011 but the decline has been steady, with only 16 winning seasons in the last 54, compared with 49 in the first 66.

34-YEAR WAIT FOR HILLTOP

“It feels like a five-thousand pound elephant has been lifted from our shoulders,” Cody Roelof told U-T San Diego reporter Kevin Farmer.

“Our kids have been so close the last four years,” said Roelof, who guided the Hilltop Lancers to their second-ever league championship and first since Stan Canaris coached the Lancers to a 9-1 record and the Metropolitan League title in 1979.

Hilltop edged Mar Vista for the Metro South Bay title, 18-15, on a play suggested by Roelof’s players.

Eschewing a field goal, which could have tied the game and necessitated overtime, the Lancers took their chances on fourth down at the five-yard line with four seconds remaining.

Hilltop quarterback Daniel Sanchez pitched a handoff to Drake Madarang, who followed lead blocker Luis Hernandez into the end zone for the winning score.

ALL ABOARD AIR LAWRENCE

Grossmont’s Anthony Lawrence set records for career passing yardage (8,502) and pass completions (652) and is two short of the career record for touchdowns (91) .

The Foothillers will be in the playoffs after an 8-2 regular season.

TRUE GRID

Mt. Carmel could have won its first league title since 1994 but lost to Del Norte, 35-28, and shared the  Valley League gonfalon with Del Norte and San Marcos…after beating Torrey Pines, 27-0, in the “Beach Bowl,” La Costa Canyon running back Kevin Mann was moved to declare to U-T San Diego reporter Kirk Kenney, “This is the biggest rivalry, I think, in sports.”…after digesting the profoundness of Mann’s pronouncement, Kenney anointed the La Costa concessions department with the rare five gastronomic belches on his five-belch scale…2013 state shot put and discus qualifier Dotsun Ogundeji returned a fumble 58 yards for a Madison touchdown in its 28-7 win over Point Loma…”We kept our eyes up and our heads on a swivel,” said Warhawks defender Sam Vermillion, describing Madison’s approach to Point Loma’s “fly sweep” offense…Helix’s 14-13 victory over Steele Canyon marked Troy Starr’s 200^th career win…Starr  is 61-12-1 since 2008 with the Highlanders….

 

 

A small item in The San Diego Union revealed that the Coliseum Arena in San Diego would be dark on Sept. 24.

A scheduled boxing card  was called off, because the promoter didn’t want to compete for attendance and gate receipts with the annual City Schools’ football carnival.

The carnival, kickoff to the high school season, was so popular with the city’s sports fans that even events as unrelated as professional boxing matches deferred to the preps.

It was the way we were in 1948.

Television had arrived but had yet to change American entertainment habits. The NFL’s popularity was in the formative stage, and major league baseball was a game played at least two time zones and 1,800 miles to the East.

THE CROWDS, THEY KEPT COMING

Football attendance in San Diego, beginning with the Carnival, still was at levels that would be considered unattainable just 10 years later.

The pomp, pageantry, and action of the carnival drew an estimated overflow crowd of 27,000, about as much as attended the 1947 Hoover-San Diego game, but less than the estimated, all-time record of 30,000 at the 1946 carnival.

San Diego outscored Hoover, 21-0, in its 15-minute debut and the Hillers and West compatriots La Jolla and Point Loma defeated the East contingent of Grossmont, Hoover, and Kearny, 28-2.

San Diego High had the largest home attendance, but Grossmont, ousted from the Metropolitan League because of increasing enrollment, proved to have a strong following as the third local member of the Coast League, joining San Diego and Hoover.

The Foothillers and Cavers played before 11,500 in their Coast League game at Balboa Stadium, and the Foothillers and winless Hoover drew 6,000 to Aztec Bowl.

Hoover, with no chance to win, helped San Diego draw 15,000 to Balboa Stadium for the annual renewal of the city rivalry, and 6,000 overflowed the Hoover stadium (before a stands-destroying fire) for a game with San Bernardino.

There was an overflow crowd of 5,000 at La Jolla for the Vikings’ Metropolitan League showdown with Coronado, and a jam-packed crowd of 3,000 saw host Vista win its Southern Prep title-deciding encounter with San Dieguito.

Eight-thousand were on hand at Ramsaur Stadium in Compton for San Diego’s big Coast League contest with Compton.

The numbers were everywhere.

MALEY APPOINTED COACH AT HILLTOP

San Diego High had a new coach.  Bill Bailey resigned to become head coach at the neighboring San Diego Junior College and was replaced by Duane Maley.

Maley was a 1940 graduate of San Diego and played collegiately at USC.

Maley’ first team was 7-0-1 in the regular season, and then felt the pain of  the first of several disappointments in the Southern California playoffs.

TOO MUCH JOHNNY O

The Cavers were beaten by Long Beach St. Anthony, or rather fullback Johnny Olszewski, 20-12, in a first-round game at Long Beach Wilson.

The 190-pound Olszewski, destined for an All-America career at California and a 10-season stint in the NFL, battered the Cavemen with pile-driving rushes,  averaging 7.8 yards, gaining 187 yards in 24 attempts, and scoring two touchdowns.

St. Anthony led 20-6 in the waning moments when the Cavers’ Neale Henderson returned a punt 85 yards for a touchdown.

Olszewski eliminated Ontario Chaffey the following week with touchdown runs of 80, 65, 41, and 22 yards, but was injured in the first quarter and forced out of the championship game versus Santa Barbara.

St. Anthony and Santa Barbara tied, 7-7, but the Saints were awarded the championship trophy with a 16-12 advantage in first downs.

Johnny O. actually was contained somewhat by the Hillers, at least in comparison to other opponents.  He averaged 11.99 yards a carry and gained 1,655 yards in 138 carries for the season and  scored 164 points in 12 games.

TRY THESE ON

There would be a Labor Day weekend holiday for the rest of the citizenry, but no rest for new coaches Duane Maley of San Diego or Bob Kirchhoff of Hoover.

On Saturday Maley was in the school gymnasium issuing equipment from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Six miles away in East San Diego, Kirchhoff was doing to same thing until 3 p.m.

I SAY VEESTA, YOU SAY VISTA

The Spanish word is correctly pronounced with  an “e” emphasis, but no one in the distant North County community was interested in linguistics.

Not the way the local football team was playing.

The Panthers outscored four Southern Prep League opponents, 148-0, and defeated San Dieguito, 20-0, for the league championship on the Nov. 11 Armistice Day, later named Veterans’ Day.

The Panthers met Tustin in a one-game, Southern Section Minor Division Southern Group championship playoff.

The Tillers trailed the host Panthers, 13-7, at the half and rallied to win the title, 20-13.

But Vista’s 294 points in nine games, the most scored by a County team since the 1945 San Diego team of coach Bill Bailey had 385 points in nine games, made the Panthers more popular than their larger North County neighbors, Oceanside and Escondido.

TARGET DATE: 1950

Hoover principal Floyd Johnson disclosed that San Diego may have its own league of city schools by 1950.

Officials from Coast, Metropolitan, and Imperial Valley schools discussed the possibility at a meeting Johnson chaired.  A City Prep League would include San Diego, Hoover, Grossmont, La Jolla, Point Loma, and Kearny.

A seventh school, the projected Southeast High, would join the others.  That school turned out to be Lincoln, which opened as a junior high, grades 7-8, in September, 1949.

The Presidents or Pennies, as they were first known, became the Hornets and fielded a varsity team for the first time in 1954.

0-10 MISERY

The penalty gods wouldn’t cut a break for the Sweetwater Red Devils.

Lloyd Bishop’s National City squad appeared to have snapped a 0-5 streak, leading, 7-6, and intercepting a desperate Coronado pass as the final gun sounded.

Sweetwater, however, was penalized for being off side on the play.  The infraction put the ball on the Red Devils’ 12-yard line. From there the Islanders’ Jim Voit swept end for a touchdown.

Kurt Storch kicked the point after and Coronado left the field with a 13-7 victory.

The reeling Red Devils ran the table in reverse, losing all 10 games.

LOVE THAT HOOK AND LADDER

For 46 minutes Grossmont and Pasadena sleep-walked through an 0-0 snoozer.  You could almost hear the snores of the 3,000 attendees in the cavernous Pasadena Rose Bowl.

Suddenly, the game changed.  On second down from the Foothillers’ 44, quarterback Phil May arched a pass in the flat to Hal Norris at the 50-yard line.

Kenny Whitcomb was trailing Norris, who lateraled to Whitcomb, who juggled the ball, fumbled, then picked the ball up on a bounce and raced to the end zone.  The Foothillers won, 6-0.

SAINTS COACH DISAGREES

With Hoover comatose, the San Diego-Grossmont game was billed as a battle for the “City Championship,” although the Foothillers’ campus had a La Mesa address.

St. Augustine coach Dave DeVarona, father of 1964 Olympic gold medal swimmer Donna DeVarona, was not pleased when he read the headline over the story written by Gene Earl.

Grossmont battled manfully against favored San Diego, which pulled out a 13-7 victory.

DeVarona, who saw the game, kept his counsel, but a couple weeks later, after a 25-0 victory over Grossmont, DeVarona reminded Earl that the Saints also resided in the city and hinted that his club could beat San Diego.

Earl also happened to be a St. Augustine alumnus.

There would be no San Diego-St. Augustine clash.

In the teams’ only other contest against a common opponent, San Diego lost to Long Beach St. Anthony, 20-12, in the Southern Section playoffs, a week after St. Anthony whipped the Saints, 64-33, as Johnny Olszewski scored on runs of 55 and 40 yards and had a total of five for the game to give Olszewski 13 in his last three games.

BLAZE AT HOOVER

A fire, suspicious in  origin according to Fire Department officials,  destroyed Hoover’s grandstand, forcing the Cardinals to hit the road, starting with a “home” day game in Aztec Bowl against Pasadena Muir.

A new structure would be ready for the Cardinals in 1949 but would not have lights, forcing the Redbirds to continue traveling.

It would be 1950 before Hoover played a home night game on its campus field.

QUIRKY RULE

Hoover’s Del Teter boomed a punt that went 55 yards in the air, over the heads of San Diego players, and teammate Jack Roznos downed the ball on the Cavers’ one-yard line.

Teter’s 78-yard kick could not be downed inside an opponent’s 10-yard line, according to a statute in the rule book of the day.

San Diego got the ball on its 20-yard line.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Ream Field’s 11^th Naval District football team in Imperial Beach, boasting a 3-1 record, was forced to cancel football in the middle of the season because of an outbreak of polio.

Floyd Buchi, the team’s starting quarterback, died four days after being diagnosed with the disease.  Midshipman Fritz Krauth, a starting end, also fell ill and was rushed to Navy Hospital in Balboa Park with fever and muscle pain.

NEW MASCOT FOR JUNIOR COLLEGE

In action by the student council, San Diego Junior College adopted “Knights” as its athletic mascot name, replacing the unflattering “Jaybirds”.

QUICK KICKS

Long Beach Wilson had six touchdown plays negated by penalties but still took down Hoover,  56-0… rare was the game won by a field goal, but that’s how Army-Navy defeated Fallbrook…Jim Salisbury’s 35-yard placement with 42 seconds left in the game pushed the Cadets past the Warriors, 3-0… Jim Voit averaged 10.4 yards and rushed for 120 of Coronado’s 138 total yards in an opening-game, 12-6 loss to St. Augustine…the Saints were in the Pasadena Rose Bowl for the Southland Catholic League carnival… St. Augustine outscored  Santa Monica St. Monica, 20-0, in a 10-minute exercise…teams played six, 10-minute quarters…35 San Diego players, plus coaches and staff flew to Phoenix Saturday afternoon at 2 and returned that night…starting at end for the Cavers: sophomore Charlie Powell, 6-2, 225 pounds…for three years, Powell excelled in downfield blocks, intercepted passes, touchdown catches, and touchdown runs…Powell and quarterback Jim Mellos collaborated on a 59-yard touchdown play in the Coast League title-clinching, 18-6 win at Compton…Powell caught Mellos’ pass on the Tarbabes’ 18-yard line and barged into the end zone……the “Imperial Valley Shuttle”, which ran for coaches for years, saw Cowboy Ken Maynard move on from Calexico to assist Lee Bogle at Grossmont…Walt Harvey was in his second year at La Jolla after serving in 1946 at Holtville, where Harvey coached all sports and drove the school bus to games…Bill (Red) Burrows joined the San Diego staff after apprenticing  at San Diego County Mountain Empire…La Jolla’s Jay Gutowski also was identified in press reports as “Ray” Gutowski and “Gay” Gutowski…his brother Bob was a world record holder in the pole vault in the late 1950s…Oceanside defeated Fallbrook, 20-19, in the season’s final game, dubbed the “Avocado Bowl”…six different Hillertoppers, Charlie Davis, Curtis Everett, Neale Henderson, Granville Walton, Fred Davis, and Jim Mellos, scored touchdowns and Frank San Fillippo kicked four extra points in the 39-7 rout of Hoover…two other Cavemen touchdowns were called back because of penalties…center John Davis of San Diego was a first-team, all-Southern California choice…no other locals were chosen on the three teams….

 

Oceanside is back on top in the U-T San Diego football poll, despite losing 30-6 to Mission Hills, the No. 2 team, a few weeks back.

I voted for Oceanside.  My thoughts were as conflicted as the total points separating Nos. 1 and 2.

Oceanside compiled 276 points and 12 first-place votes following its 43-0 blowout of La Costa Canyon last week. Mission Hills followed with  12 first place votes and 275 points after a 31-14 victory over Rancho Buena Vista.

Oceanside had one more second-place vote than the Grizzlies.

It seems the U-T panel may have awarded the Pirates more style points for their win.

Oceanside and Mission Hills could settle it all if they meet again in the Open Division playoffs.

Other potentially attractive rematches won’t happen because several of the Top 10 teams are in different playoff divisions.

#	Team	W-L	Pts	Last Week
1	Oceanside (12)	7-2	276	2
2	Mission Hills (12)	8-1	275	1
3	Eastlake (6)	8-1	264	3
4	San Pasqual (1)	8-1	214	4
5	Helix	7-2	186	5
6	Madison	8-1	165	6
7	St. Augustine	7-2	118	7
8	Ramona	8-1	80	9
9	Cathedral Catholic	7-2	72	8
10	Mount Miguel	8-2	49	10

*Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
Others receiving votes: Carlsbad, 5; El Capitan, 4; Imperial, 3; Torrey Pines, 2; Grossmont, Mission Bay, Hoover, 1 each.

Thirty-one sportswriters, sportscasters and administrators vote each week, including:  John Maffei, Craig Malveaux, Dennis Lin, Don Norcross, Lisa Lane, and Andrew Burer, U-T-San Diego; Steve Brand, Terry Monahan, Bill Dickens, Tom Saxe, Rick Hoff, U-T-San Diego correspondents; Nick Pellegrino, East County Sports.com; Steve (Biff) Dolan, Rick (Red) Hill (107.9 FM The Mountain); Jeff Kurtz, playonsports.com; Ernie Martinez, XTRA Sports 1360; John Kentera, Jack Cronin, Ted Mendenhall, Bob Petinak, Jordan Carruth, Bobby Wooldridge, Mark Chiebowski (The Mighty 1090;  Rick Willis, Brandon tone, Jake Fadden, KUSI-TV; Craig Elsten, 619sports.net; Rick Smith, Partletonsports.com; Jerry Schniepp, John Labeta, CIF San Diego Section, and Bruce Ward, San Diego Unified School District.

Football is fun again at Sweetwater and Hoover is traveling in style.

Sweetwater whipped Castle Park, 28-7, for its fourth victory in a row and a 5-4 record.  The Red Devils had not won 4 straight since 1996 and have not been 5-4 since 1998.

Hoover is a 7-game winner for only the 12^th season in the 84 since the Cardinals first teed up the pigskin.  They also collected a rare double, defeating old rivals Lincoln and Morse for the first time in the same season.

HIVE, TIGERS SHUFFLE CARDS

Hoover is only 13-29-1 against Lincoln since 1954 and 8-14 versus Morse since 1962.

There were several years in which Hoover played only one of the teams and years in which the squads were in different leagues and did not meet at all.

The somewhat itinerant  Hockervillers have been in eight different leagues (some with the same names but different schools) since 1954:  City, 1954-58; Eastern, 1959-75; Western, 1976-80; Central, 1981-92; Harbor, 1993-99; Western, 2000-09; Central, 2010-11, and City, 2012-13.

EIGHT SOUNDS GREAT

The  Cardinals now are 7-2 with only ancient and now impotent rival San Diego remaining on the regular-season schedule.

A Hoover win next week would give the Redbirds eight victories, a feat accomplished only by the squads of 1954, ’56, ’86, ’98, ’99, and ’06.

Even in the cascading torrent of watered-down playoff invitations, Sweetwater hasn’t competed in the postseason since 2004.  Hoover will make its second consecutive appearance under second-year mentor Jerry Ralph.

QUICK KICKS

Serra’s Hunter Correll lofted  a pass with 2.7 seconds remaining and Calvin Crockett caught the throw for a 53-yard touchdown  as the Conquistadors came from behind to shock Morse, 21-15…Ramona’s is supposed to be leaving the Palomar League  after four seasons and the Bulldogs claimed their first league championship with a 24-21 win over Torrey Pines…after a 42-0 victory over Valley Center, San Pasqual still was hurting from the 38-36 upset loss to Rancho Buena Vista in Week 9…”We had a emotional and mental breakdown in that game,” Eagles coach Tony Corley said of his team’s first defeat…Oceanside coach John Carroll, hospitalized during the week because of dizziness, watched from the press box as the Pirates took La Costa Canyon to the woodshed, 43-0….