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 16-14 lead in a frantic first quarter when Pascarella reminded his former teammates of who’s who with a 52-yard touchdown gallop that gave Carlsbad a 20-16 edge at the end of the quarter.

“There was some tension since I moved and a lot of them were doing some talking,” Pascarella told Kevin Gemmell of The San Diego Union.

Some of the talkers “are still my best friends,” noted the Carlsbad senior.

STAYS FOCUSED

Pascarella was not thrown off stride.  “I just had to let it go,” he said.   “This was our homecoming and business is business.”

Business was so good for Pascarella and coach Bob McAllister’s Lancers that they rolled to their second consecutive San Diego Section Division I championship with a 43-6 victory over Poway.

Pascarella personally escorted Carlsbad to D-1 finals, when he rushed for 315 yards and scored 6 touchdowns in a 63-21, semifinals rout of Escondido.

“I think Nick owes his offensive line a steak dinner,” said McAllister.

MORE TRANSFERS

Pete Johnson at Torrey Pines and Noel Phillips at Escondido had been at Westview in ’05.  Santa Fe Christian lost Stanley Paul, a running back-defensive back, to La Costa Canyon.

All three and Pascarella were productive players for their new teams, all of which, made the playoffs.

The San Diego Section is reputed to have some of the more stringent transfer rules in the state.  It was unusual that four top players would move to four top programs.

“If the parents upped and moved, there is really nothing we can do about it,” said San Diego Section major domo Dennis Ackerman.

“You always want what is best for the kid,” Rancho Bernardo coach Ron Hamamoto said of Pascarella, “but when he just picks up and leaves a week before two-a-days, it’s tough.”

EAST COUNTY AIR RAID

Rodeos and 4H competitions were taking a backseat in Lakeside.

A 21^st century version of Air Coryell at El Capitan was being piloted by a quarterback from Alpine and a coach whose day job was project manager and accountant for a Santee sheet metal company.

Ryan Lindley, a strapping, 6-foot, 4-inch junior who eventually would set records at San Diego State and be drafted by the NFL Arizona Cardinals, was the quarterback.

Ron Burner was the coach who stirred up things at the 47-year-old campus when Burner scrapped the Vaqueros’ traditional Wing T offense for the Lindley-favoring spread.

Burner had served as junior varsity coach and replaced Joe Cota in 2005.

El Capitan got all the way to 11-0 after a D-III, first-round, 52-28 rout of Cathedral but fell short, when St. Augustine upset the No. 1-ranked Vaqueros, 51-43 in the semifinals.

Lindley and receiver Al Conti repeatedly hit the Saints with big shots, the quarterback completing 23 of 45 passes for 419 yards and four touchdowns, and Conti setting a section record with 326 yards on 14 catches and 4 TD’s.

But the Saints outscored the Vaqueros 41-29 in the second half, highlighted by Leitch James’ 71-yard touchdown run from scrimmage and 92-yard kickoff return on a reverse.

TRADITIONS AND CACTUS

What happens when the Imperial Valley’s two oldest rivals come to a game with a combined record of 16-2 and the league championship, not to mention the Bell Trophy, to the winner?

The San Diego Union made an unusual decision and sent a reporter 120 miles to the desert to cover the regular-season contest.

Writer Bill Dickens noted that more than 7,000 persons jammed Brawley’s Wayne Field and those who couldn’t get a ticket were lined four deep, pressed against the fences that framed the field.

It was “arguably the biggest high school game in this community in decades,” Dickens wrote.

El Centro Central (9-1) interrupted Brawley’s nine-season run as Imperial Valley League champion and avenged nine consecutive losses in the battle for the bell with a hard-fought 14-7 victory.

Brawley (8-2) apparently broke a 7-7 tie with less than six minutes remaining but a 57-yard interception return for a touchdown by Darren Clark was nullified by a penalty.

150^TH GAME

Central capitalized on the dramatic shift in momentum by going 53 yards in four plays to the winning touchdown in the the U.S.-leading 150^th game in the series, which began in  1921.  Until 2006 the teams met twice a year.

And keeping with the moment, the crowd that was near capacity 90 minutes before kickoff was treated to some resounding pregame music, including AC-DC’s “Hell’s Bells.”

Brawley won a first-round D-III playoff, then was shocked 58-12 by St. Augustine, which won the III title with a 17-7 victory over Point Loma.  El Centro drew a first-round playoff bye, and then fell to Steele Canyon, 31-17.

TOUCH OF CLASS

“I feel bad for El Capitan,” said Saints coach Jerry Ralph, after his team had beaten Point Loma.  “They deserved to play in the (Qualcomm) Stadium.  They totally deserved it.  That’s why I was so upset with the seeding.”

Ralph was referring to the seemingly fair pairing which put the undefeated Vaqueros and the thrice-beaten Saints on the same side of the D-III bracket.

St. Augustine was seeded fourth in its division and had chosen to move up from IV to III.

RISING STAR

Santa Fe Christian, moving up from Division V, was second seed in IV but won that title, 34-21 over top ranked Mission Bay, for which 14-year-old freshman Dillon Baxter caught 5 passes for 97 yards and three touchdowns.

SIXTY SEASONS LATER

Chula Vista defeated Sweetwater 42-0, and was the first winner of the “Legacy of Pride” award, a glass-enclosed, platform-raised 1947 helmet, symbolic of the year the two South Bay rivals began play.

The award was created this year and goes to the winner in the County’s  oldest, continuous rivalry

Despite the loss Sweetwater still holds the series lead, 36-21-3.

ALMOST PERFECT

The Bishop’s Knights played more like the queen, in chess.

Although not quite the stature of  Spassky versus Fischer, Coastal League denizens looked forward to The Bishop’s-Army-Navy league opener.

Each was 4-1 and had lost to the same team, Army-Navy to Capistrano St. Margaret by a 26-12 score and The Bishop’s by a 3-0 margin.

Comparative scores meant little.

After essentially sleeping through the first quarter, the Knights scored touchdowns on seven successive possessions, made each PAT, and check-mated Army-Navy, 49-0.

DREADED ADMINISTRATIVE GLITCH

Crawford forfeited six games, including two victories, for using an ineligible player, who was found to be competing for a fifth year (five years in high school?).

Crawford’s admission came in the season’s final week and just days after Madison forfeited five games after discovery of an ineligible player with a similar situation.

Crawford’s record was reduced to 2-7 with one game remaining.  Madison missed the opportunity to clinch a third straight Central League title.

Coincidentally the Colts and Warhawks met in the regular-season’s final game, after the forfeits.  Crawford won, 22-13.

DREADED DISCIPLINARY ACTION

Mission Hills coach Chris Hauser mulled the idea of whether to reinstate eight players who were suspended before the 42-0 victory over San Marcos in Week 10.

The players were suspended for vandalism at San Marcos.  According to Knights coach Desi Herrera, the vandalism included spray painting the stadium press box and the Knights’ playing field.

Mission Hills, forfeited out of the 2005 playoffs because of residential ineligibilities, finished the regular season with an 8-2 record.

“They embarrassed me, they embarrassed themselves, and they embarrassed their families,” said Mission Hills coach Chris Hauser.

San Marcos students had spray painted the Mission Hills field in 2005.

KNIGHTS REWARDED

Mission Hills dumped San Marcos 42-0, but the Knights received an unexpected bonus.  They were given a playoff berth.

Madison and Crawford were out of the postseason because of forfeits, but instead of constructing an eight-team playoff bracket in D-IV the committee of former coaches, overseen by Dennis Ackerman, opted for a 10-team bracket.

Of the 11 eligible IV possibilities, San Marcos was picked over another winless club, Kearny.

Coach Desi Herrera defended his 0-10 squad

“0-10 is 0-10,” Herrera admitted to writer Steve Brand, “but the beauty is we’re starting a whole new season 0-0 and the playoffs are where we aspire to be.  I want the players to get used to going to the playoffs every year.”

Coronado eliminated San Marcos 27-21 in Round I.

INTERSECTIONAL KING

Carl Parrick, the globe-trotting Bonita Vista coach whose teams had played games in the nation’s capital, Hawaii, and Cuba, among other venues, was host to the Lumberjacks of Bogalusa, Louisiana.

The visitors did Disneyland, Sea World, the beach, and the other usual tourist attractions during a week in California, then defeated Parrick’s Barons, 19-14.

“They were excited to be out here,” summed up Parrick.  “We weren’t.”

TRAGEDY AT BRAWLEY

Brian Thomas, 17-year-old Brawley senior, passed away at University of California at San Diego Medical Center, where he was air-lifted after sustaining a spinal cord injury in practice.

The Wildcats’ opening game with Rancho Bernardo was canceled.

The following week Brawley was at Indio, where coach John Bishop’s players wore decals with Thomas’s initials on the backs of their helmets and observed a moment of silence before kickoff.

COACH KILLED

The Brawley community suffered another blow when Clark Seybert, 56, the Wildcats’ junior varsity baseball coach and a former Wildcats quarterback, was killed when the pickup Seybert was driving ran off a dirt embankment near the In-ko-Pah pass.

FORCIER ERA

The youngest of the “Forcier Force” was stepping up at Scripps Ranch.  Sophomore Robert (Tate) Forcier followed older brother Jason, the 2004 San Diego Section player of the year who was redshirting at Michigan, and Chris, quarterback at defending San Diego Section champion St. Augustine.

“Tate” so named after a character in the 1991 Jodie Foster movie, “Little Man Tate,” scrambled 79 yards for a touchdown and completed 10 of 17 passes for 182 yards and a touchdown in Scripps Ranch’s 42-0 victory over Mar Vista.

DISCIPLINE?

La Jolla Country Day pulled out of a game with San Pasqual Academy, a school official at ‘Day citing disciplinary measures involving its students.

The game was declared “no contest” and would be played at a later date, although the teams never met.

CELTIC GREEN?

Forget the victory cigar Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach would light when a victory was certain. University City coach Patrick Coleman unwrapped and enjoyed a green lollipop after the Centurions’ 14-0 victory over Clairemont.

“We’re starting a bunch of new traditions,” said Coleman.

Coleman would have to wait until the 2007 season to again celebrate. U. City was beaten by Steele Canyon, 28-0, in the first round of the playoffs.

TRUE GRID

In its fifth season, Steele Canyon installed stadium lights and played its first game at home after dark against usual opening-game opponent Cathedral and won 20-13…after a 34-14 victory over Madison  in the opening game, Mission Bay coach Willie Matson said, “I believe we can go all the way”…the Bucs came close, finishing 10-2 and reaching the Division IV championship game before bowing to Santa Fe Christian 34-21…Hoover’s 36-0 win over Morse ended a string of 10 straight losses to the Tigers, dating to 1968 and gave the Cardinals a 2-0 start for first time since 1999…San Clemente, ninth-ranked in Orange County, came South and defeated Oceanside, No. 1 in San Diego County, 27-9…H-Town Christian was the smallest school in California that was playing 11-man football…the Lions’ enrollment was 40…ninety seconds from the biggest victory in the school’s short history, Scripps Ranch saw its 14-13 lead over Cathedral turn into a 16-14 loss…the Dons intercepted a Falcons pass and Dylan Portas booted a 26-yard field goal with 15.7 seconds remaining…announced attendance for four championships at Qualcomm Stadium was 17,123…Christian edged Francis Parker,14-10, for the V title, played days later at Patrick Henry.  San Pasqual Academy won the 8-man title a couple weeks earlier over Borrego Springs, 64-14….

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 .753 winning percentage.  His teams made 15 playoff appearances, were in the San Diego Section finals five times, and won 3 championships.

Slater was an assistant football coach at San Diego High from 1953-57, a period in which the Cavers posted a 45-8-1 record.  He also was coach of the 1957 San Diego track team that upset favored Compton Centennial to win the Southern California championship.

San Diego High’s 1955 team posted an 11-0-1 record, won the Southern California championship, and was declared national champion.

A more detailed account of Slater’s career can found in the article  “1959: “Birt, Are You Crazy?”

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 in Week 2 to 8 this week.

Oceanside and Mission Hills are on a collision course.  They’ll meet in a Week 5 wrapup of the nonleague season.

Oceanside’s hard-fought, 50-39 loss to Gardena Serra last week may  have dimmed the Pirates hopes for action beyond the San Diego Section season, but it’s too early to rule them out.

	Team/1st Place Votes in ( )	2013 Record	Points*	Last Week
1	Oceanside (22)	2-0	302	1
2	Mission Hills (8)	2-0	271	2
3	Madison	2-0	238	3
4	Cathedral	2-0	214	4
5	Helix	1-1	183	5
6	Grossmont	2-0	154	6
7	St. Augustine	1-1	104	7
8	San Pasqual	2-0	96	8
9	Poway	1-0	50	—
10	Eastlake	1-1	46	10

*Points awarded on 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.                                                           Others receiving votes with points in parenthesis: Carlsbad (28), Mount Miguel (11), Rancho Buena Vista (10), ), Ramona (8), La Costa Canyon (7), Mission Bay (3), El Capitan (2),  Serra (1).

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.

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 nimble and swift Gardena Serra Cavaliers.

The visitors, who rank among the country’s top teams, didn’t wilt in the heat or from the glare and noise of a jammed Simcox Field gathering.

The 50-39 loss will haunt Carroll, who pointed out that his team was well hydrated.  The Gardena quarterback “handled the ball about a 100 times (actually about half of that number) and never cramped,” the Oceanside mentor noted.

“I don’t get it,” Carroll told Maffei.  “We played one of the best teams in the country.  We had the lead with 3:30 to play but cramps killed us.”

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

The Cota family’s football lineage goes back more than 50 years, but Adrian Bueno did something at Ramona that eluded his grandfather and uncle.

Bueno, a senior cornerback seeing extended varsity action for the first time, returned an intercepted pass 45 yards for a touchdown, although the Point Loma dropped a 21-19 decision.

Bueno’s grandfather, Ron Cota, was an all-San Diego Section linebacker at St. Augustine in 1961 but never scored a touchdown.  Bueno’s uncle, Stephen Cota, was a second-team, all-San Diego Section linebacker on Point Loma’s undefeated 1987 team, and never reached the end zone.

100 POINTS IN A HURRY

U-T San Diego writer Jim Lindgren doubted whether a San Diego Section team had reached 100 points in a season faster than El Capitan, which, after a 44-0 victory over Mater Dei, had scored 114 points in one game and less than a half in the second game.

The answer is yes, the 100-point level has been reached 49 times by teams in the first two completed games, including three others this season.

There have been more than 45,000 games played by San Diego County teams since the first ball was inflated.

PARKER LEADS AFTER TWO

Many of those 100-point achievements were by teams playing eight-man football, but there are only five that have surpassed the Vaqueros’ total of 114 points in the first two games.

With assists from Calexico and our neighbors to the North, among others:

1—Francis Parker scored 136 points in 2005, when it defeated Parksville of British Columbia, Canada, 62-12, and Temecula Linfield, 74-16.

2—El Camino scored 128 in 1999, with victories of 66-13 over West Vancouver, Canada, and 62-6 over Morse.

3—Escondido topped Calexico, 70-0, and Orange Glen, 49-0, for 119 points in 2008.

4—Escondido  Charter had 118 points in 2009, when it defeated Foothills Christian, 69-41, and Calvin Christian, 49-0.

5—San Diego scored 115 points in 1925, with victories of 69-0 over Sweetwater, and 46-0 over Los Angeles Manual Arts.

6T—Escondido, defeated Calexico, 79-0, and Lancaster Eastside, 35-21, for 114 points in 2009.

LIKES NEW ADDRESS

Coach Mike Wright’s Crawford Colts are showing more life than at any time in the last decade.  Stepping down from Division IV to V may have helped, but Wright thinks, among other factors, the Colts are playing to their strength.

Crawford defeated Julian 49-0 last week, following a 55-0, Week 1 victory over San Diego Southwest.

Wright told U-T San Diego writer Kirk Kenney that only one player could bench press 200 pounds in a 2012 campaign that ended with a 1-9 record, with the victory coming on a forfeit.

Twenty-one players now can bench more than 200 after committing to a summer weight-lifting program.

“We’re a different team,” the coach told Kenney.  “We’re a different Crawford.”

QUICK KICKS—Mira Mesa tied El Camino, 12-12, on a touchdown pass with 50.5 seconds remaining, then lost, 15-12,  when the Wildcats’  David Rodriguez kicked a 35-yard field goal with 7.7 seconds left…”Not being arrogant, I expected a shutout,” said Cathedral coach Sean Doyle, praising his defense…the Dons defeated Torrey Pines, 10-0….

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 turf field, towering light standards and concrete stadium bleachers — all book ended by big yellow goal posts.

My reason for the excitement is that I played many high school sports — football, basketball and track — and then played college football at West Point. My son played high school football, then played football for an Ivy League college. We lived a part of the American dream. Football was tough emotionally and physically. Coupled with academics it was a real character builder.

Inspired about football in the neighborhood, I approached Sage Creek Principal Cesar Morales to see if I could help with the freshman football team. Big surprise — no football. The school offers 18 other sports, but, again, NO FOOTBALL!

Why is there a football stadium, but no football?

To date, the explanation is that Carlsbad’s school board was modeling the footprint of Canyon Crest/Torrey Pines high schools and San Dieguito/La Costa Canyon high schools. There, only one school in the district has football, supposedly creating a more “comfortable academic environment” at the non-football school.

Motivated to hopefully change the school board’s thinking, I sent “The Boys of Fall” video to Superintendent Suzette Lovely and each board member. The video demonstrates what dreams and experiences students forfeit by removing football. The superintendent and all board members are women, so my hope in having them view the video was to show how the emotion and spirit of football, like no other sport, can be transmitted to students, faculty and the community.

However, all subsequent conversations with school administrators came with the vibe that football is a potential negative and Sage Creek High School would be “a more comfortable experience” without it.

My point to them was that football is the most popular sport in the United States and is a foundational standard of the American high school experience. It teaches emotional and physical toughness, team play and responsibility.

Trying to protect students by creating an academic conclave is a mentality that weakens student experience.

In order to get an expert opinion, I contacted Ed Burke, the head coach I assisted for six years at Torrey Pines High School. Ed coached for 43 years and is in the California Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The football stadium at Torrey Pines High was renamed Ed Burke Stadium in his honor.

Coach Burke and I attended the Aug. 14 school board meeting. We were scheduled next to last of 40 discussion items and given five minutes. Ed eloquently explained that in 43 years he taught many subjects and coached nearly every sport. He said, “Football is by far the greatest school experience a young man can have.”

Our suggestion to the school board was to start gradually with a freshman/junior varsity team for fall 2014. Fielding a team would logically answer to the taxpaying community the question of why build a million-dollar football stadium. Lastly, each board member was given a sheet with 42 reasons a Sage Creek football program would provide a more complete and improved school experience. The board was asked if there was any discussion.

The answer from each board member was silence. No discussion. No committee to evaluate a future program.

These types of decisions, by a select few, are a microcosm of America, where comfort and protection trump individual responsibility, hard work, and endeavors that create stronger citizens.

Are these decisions moving America in the right direction?

The school board owes an explanation to the community as to who made the decision to have a football stadium and no football. The school board also owes an explanation on how it was vetted and why the community was so poorly informed.

The above appeared on the op-ed page in the Sept. 7, 2013, UT-San Diego. The author is  a 1965 graduate with academic honors from Hoover High who has  a long and distinguished background in athletics.  Marshall was a starting quarterback on the football team and also started in basketball and lettered in track and field at Hoover. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., where one of Marshall’s  coaches was Bill Parcells and his freshman basketball coach was Bobby Knight, both coaching legends.  Marshall’s football roommate was Gary Steele,  who became the first African-American letterman in football at Army. Steele is the father of ESPN anchor Sage Steele and Baltimore Ravens public relations executive Chad Steele.

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.