2012, Week 1: Helix Lives Up to Preseason Poll

Helix’s 28-6 victory over Eastlake on the season’s opening weekend assured the Highlanders of remaining No. 1 in the North County Times sportswriters-sportscasters poll.

Helix had 13 first-place votes in the preseason poll last week and picked up seven more this week for a point total of 253.

Oceanside blew out Oakdale, a Northern California Division II power, 34-14, and remained second to the Highlanders with six first-place votes and 229 points.

Cathedral Catholic stayed at third in an unchanging top 3 after defeating Steele Canyon, 35-6.  Poway moved from fifth to fourth.

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 (20) 1-0 253 1
2. Oceanside (6) 1-0 229 2
3. Cathedral Catholic (1) 1-0 215 3
4. Poway 1-0 145 5
5. La Costa Canyon 1-0 134 8
6. Mission Hills 0-1 125 4
7. Valley Center 1-0 78 9
8. Eastlake 0-1 55 7.
9. Vista 0-1 49 6.
10.  St. Augustine 1-0 39 NR.

ROLL,  ‘SIDE!

Coach John Carroll’s Oceanside Pirates stunned Oakdale, the Sac-Joaquin Section’s top-ranked Division II team, leading 34-0 at halftime in a game that was part of the Battle for Veterans Invitational at Westlake Village.

It was a long trip for each team to the neutral site, 120 miles for Oceanside and 334 miles for Oakdale, located minutes northeast of Modesto.

Said Oakdale coach Trent Merzon:  “We got shellshocked.  We’ve never seen that kind of speed.”

OF A DIFFERENT STRIPE

Because of a National Federation rule, the distinctive, vertical  shoulder stripes on the Kearny Komets’ uniforms have been diminished.  Something about the uniform stripes clashing with the stripes on a football and creating an advantage for a ball carrier.

Former Kearny coach Birt  Slater ordered uniforms with stripes in 1961 and they were a part of the Kearny tradition thereafter.

The straight-talking Slater once joked to me, sort of,  that the stripes reminded him of prison bars and that they’d made his team look bigger and tougher.

Almost impossible to prove is one San Diego County football official’s claim that only three teams in the country have the same stripes as Kearny, including  a team in North Carolina, and one in Texas, which reportedly is not part of National Federation and not subject of the ruling, which has been in effect but not  enforced for several years.

FIRST-GAME PENALTIES
Whistles could be heard and flags were flying in the North County.

San Pasqual and Torrey Pines were penalized 25 times for 209 yards.  Vista and Colorado’s Aurora Grand View were whistled 24 times for 223 yards, including a series of five plays in which there were three penalties and three false starts.

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