Cathedral and Torrey Pines, 1.8 miles apart on San Diego’s Del Mar Heights Road, meet in the region’s biggest game Saturday night at Southwestern College in Bonita, more than 30 miles away.
Southwestern’s Jaguar Stadium is a terrific venue which probably could squeeze 10,000 persons into its concrete stands and is the only edifice capable of handling a so-called game of the year and Open Division championship in the San Diego Section.
This isn’t Texas, where 20,000-seat high school stadiums are not uncommon. But Southwestern’s is the best in this area of more than 3 million persons. Long gone are San Diego State’s Aztec Bowl and Balboa Stadium on the San Diego High campus, which were larger and hosted similar contests over the years.
SO CLOSE
Cathedral and Torrey Pines, the Open Division finalists, are closer on the field than their geographic cheek to cheek.
Torrey is 11-0, Cathedral 10-1.
Torrey Pines is ranked 11th in California by Cal-Hi Sports. Cathedral is 12th.
Cathedral is 11th in the state and 51st nationally as calculated by Max Preps. Torrey Pines is 14th and 71st, respectively.
Calpreps.com gives Cathedral a 63.3 ratings. Torrey is assigned 60.5.
Cathedral dropped its opening game, 19-7 to La Costa Canyon. Torrey Pines scored a late-season, 38-0 victory over the Mavericks.
DONS DRAMA
School honchos suspended coach Sean Doyle for last week’s 35-0 playoff win over Carlsbad after reported hazing among players. Doyle was said to have been unaware and not involved but being the captain of the ship, Doyle took the hit.
The distraction notwithstanding, we’ll take Cathedral over the Falcons, 42-28.
QUICK KICKS
Higher playoff seeds will be the home teams for the semifinals in Divisions 1 through V…possible most significant matchups: Eastlake (2) and Helix (3) in D-I…Mission Hills, lowest seed at 9, versus 4 St. Augustine in the other D-I semifinal…Mira Mesa, a 7 seed, visits Valley Center (3) in D-II…Santa Fe Christian, a 6 seed, travels to No. 1 El Centro Central in D-III…No. 6 Serra visits No. 1 San Diego in D-IV…Orange Glen, at 7-4 enjoying its first winning season since 1997 and hoping to forget a 21-year record of 51-153-1, is the No. 1 seed in D-V and takes on visiting No. 4 Holtville…Orange Glen’s last winning season was the 9-3 of coach Rob Gilster’s 1996 squad…Gilster then went over the hill and north of Lake Wohlford to start the Valley Center program in 1997….
Interesting story about the hazing suspension. One of our Maryland super teams, Damascus who have a 50 game winning streak, had a similar incident among the JV squad. Thus far the varsity who are in the state playoffs have not been affected but reports of a second hazing incident at another county school surfaced last week. I think this is more endemic than people think and penalties should be much tougher than suspension of the coach.