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Coach Les Cassie’s Hoover Cardinals were within nine outs of a berth in the Southern California finals.  San Diego High was San Diego High, reliably formidable.  But Don Clarkson’s Point Loma Pointers may have been the best of all. The Pointers won the prestigious Pomona 20-30 Rotary Club tournament, split two games with Hoover, and defeated ...

Happy trails, Victory League. A bi-product of World War II, gasoline rationing, security scares, and travel restriction, the league served its purpose for four calendar years (search 1943: V is Key) as school bosses and students strived for normality. San Diego and Hoover, which joined teams in the Metropolitan League in1942 and again when the Victory was ...

Army-Navy broke a school record last week that had been on the books since 1940, when the Warriors were based at the previous Red Apple Inn in Carlsbad. Four shutouts at the start of the season. Eighty-two years ago, the cadets of coach T.S. Walker opened with three shutouts by blanking St. Augustine, 6-0, the Hoover sophomores, ...

How far has Cathedral fallen and how high has Helix risen? The Dons are coming off two huge losses and Helix is undefeated. They’ll meet this week at Helix and the Highlanders might smell blood in the water after Cathedral’s successive losses of 42-7 to Corona Centennial and 63-7 to Chandler, Arizona, in the 12th annual Honor ...

The thermometer is expected to reach three digits in San Diego Friday, recalling a similar day and high school football 59 years ago. On Thursday, Sept. 26, 1963, an all-time high of 111 degrees scorched the area. The next day the  high was 104. I was in the Hoover stadium when the Cardinals and Helix, two of ...

Despite a 42-7 loss to state No. 3 Corona Centennial, in which it manufactured only 138 yards offense, Cathedral still is held in high esteem by  the computer services. Max Preps ranks Cathedral  fifth and gives the Dons a 60.7 strength-of-schedule rating, highest among any team in California.  Anaheim Servite (60.4) and Norco (60.1) are closest. Cathedral ...

Visiting Calexico was in a 7-7 tie in the fourth quarter in the season’s first game when the lights went out at the Blythe Palo Verde Valley stadium. The final score was reported to Max Preps as a tie, a result increasingly uncommon as teams nowadays usually find a conclusion in overtime.  A few hours later ...

Francis Parker’s Chris Williams set a San Diego Section record when he scored all 52 points in the Lancers’ 52-27 win over Pasadena Poly, according to   information provided to The San  Diego Union. Williams did it all:  Six touchdown runs, 10, 23,25,27,27, and 45 yards.  A 62-yard pass interception for a touchdown.  Seven points after and ...

John Maffei of The San Diego Union-Tribune and three other ranking services have offered their opinions on 2022 football in the San Diego Section. Maffei canvassed coaches, noted the results of summer 7-on-7 passing competitions, and compared roster compositions, among other factors.  The U-T’s weekly poll will begin after this week’s opening round of games. Cal-Hi Sports ...

Dewey J. (Mike) Morrow, a University of California at Berkeley graduate from Montana, returned from the war to San Diego High and coached the Hilltoppers to his eighth CIF Southern Section championship in Morrow’s 16 seasons and first since 1939. Writer Norrie West of the Evening Tribune said of Morrow’s return: “Not a soul will deny that ...

San Diego High, led by quartermiler Norman Stocks, sprinter-broad jumper Jimmy Barrera, hurdler Harry West, shot putter Joe Acevedo, and half-miler Harry Taylor, among others on a deep and talented squad, was in full force, posting an 8-0 record in dual meets, winner of 16 in a row, and 20-2 since Bill Patten became coach ...

San Diego’s surprising, late-season ride on the left arm of pitcher Brent Strom resulted in the Cavers’ first major championship since they won the Southern Section title in 1952. And it was to be the Cavers’ last, ending a run that began with a state championship in 1918. Changing demographics, new schools, new neighborhoods, revised enrollment borders, ...

On March 21 the Hoover student body announced a fund-raising drive for a new baseball facility, Ted Williams Field, in honor of the January, 1937,  graduate and major league baseball Hall of Fame inductee. For years the Cardinals played home games in the school’s football stadium, with a rightfield fence, beyond the track,  a Little League-dimensioned ...

Arnie Robinson was coming to the end of four brilliant seasons at Morse. Robinson high jumped 6-7, long jumped 24 feet, and won the 120-yard high hurdles in :14.8 in his last competition (see below) at the school on Skyline Drive in Encanto that Robinson watched open in September, 1962. The nephew of 1940s San Diego High ...

Tim Danielson, Terry Rogers, and Doyle Steel were state champions and would have been favored in their events if there were a prep national championship meet. Chula Vista’s Danielson, the second to better four minutes in the mile, was undefeated  on the prep level the last two years  and he competed nationally and internationally well into ...

Thirty-three boys, counting one for relays, posted 43 marks that made the state Top 25 in the standard 16 events, as noted by Athletic.net.  Numbers in parenthesis represent placement. EVENT NAME MARK STATE 100 Tucker, Lincoln :10.51w, (17T), :10.54 (21T) :10.14, Pleasant, Gardena Serra Priest, Maranatha :10.56 (23T) 200 Brock, Cathedral :21.40 (20) :20.40, Pleasant Tucker, Lincoln :21.47w (22), :21.74 400 Parker, Helix :46.82 (3) :46.75, Goode, Santa Clarita West Ranch Brotschi, Otay Ranch :48.12 (12T) 800 Harder, San ...

Forty-five girls, counting one for relays, posted 54 marks that made the state Top 25 in the standard 16 events, as noted by Athletic.net.  Numbers in parenthesis represent placement. EVENT NAME/SCHOOL MARK STATE 100 Shaheed, Madison :11.66 (4) :11.45, Redmond, Carson McCormick, Scripps Ranch :11.71w (3), :11.76 (11) Hatton, Sage Creek :11.91w (21T), :12.18 200 Bean, Poway :24.25 (8) :23.82, :23.65w, Currie, Santa Clarita Golden Valley Shaheed :24.45 (15) 400 Bean :55.09 (8) :53.19, Cenci, Clovis North Cramer, ...

Adren Parker drove Helix to a fifth place finish in the 4×400 relay as the Highlanders ran 3:15.79,  11th all-time in San Diego.  An added plus was Helix’s breaking the school record of 3:16.23, set in 2003. Parker, a junior, also put 2023 rivals on notice with a fourth-place, :47.68 performance in the 400 meters that ...

Charlize James and Kapiolani Coleman held up under the grind of carrying the mantel of favorites and winning gold medals in the state meet in Clovis. Cathedral’s Coleman, the state leader for most of the season, won the 300 hurdles in :42.23. James, chasing Scripps Ranch Aaliyah McCormick all season, took the 100 hurdles in :13.95 ...

San Diego High’s Charlize James defines competitor, at her best, and better, since the season moved into May.  James ran the second fastest  100 hurdles in San Diego Section history Friday,  :13.67 in the state track trials. James, whose time also is No. 2 in California this year and 12th in the United States, will not ...