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The lower classifications held sway. Grossmont was the Southern Section team champion in Class B and most of the area’s future Class A champions were underclassmen, at least a year or two away. Hoover was enjoying a period of dominance in CPL dual meets, routing San Diego, 64 1/3-39 2/3.  Grossmont also defeated the Cavers, 79 5/6-24 ...

Carlsbad will be at  an interesting juncture as the regular season turns to the second half and the Lancers riding a 10-game winning streak. At 5-0, duplicating its record in the pandemic 2020 campaign and 5-0 starts in 2013 and 2007, coach Thadd MacNeal’s team will try to become  6-0 for the first time since 2006 ...

By three points, Carlsbad retained its lead over Cathedral, 226 points to 223 and will sit out this week with a bye. John Maffei’s weekly The San Diego Union-Tribune Top 10: First place votes in parenthesis.  Points on scale of 10 points to 1 point. RANK TEAM/RECORD POINTS PREVIOUS 1. Carlsbad 5-0 (13) 226 2 2. Cathedral 3-2 (11) 223 1 3. Lincoln 3-1 191 3 4. Mater Dei 3-0 167 4 5. Torrey Pines 3-1 133 6 6. Mission Hills 3-2 129 5 7 Scripps Ranch 4-0 82 7 8. Helix 3-1 55 10 9. Madison 3-1 52 8 10. Eastlake 3-1 33 9 OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES Mt. Carmel (4-0, 12 pts), ...

San Diego High, for decades the No. 1 team in Southern California baseball, was undefeated and favored to win an 11th CIF championship. Until…. The Hillers, as they were most often called (besides Cavemen, Cavers, and Hilltoppers) during the era, lost a quarterfinals playoff to a team it had beaten, handily, twice before. This San Diego team had ...

Cathedral coach Sean Doyle, whose team fosters a we’ll-play-anyone-anytime-anywhere mantra, gets another test this week against perhaps the most honored team in Califoria prep history. The Dons, recovering fast from their disaster in Week  2 at Corona Centennial, blitzed Helix, 52-0, last week and head North to play Concord de La Salle, which has a 4-0 ...

San Diego High bounced back with a 7-0 dual-meet record after a mediocre season in 1953 and finished fourth in the CIF Southern Section championships. It was a fitting farewell for coach Bill Patten, whose teams annually were among the best in Southern California since he became head coach in 1944. Patten’s teams posted a 61-6-1 record ...

The school named for Mabel E. O’Farrell was created in 1957 and opened in 1959 as a junior high, became a School of Performing Arts, and now operates under the tony brand of “The O’Farrell Charter School.” The Falcons got on the favored side of the scoreboard for the first time last week. After 18 consecutive losses ...

Not that they give a rip, but the Cathedral Dons’ 43-point, 57-14 defeat last week at Corona Centennial didn’t represent the worst loss in school history. More decisive was a 45-point loss, 55-10 to Sacramento-area power Folsom in 2014. Almost as painful was another 43-point reversal, 56-13 to Marian in the 2003 San Diego Section playoffs. Contributing ...

Hoover, led by high jumper-hurdler Bernie Nelson, stole thunder usually heard only by San Diego High opponents. The Cardinals were 6-0 in dual meets and along with Grossmont and Point Loma won a dual meet from the usually unbeatable Hillers. Nelson, who cleared 6 feet, 4 inches, was the County’s first state champion since Grossmont’s Hal Norris ...

Walt Harvey was a football and track coach and once confessed he “didn’t know anything about baseball.” Harvey was a 1936 Hoover High classmate and friend of Les Cassie, who was a successful baseball coach at San Diego High. Cassie didn’t know it but he deserved an assist when Harvey found himself coaching the varsity at ...

Cathedral and Lincoln, each with high aspirations, leave the sanctuary of comfortable surroundings and head North to face two of the state’s bests this week. Cathedral, No. 1 in San Diego and fifth in the state, as ranked by Cal-Hi Sports, takes on No. 8 Corona Centennial.  Lincoln, No. 24, goes to No. 10 Los Alamitos. Coach ...

Call it a return to (the new) normal. Football is back in real football time, but the Covid still looms, with the likelihood of canceled games and quarantines. And the pandemic, which reduced the 2020 season to an abbreviated schedule of 2021 spring games, probably was a factor in the turnover of coaches. There will be at least ...

Hoover, as newspaper accounts and the school yearbook indicated, might have been an undefeated, 12-0 champion. Published reports in The San Diego Union show that the East San Diego team played only a couple military teams in early-season March, emerging victorious in each. Other games may not have been reported. Schools were cutting back on travel because of ...

San Diego High, under second-year baseball coach Les Cassie, enjoyed its greatest success in a sport the Cavemen had dominated almost since the CIF Southern Section was formed in 1913. It won 35 games! And lost only two, a stunning won-loss percentage of .946! The historically powerful squads located on the beautiful campus at the South entrance to ...

Jack Mashin coached football at Grossmont from 1925-47 and posted an excellent record, 125-66-19 (.644), but he became more known as an international figure in track and field. Mashin would, under auspices of the U.S. State Department, coach the first Pakistan Olympic team in 1956 in Melbourne, Australia, and his decades-long success at Grossmont led to ...

Martin Pedigo, a former University of Oregon broad jumper, became the San Diego High coach and inherited a potential powerhouse. The Cavers, representative of one of the state’s great programs—184-30-2 in dual meets since 1929—were 14-7  under longtime assistant Henry Wiegand and hadn’t beaten Lincoln, their latest rival, since 1959. Wiegand deserved another year. Coincidentally, Pedigo, the ...

San Diego Section teams won two of seven Southern California championship basketball games. Mater Dei defeated host Mission Hills Bishop Alemany, 56-42, in Division II-AA and Rancho Bernardo topped visiting San Pedro Mary Star of the Sea, 72-44, in D-IIIAA. The Crusaders were a No. 5 seed and Alemany No. 2.  Rancho Bernardo was a 2 seed ...

After winning only one of seven games in the Open, I-AAA, and I-A divisions, San Diego Section entries in the Girls’ Southern California basketball playoffs rallied in the lower divisions. At least one team is assured a place in finals on Saturday.  St. Joseph, the No. 1 seed, in Division V-AAA, plays host to neighboring Fallbrook ...

Memories-for-a-lifetime victories and crushing defeats summed up the pandemic-altered San Diego Section season. The big one eluded 30-1 Torrey Pines in the Open Division final, a 68-65 loss to Etiwanda, but area teams won 6 of 9 championships, a stunning accomplishment considering San Diego’s generally unsuccessful runs in Southern California postseason competition. There should be a special ...

The Union-Tribune ‘s final poll included only the regular season.  We’ve included San Diego Section and Southern California playoff results in teams’ records but the rankings do not change. RANK TEAM RECORD POINTS LAST WEEK 1. Torrey Pines 30-1 (13) 130 1 2. San Marcos 25-2 113 2 3. Cathedral 17-3 107 3 4. St. Augustine 14-7 82 4 5. El Camino 24-6 79 5 6. Santa Fe Christian 20-4 73 6 7. Carlsbad 14-10 33 8 8. Mission Hills 16-9 20 7 9. Mater Dei 18-4 19 NR 10. Coronado 24-5 18 nr Others receiving votes: Orange Glen (25-7, 17 points), San Ysidro (23-7, 8), San Diego (16-14, 7),  Mission ...