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  • 1994-95: Christian Girls Emerge With Buzzer Beating Shot
    Eighty-three teams, 47 boys squads and 36 girls teams, all had their “hoop dreams” (a so-named, popular movie of the day) as they embarked on what would become a postseason of 114 games, ending with a state championship by the Division V Christian girls. BOYS PLAYOFFS FIRST ROUND D-I Poway 80, Morse 61 (11-17). San Dieguito 58, San Diego 41 ...
  • 1994-95: McCoy, Others made for Dynamic Season
    DECEMBER, 1994 –Six-foot, 11-inch Jelani McCoy started the season with 41 points and set a San Diego Section record with 16 blocked shots in an 85-82 win in the Hilltop/Pizza Hut tournament. El Camino’s Dee Boyer blocked 15 shots in a 1989 game. –Dimitri Hodgkinson scored 37 points and El Cajon Valley reached triple digits in the ...
  • 2019: Doyle joins 9 Others With at Least 200 Victories
    Cathedral coach Sean Doyle, average nine wins a season for the next 15 years and catch Herb Meyer. To those who think Doyle, should he decide to challenge Meyer’s record of 339 victories, is likely to fall short, consider that the veteran of 24 seasons, all at the same school, has averaged 9.3 wins the last ...
  • 2019 Week 15: We’re Down to 6 Survivors
    The season continues for the six San Diego Section division champions. Pairings for the Southern California regional playoffs with teams with AA classification playing on Friday, Dec .6, while teams with A designation will play on Saturday, Dec.7. Division Team Record Opponent Record I-AA Helix 11-1 Chatsworth Sierra Canyon 12-1 I-A Oceanside 11-3 Corona del Mar @Newport Harbor 14-0 III-AA El Camino 8-6 Temecula Valley 12-2 IV-A La Jolla 9-4 Huntington Beach Marina @Westminster 12-2 V-AA Serra 11-2 @El Monte 13-0 VII-AA Francis Parker 8-5 Gardena 9-4 HOW OTHERS IN CALIFORNIA RATE ...
  • 2019-20 Weeks 1-2: San Ysidro Frosh Challenges Dad
    Mikey Williams, a 6-foot, 3-inch guard heralded as one of the outstanding ninth grade players in the country, scored 50 points in one game recently as the San Diego Section basketball season got under way. But the San Ysidro freshman can’t claim family bragging rights. That’s because Mikey’s father, Mahlon Williams, a three-year star at Sweetwater for ...
  • 2019 Week 14: Trying to Pick the Winners in San Diego Section Finals
    Taking a look at this week’s five division championship games at Southwestern College and a doffing of the fedora to the Helix Highlanders, who overcame the loss of superstar running back Elelyon Noa: DIVISION I No. 9 seed Oceanside (9-3) and No. 2 Lincoln (10-2) were beneficiaries last week, gifted with forfeit victories over San Clemente, which ...
  • 2019 Week 13: Eight Teams Overcome Poorer Seedings
    Call it the “Ides of November” or “Beware the Quarterfinals.” Julius Caesar apparently missed the significance and was assassinated in 44 BC after being advised to “beware the Ides of March,” a March 15 date on the Roman calendar noted for religious observances and as a deadline for “settling debts,” according to accepted history. On a similar ...
  • 1985-86: Titans Go For Three
    Poway’s quest for a trilogy was in full swing. Coach Neville Saner’s team, San Diego Section winners the last two seasons, made it clear from the first tip that things weren’t going to change. The Titans opened the season on Dec. 3 with an 81-48 victory over established and well regarded El Capitan, which would earn a ...
  • 1985-86: Oceanside & El Camino Were Don’t Invitems
    As Tom Shanahan of the Evening Tribune described on Jan 18, 1986, “The Oceanside-El Camino football rivalry may not stir much passion, but emotions in the city’s basketball rivalry have overheated.” “Boiled over,” added Shanahan of the antipathy felt by these too-close-for-comfort North County neighbors. The Wildcats’ gymnasium was filled to its 1,100-seat capacity when El Camino, ...
  • 2019: Weeks 11-12: Second Season Takes Spotlight
    Editor’s note:  We were on hiatus last week.  My wife and I were celebrating our anniversary on a cruise, so we’ll try to catch up. Most of the 18 league champions had byes as playoffs in five of six divisions (Open opens Friday) got underway. They were first in 2019: TEAM LEAGUE REGULAR SEASON  PLAYOFF DIVISION Carlsbad Avocado 9-1 Open Serra Central 8-2 IV Citrus San Diego Jewish 8-0 8 MAN City Scripps Ranch 10-0 III Coastal The Bishop’s 10-0 II Eastern La ...
  • 1936: A Changing and Uncertain Landscape
    Point Loma was beginning the most successful run in school history. —Banks and creditors foreclosed on the Garnet Avenue property in Pacific Beach on which San Diego Army and Navy Academy had been a fixture since 1910. —School districts sprung up in Encinitas and Vista, creating a revamped Southern Prep League and an enrollment shortfall at Oceanside. —Hoover ...
  • 2019 Week 10: Playoffs Next as First Season Nears End
    The 18 San Diego Section leagues put a wrap on the regular season this week and most of their members will take a breath and await playoff seedings, which will be determined on Saturday. Championships have been won in several circuits. AVOCADO Champion Carlsbad (6-0, 8-1 overall) is getting ready for a nonleague test with Vista and a ...
  • 2019 Week 9: Road Gets a Little Tougher for Scots, Dons
    Helix and Cathedral, the San Diego Section’s two big ones, have had to regroup. The Highlanders lost running back Elelyon Noa, probably for the season with a foot injury, and Cathedral quarterback D.J. Ralph sustained what was reported as a broken collarbone on his non-passing side. Ralph was replaced by Charlie Mirer, son of former Notre Dame ...
  • 2019 Week 8: The Bishop’s Joel Allen Close to No. 100
    And another milestone is near. Joel Allen of The Bishop‘s rampaging Knights of La Jolla could become the 43rd San Diego Section coach to win a 100th career game. The Bishop’s will have to win out but you’d have to go to eight-man football to find any team scoring 55 points or more six times in a ...
  • 2019 Week 7: San Diego Section Coaches Make History
    Ron Hamamoto’s crashing the top five in San Diego Section coaching ranks wasn’t the only significant career achievement last week. –Grossmont’s Tom Karlo became the 42nd to reach 100 wins. Hamamoto, whose Monte Vista squad defeated Chula Vista, 34-17, now has 229 victories, tying the 35-season mentor with Morse’s John Shacklett, who won 229 at Morse from ...
  • 1984-85: Zarecky’s Red Devils Runnin’…and Travelin’
    Sweetwater, the San Diego Section’s International team. After trips to Hawaii and Canada in recent years, Coach Gary Zarecky’s Red Devils visited the Continent this season. They played four games in Yugoslavia after Christmas, meeting some of that basketball-savvy nation’s top junior teams. The roadrunners from National City also found time to set a San Diego Section record ...
  • 1984-85: It’s Poway’s Way Again
    Sweetwater fired a season-opening shot to remember on Nov. 21, exploding for 136 points against Coronado in the first game (Seach 1984-85: Zarecky’s Red Devils Runnin’…andTravelin’), but the Red Devils came up short again in the playoffs as Poway, now a team of mostly juniors, ran away with the San Diego Section 3-A title. Other moments  ...
  • 2019 Week 6: Scots Have Sock
    Half the regular season is complete for all but a handful of teams and Helix has emerged as the front runner for the longest postseason. The Highlanders arrived at this juncture after having beaten No. 2 Cathedral and No. 3 St. Augustine, which followed  a surprising, overtime loss to Utah’s Herriman West Herriman. The loss to Herriman ...
  • 2019 Week 5: Overtime Finally Pays Off for Oceanside
    Oceanside and La Costa Canyon set a record when they played four overtime periods last week. Somewhere Bennie Edens was smiling. The late coach at Point Loma was instrumental in the city schools’ adopting overtime sessions as a way to solve the inconvenience of tie games in 1975. The entire San Diego Section agreed in 1976 to use ...
  • 1983-84: Those Running Red Devils
    Sweetwater coach Gary Zarecky took over a bottomed-out program in 1972-73 that was 2-22, 6-20, and 1-23 in the three previous seasons and proceeded to go 6-19, 1-23, and 11-15. In Zarecky’s year four the Red Devils saw light at the end of the tunnel and fast-breaked past it. Since 1975-76 Sweetwater is 196-54, a .772 winning ...