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John Singer has seen the greatest Helix teams from the bench. He was an underclassman reserve on the 1969-70 squad led by Bill Walton that posted a 33-0 record and is regarded  as not only the best team to come out of the La Mesa foothills but the all-time No. 1 in San Diego County. Singer’s also the coach, ...

Galvanized Americans had Victory on their minds as the war moved into its second year. San Diego school officials, living in the hub of the defense industry, pitched in.  They created the Victory League and put the Metropolitan League in a basketball drydock. Call theirs a New Year’s Resolution. Coronado coach Hal Niedermeyer had announced a Metro schedule of one ...

The Helix boys and Serra girls are still in the hunt. Both teams have reached the finals of the Southern California Regional playoffs, last step before the state championships March 24-25 at the Golden Center in Sacramento. Helix (30-5), the No. 2 seed in Division IV, defeated Carson of the L.A. City Section, 56-53, for its 21st ...

The  Southern California regional of the state playoffs reached the semifinal round after San Diego Section teams qualified eight of the 17 teams it sent to the weekend quarterfinals. All local boys and girls teams except Helix will be on the road Tuesday night.  The Highlanders (29-5), seeded No. 2 in Boys’ Division IV, play host to ...

With Open Division play beginning with quarterfinals tonight, seventeen of 31 San Diego Section teams still are in the Southern California regionals of the state playoffs. Boys teams won seven of Wednesday’s 13, opening-round games, were 6-1 in road games, and 3-3 at home.   Four lower seeds, Vista, Orange Glen, Olympian, and Mission Hills won and ...

Thirty-one teams from the San Diego Section begin play Wednesday and Friday nights in the Southern California regional  playoffs. Regional winners will qualify for the state championships against Northern California winners. The CIF state committee which created the seedings and brackets based on the power ratings model didn’t think highly of the San Diego Section’s 15 boys’ teams chances ...

The rubber didn’t hit the road. So it was with the endangered 1942 season, buffeted by the winds of war that thrust San Diego to the forefront of the defense effort. Gasoline rationing shortly would go from volunteered to mandatory.  Night football was out. So was travel. The long-distance conference call became a popular means of communication in ...

Dougherty Gymnasium went out in a blaze…of technicals! The final two games at  St. Augustine were in  keeping with the history of the  64-year-old building, a bandbox of often ear-splitting noise, tightly-packed crowds, and  barnburner finishes. Foothills Christian coach Brad Leaf will be serving a suspension when the Knights open play in the Southern California regionals of the state ...

San Diego High players weren’t thinking of tomorrow. They were more interested in savoring a 27-24 victory at Coronado as the team boarded the ferry for the short ride back to the docking slip near Pacific Highway and Market Street. The Cavers may even have been discussing the merits of crosstown rival Hoover’s 52-36 victory over Santa ...

St Augustine finished No. 1 in the Union-Tribune regular-season poll, is the San Diego Section’s No. 1 seed in the Open Division playoffs, and is 11th in the state, according to Cal-Hi Sports as the Saints await No. 8 seed La Costa Canyon in a first-round game Saturday night in perhaps the last game ever at ...

The regular season ends on Friday night and power ratings to determine divisional playoff appointments will follow on Saturday. St. Augustine lost another first-place vote to Torrey Pines in the weekly Union-Tribune poll,  but is number one in the present power ratings, with Torrey Pines third.  Vista, which hasn’t played the marquee schedules of the Saints ...

The CIF Southern Section was flourishing with competition. Wartime travel restrictions were a thing of the past.  There were games and more games, multiple tournaments, and big crowds. Hoover, 13-6 in 19 games in the 1945-46 season, jumped to 34 games, with a 24-10 record.  San Diego High, 19-5 in 24 contests, played 34 and was 28-6. Teams ...

The invitationals and shootouts are  complete, league play is winding down, and the CIF Power Ratings are coming to the forefront. As happened last season and will  again, the eight leading teams in the power ratings  in the San Diego Section will make for competitive Open Division playoffs. The team that wins the Open Division here likely then will ...

No one scored more than 10 points in a game against George Taylor, whose defensive commitment  and offensive playmaking earned the 6-foot San Diego High guard City Prep League player-of-the-year honors in the 1953-54 season. Taylor, who passed in San Diego on Jan. 27 at age 80, was the primary player on the 22-5 team that reached the quarterfinals of ...

The speed bump Foothills  Christian hit against Orange Glen last week was followed by a chassis-rattling pothole in a 20-point blowout by Woodland Hills Taft. The Knights (17-4) need  a front-end alignment. They vacated their status as the No. 2 team in the Union-Tribune weekly sportswriters- broadcasters poll after losses of 61-60 and 76-56 to the above-mentioned ...

La Jolla’s Jim Prather was a member of the Southern Section team in the first College Prep All-Star Game against the CIF Los Angeles City Section and set up set up a touchdown with a 46-yard punt return as Prather’s side scored a 27-7 victory. It was to be the last game ever for Prather, who ...

Dan Berry passed recently at age 72, leaving a historic legacy at La Jolla High and of significant achievements at San Diego City College and the University of California at Berkeley. When La Jolla met San Diego High at  Scripps Field in 1961, the Vikings had not beaten the Cavemen since 1951 and were reeling from 57-0 ...

 It’s a footnote almost forgotten—a rare winning parlay involving a basketball team from San Diego. The Hoover Cardinals were champions of Southern California and center Dick Barnes was player of the year.  One feat had been accomplished, but not two, and not in the same season. Barnes, a 6-foot, 5-inch center, and his teammates won the third ...

Idleness apparently breeds contempt among voters in the weekly Union-Tribune poll. St. Augustine, tied for first with Foothills Christian last week, played one game and defeated Lincoln, 68-62. Foothills played two, winning 84-45 over West Hills and defeating Coastal League rival Santa Fe Christian, 68-61. Two Knights victories over the Saints’ one  apparently was enough for one voter, ...

The Bishop’s Destiny Littleton sailed past Charde Houston to set the girls’ career scoring record in California and the status quo remained on the boys’ front in San Diego Section basketball last week. Equally significant news was off the court. Littleton was named to play in the 16th annual McDonald’s All-America game in Chicago on March 29,  while Foothills ...