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The San Diego Section could get as many as three teams and as few as none in the upcoming state football playoffs. OPEN DIVISION Oceanside, now ranked fifth in Cal-Hi Sports’ top 25  (the highest a San Diego Section team has been since the ‘Side finished third in 2009), is a probable lock for a Division I berth ...

No less than seven teams still alive in the San Diego Section playoffs haven’t been this far in at least 10 years. Sixteen teams are preparing for eight semifinal games this week, with the computer-oriented seeding process playing out well, but not much differently than when  it was with coaches hollering and screaming on Selection Saturday. El Capitan, the 24th-ranked team ...

The real racing in the San Diego Section playoffs, including competition in the Open Division, begins tonight with quarterfinals games on fields drying out from recent rain. Teams with championship hopes also have their sights set beyond, to the state playoffs which begin in  three weeks,  following section championships. Oceanside is seventh in Cal-Hi Sports‘ Top 25 ...

Sixty-four playoff teams became 32, but the action was more like an 11th regular-season game, everyone awaiting the real postseason. It all should change this week, with Open Division competition beginning in the quarterfinals and with some decent offerings. Eastlake (7-3), seeded fifth in the Open, visits No. 4 Mission Hills (8-2). Division I sends 6 Vista (6-5) ...

The computer and the writers, broadcasters, and administrative honchos are in agreement. The elite, top 10 teams in the UT-San Diego poll won’t be asked to mingle with the proletariat in the first round of the Division I-V postseason. The CIF’s computer-based seedings  byed each team, from Oceanside to San Marcos.  The top 10 clubs have a combined, 89-11 record. The poll ...

Virtues and moments that identify high school football: Overflow crowd of more than 4,000 at San Pasqual High, under Friday night lights, for neighborhood bragging rights. Tom Kirovski carried the ball on 24 of San Pasqual’s 28 second-half possessions and gained 155 of his game total of 173 yards as the Eagles defeated Orange Glen, 28-17, in the “Battle of ...

What a difference 70 years makes. Jerry Ralph’s speedy, competitive Hoover Cardinals took a 63-0 halftime lead and then called off the jam, activated the running clock, and ran out the game against former arch rival San Diego. The 63-point victory gave Hoover the City League championship and its first outright league title since Roy Engle’s 1963 club won ...

A panelist who voted for Helix as the No. 1 team in the UT-San Diego top 10 in the last two polls apparently was dissatisfied and cast his vote for Oceanside this week. Helix’ 56-10 victory over Grossmont last week seemingly was not impressive enough when compared to Oceanside’s 35-6 win over La Costa Canyon. Oceanside is 9-0 but had seen first-place votes dwindle ...

Bennie Edens was pissed. “I don’t appreciate being embarrassed,” Edens heatedly responded to a question from Paula Mascari-Bott of the Union-Tribune. “Playing your starters in the fourth quarter, it’s poor sportsmanship,” steamed Edens. “I’ve been coaching forty-one years and I’ve never embarrassed anyone when they’re that far behind.  That’s wrong.” The Pointers had just finished on the ...

Give it up for Fallbrook! The Warriors claimed their first league title since 2003 this week with a 31-6 victory over Orange Glen. The Valley League championship  might also get the Warriors more than a cursory look from area observers. Quietly, almost surreptiously, Fallbrook has crept to  a 7-2 record but hasn’t received one vote of a possible 190 (19 ...

Oceanside dropped from sixth to seventh in Cal-Hi Sports‘ weekly State Top 25. The 8-0 Pirates, driving toward their first undefeated regular season since 2009, are joined among the state’s elite by Cathedral, which moved up to 22nd from 23rd, and Helix, which gained to 24th from 25th. It’s been noted that Oceanside has not been as ...

There’s no room at the top in the UT-San Diego weekly poll.  Some points adjustments were noted, but the same eight teams remained in place from the previous week. While there were no changes, Cathedral took one of Oceanside’s first-place votes.  Helix had swiped two first-place votes two weeks ago. The Dons gained as result of eight straight wins and ...

Cathedral has been on a rampage and Oceanside may be losing some steam. So Cathedral was No. 1 when I emailed my weekly Top 10 selections to John Maffei of UT-San Diego today. The Dons ran away from St. Augustine, 57-22, in the battle of Catholic school titans last week and Oceanside gradually put away Carlsbad, 28-14. The Pirates are still unbeaten, but ...

Noel Mickelsen, Charlie Paulk, and Richard Verlasky recently passed. Mickelsen, 80, had a lengthy coaching career in San Diego’s East County after posting a 71-62 record in nine seasons of professional baseball, including three years in  the AAA Pacific Coast League. The 6-foot, 6-inch Mickelsen was a star player on the 1955-56 San Diego State basketball team that posted ...

You win your last four games by combined points of 168-21  and lose votes? That’s what happened to Oceanside (7-0) in this week’s  UT-San Diego poll.  The Pirates, who defeated Torrey Pines, 42-21,  remained on top,  but it wasn’t unanimous. No. 3 Helix (6-1) claimed two first-place votes. Cathedral, ranked second with a 7-1 record and a victory over Helix, must ...

U.S. citizens have elected 11 Presidents since 1946, but Point Loma hasn’t gotten with the program. The Pointers have had three head coaches in the 69 seasons since World War II. Count ‘em. Don Giddings replaced Bill Maxwell in 1946 and guided fortunes on Chatsworth Blvd., through 1954, succeeded by Bennie Edens, who didn’t hang up his whistle ...

Can anyone topple No. 1 Oceanside? We’ll just stick with the regular season for now. The Pirates’ last 4 opponents have a combined 16-8 won-loss record. On paper, no  other team in the UT-San Diego weekly top 10 (see below) has a  more difficult month ahead except No. 9 El Camino and No. 4 El Capitan, whose final 4 opponents ...

“We couldn’t convince ourselves that this team was as good as the Sweetwater and Oceanside teams we defeated.” Such was the lament of Chula Vista coach Chet DeVore, whose Spartans’ season ended with a 19-0 loss to Laguna Beach in a CIF lower division, Southern Group semifinal playoff. The small crowd of about 2,500 at Coronado’s Cutler ...

The opponents and the milestones continue to pass for John Carroll and his Oceanside Pirates. The 42-16 victory over Mission Hills left the Pirates with a 6-0 record and within shouting distance of an unbeaten, 10-0 regular season. Herb Meyer doesn’t hear shouts or footsteps, but Carroll’s 240th career victory moved the Oceanside coach past Point Loma’s Bennie ...

The dreaded coin toss was back. The flip of a silver dollar had elevated La Jolla into the Southern California playoffs after a first-place tie with San Diego in 1951. Now, with a week remaining in the regular season and La Jolla and San Diego again headed for a tie for the City Prep League title, school ...