2016-17 Week 9: Saints Figure to be Wary in First Round
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 Dougherty Gym.
The tiny arena, erected in 1952, will remain standing and will serve other purposes on the Nutmeg Street campus, but the Saints will be playing in a new, 1,500-seat edifice in 2017-18.
The Saints (24-4) of coach Mike Haupt figure to dismiss the 19-8 Mavericks of coach Dave Cassaw, but one look at results in the Southern Section first round last week shows that anything can happen in the postseason.
St. Augustine moved up one spot in the Cal-Hi ratings because seventh-ranked Mission Hills Alemany was upset by bubble team Long Beach Poly, 66-48.
The 18-point loss was enough to catch one’s attention, but Poly’s victory was achieved despite setbacks from the moment the Jackrabbits got on the bus.
A normal, 45-mile, hour-and-a-half ride to the San Fernando campus of Alemany turned into a 4 1/2-hour journey through torrential rain, wind, road closures, and a unscheduled stop when the charter broke down.
For Long Beach it was all’s well that ends well.
Second-seeded Torrey Pines (26-3) plays host to No. 7, 20-8 La Jolla Country Day at the other end of the San Diego Section Open bracket.
Looming in the quarterfinals for St. Augustine or La Costa Canyon is either 5 Mater Dei Catholic (22-4) or 4 Foothills Christian (23-5).
The winner at Torrey Pines will get No. 3 Vista (23-3) or No. 6 Mission Hills (20-7).
GRIZZLIES STILL HOLD CLAW
The Girls’ Open tournament favors Mission Hills, 26-2 and Cal-Hi’s state No. 4. The top-seed Grizzlies take on 8 seed Serra (20-8) Friday night.
The Bishop’s is seeded second in the Open Division, but was knocked out of the Cal-High Top 20 when upset last week, 44-42, by charging La Jolla Country Day, 16-10, winner of six of its last seven, and seeded No. 3.
Poll participants include John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions), Terry Monahan, Union-Tribune correspondent), Bill Dickens, Adam Paul, EastCountySports.com; Rick Willis, KUSI-TV; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Chris Davis, freelance; Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.
2016-17 Week 8: Playoffs Next as Leagues Finish
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 or Torrey Pines, is second in the power ratings.
The eight teams selected for the San Diego Section Open Division playoffs will have first-round byes, while divisions 1-5 will tee it up next week.
St. Augustine remained 12th in the Cal-Hi Sports weekly top 20 and Torrey Pines nudged up one notch to 19th.
Mission Hills remained fourth in the Cal-Hi girls’ ratings, while the Bishop’s anchored at No. 20 for weeks, now is 18th.
Game of the week will be Thursday night at La Jolla Country Day, where the state bubble team Torreys, 15-10, and winners of 5 in a row, will attempt to reverse a 62-53 loss to The Bishop’s, 27-1 and winner of 16 straight, early in the season.
The other girls bubble team is Eastlake (20-6). Foothills Christian (20-5) and Vista (23-3) remain on the bubble in boys’ play.
Poll participants include John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions), Terry Monahan, Union-Tribune correspondent), Bill Dickens, Adam Paul, EastCountySports.com; Rick Willis, KUSI-TV; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Chris Davis, freelance; Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.
1946-47: Cardinals, Hillers Busy Busy Busy
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 in the new Basketball Association of America, which became the NBA, played 60 games.
Hoover and San Diego, meeting the shorter high school schedule, competed almost as often as the pros in December and January.
Hoover won the Coast League race, but San Diego won the Beverly Hills Invitational. Hoover claimed the Chino tournament title, San Diego the Consolation trophy.
Hoover suffered in the Western States Tournament. San Diego finished third.
San Diego beat Hoover in their first meeting, but Hoover won the last two, tied the Hillers with a 9-3 league record, and won the invitation to the Southern Section playoffs.
Don Larsen, with 94 points in five league games, won the Metropolitan League scoring title (Grossmont’s Ken Tennison was next with 86 in 7), despite graduating from school in January.
Larsen was center of attention at Point Loma.
MEANDERING SAINTS
St. Augustine traveled a weird path, on asphalt, and hardwood.
Without a gymnasium, the Saints practiced outside and played a few “home” games at Horace Mann Junior High, visited Metro League facilities, plus San Diego State, San Diego High, Kearny, and Hoover, and probably others not reported.
The Saints were a member of the Southland Catholic League in football, but played an independent schedule in basketball that included several Southland Catholic opponents.
Welcome guests in their own league, the Saints won one of three games in the Southland Catholic Invitational.
WESTERN STATES
The first major exercise of the season, on the court of Compton College, attracted 16 teams. At least one, Las Vegas, was from beyond the California border.
Bill Curtis’s 20th point was a free throw with five seconds remaining and pushed San Diego past Whittier, 37-36, after the Hillers trailed, 27-16, in the third quarter.
The Cavers ran into trouble the next day, ousted by Los Angeles Mt. Carmel, 46-31, but claimed third place, 36-29, over Beverly Hills.
Hoover topped Montebello, 32-25, but ran afoul of Long Beach Poly, 35-30. L.A. Loyola then sent the Cardinals home with a 35-33 victory in the consolation round.
CHINO
Hoover aggressively moved forward, defeating Azusa Citrus, 43-19, and Bonita, 44-16, to qualify for a semifinal game against top-seeded Burbank.
The Cardinals moved on with a 49-38 victory over the Bulldogs and then dismissed South Pasadena, 38-25, in the finals.
San Diego was chased by Riverside Poly, 41-24, but rebounded to run the Consolation table with victories of 56-32 over Fillmore, 61-30 over Pasadena, and 43-31 over Colton.
BEVERLY HILLS
Hoover was bounced early, losing to Santa Ana, 37-36.
San Diego, with Jerry Dahms replacing the graduated Bill Curtis at center, defeated Inglewood, 46-25.
San Diego moved into the semifinals with a 38-32 win over Grossmont, which had won its opening game, 31-28 over El Segundo.
The Hillers concluded their season with a 39-36, semifinal victory over Anaheim and a 26-19 championship win over Coast League rival Compton.
CIF PLAYOFFS
Only league champions were invited. San Diego was out.
Coast League titlist Hoover and Metropolitan champ Grossmont won first-round games at home, but quarterfinals play would be at Whittier College the next day.
The Cardinals quickly ushered out Southern League champ Army-Navy, 53-9, and Grossmont eliminated Imperial Valley titlist El Centro Central, 34-24, avenging a loss to the Spartans in the small schools football championship several weeks before.
The early Saturday morning trip to Whittier didn’t agree with the two San Diego teams. Whittier thumped Grossmont, 61-41, and Mt. Carmel beat Hoover, 41-29, despite 19 points by Bill McColl.
Mt. Carmel topped Whittier, 68-57, for the championship.
HONORS
Bill McColl, Hoover’s 6-foot, 3-inch junior center, was on the all-Southern California first team. San Diego’s Ben Cendali, Point Loma’s Don Larsen, and Grossmont’s Dick Baker earned third-team honors.
HONORS II
Pasadena’s Dick Williams, future manager of the San Diego Padres, was the only non-San Diego athlete on one all-Coast League team, which included Bill McColl and Don Caldwell of Hoover and Sandy Borofsky and Ben Cendali of San Diego.
San Diego newspaper’s choices.
COAST TRAVEL
The five-team Coast League of San Diego, Hoover, Compton, Pasadena and Pasadena Muir, played a 12-game schedule, meaning three games against each opponent.
The Cardinals, Hillers, Tarbabes, Bullpups, and Mustangs logged miles and miles on U.S. 101.
Most trips were of two days: travel Friday, play a game that night, bus to the next opponent city, find a place to sleep, play the next day, and then bus back home.
Compton came South for a Friday night game at Hoover and returned to a home contest the next evening against San Diego, which played on Friday at Muir. Hoover completed the circle by visiting Muir on Saturday.
SIGNS OF THE TIME
The task of moving 850,000 cubic feet of soil from the bottom of Mission Bay and piling it up at Santa Clara Point to form part of the $15 million Mission Bay Aquatic Park was completed.
CRIME DOESN’T PAY
Twenty persons were arrested in a raid on an alleged bookmaking operation at 200 Market Street, blocks from the West Market location of the Police Station. Bail was set at $250 for Claude Hodge of North 30th Street, who ran the establishment, and $10 for the 19 who were placing a bet.
SET SHOTS
Point Loma’s Don Larsen scored 28 points on 14 baskets in a 49-25 win over Kearny…Kearny had one of the highest point totals ever by a San Diego County team when it defeated Vista, 82-50…San Diego’s Ben Cendali scored 37 points, including 26 in the first half, as the Hillers routed Pasadena Muir, 62-22…Cendali fell short of Ivan Robinson’s school-record 38, set in the 1943-44 season…Don Larsen had 110 points in 8 games in January and was the Breitbard Athletic Foundation Star of the Month…McColl won the award for February, after leading the Coast League with 164 points (13.6 average) and finishing as the County’s leading scorer with 369 and a 10.8 average …it was a banner year for new coaches: Point Loma’s Don Giddings won the Metropolitan League football championship; Jim Ahler led Hoover to the Coast League basketball title, as did Grossmont’s second-year mentor Ralph Chaplin in the Metro…future coaches John (Duke) Early and Jesse Thompson were standouts for St. Augustine…Grossmont fell behind Escondido, 16-11, and then outscored the Cougars, 40-4, for a 51-20 victory…more than 1,500 were in attendance for the Metropolitan League showdown at Grossmont, which defeated Point Loma, 37-29, and closed out with a 7-0 loop record and 16-2 overall…visiting Hoover’s 43-32 win over San Diego in front of a full house was the difference in the Coast title race despite the teams’ finishing with the same record….
San Diego’s Sandy Borofsky hits the floor as ball is loose in Hoover-San Diego battle. Others are Cardinals’ Don Caldwell (54) and Bill McColl, and San Diego’s Bob Spaeth (foreground.) Hoover won, 43-32, clinched Coast League title.
2016-17 Week 7: Here Come the Power Ratings
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 be pitted against superior Open Division teams from the Los Angeles area, the “NBA” high school teams of the state.
The San Diego Section Open Division participant figures to be eliminated in the Southern California regionals and miss the opportunity to compete for a state championship.
The San Diego team that loses in the Section Open finals probably will be slotted into a lower division bracket in the extended postseason and have a better chance for success.
That’s what the Power Ratings have wrought.
As of today’s power ratings, San Diego’s best team is St. Augustine, which trailed by 19 points last week in the Nike Extravaganza and was outrebounded, 46-31 in a 74-62 loss to Santa Ana Mater Dei.
Mater Dei has 7-foot, 1-inch Bol Bol, the son of former NBA player Manute Bol, plus assorted other standouts from farflung locations.
DESTINY LEADS U.S.
St. Augustine’s loss dropped the Saints from 10th to 12th in the weekly Cal-Hi Sports state top 20 ratings. Torrey Pines got off the bubble and is 20th. Foothills Christian and Vista are on the bubble.
Mission Hills (22-2) moved from fifth to fourth in the girls’ top 20. The Bishop’s (24-1) climbed to 18th.
The Knights’ Destiny Littleton flew past the 4,000-career-points mark and led the nation with a 48.1 average before last night’s game, a 92-60 win over Horizon in which Littleton blew up for 61 points.
Mikayla Boykin of Clinton, North Carolina, is second to Littleton with a 40.1 average.
Poll participants include John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions), Terry Monahan, Union-Tribune correspondent), Bill Dickens, Adam Paul, EastCountySports.com; Rick Willis, KUSI-TV; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Chris Davis, freelance; Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.
2017: George Taylor, 80, Cavers’ Hoop Standout
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 taught many years at Los Angeles’ Locke High.
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 CIF Southern Section major playoffs.
Taylor scored 273 points in 27 games, leading the Cavers to a 12-2 league record and an upset, 68-56 victory over favored Alhambra in the playoffs’ first round.
Taylor went on to star in basketball and earn a degree at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. He was an educator for many years in the Los Angeles area and later earned his PHD at Claremont College.
Taylor eventually returned to San Diego and became a board member at the William J. Oakes Boys’ Club in Logan Heights, where Taylor first took up basketball, under the guidance of legendary coach Augie Escamilla.
San Diego coach Merrill Douglas prepped for playoffs with Alfred Hudson and George Taylor (from left).
2016-17 Week 6: St. Augustine Alone at Top
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 squads and now are looking up at St. Augustine and Torrey Pines.
A greater indignity for Brad Leaf’s team was banishment from the Cal-Hi Sports state top 20. Foothills fell from No. 7 to on-the-bubble status.
It doesn’t get easier.
The Knights face mighty Oak Hill Prep of Mouth of Wilson, Virginia, Friday night in the Nike Extravaganza at Santa Ana Mater Dei.
Promoters figure the Knights are a warmup for Oak Hill, which, with a victory, will ease into a Saturday night contest with U.S. No. 1 Chino Hills.
After sharing the top spot with Foothills Christian in the U.T. poll’s first four weeks, St. Augustine (19-3) sits in first place by its ownself.
But, following Western League games with Morse (80-48 victory last night) and likely pushover Mira Mesa Friday, the Saints then jump into hot water in the Nike Extravaganza Saturday evening.
St. Augustine gets a rematch against the host Monarchs, who defeated the Saints, 86-62, in December.
LITTLETON GOES FOR 4K
The Bishop’s Destiny Littleton figures to pass the 4,000-point career scoring mark pretty soon.
Littleton broke Charde Houston’s record of 3,837 a couple weeks ago and is scoring with the swiftness of a rocket eating up miles in the stratosphere.
Marlin Wells’ Knights are 22-1 and stayed 20th in the Cal-Hi girls’ state top 20 while 20-2 Mission Hills moved from fifth to fourth.
Poll participants include John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions), Terry Monahan, Bill Dickens, Adam Paul, EastCountySports.com; Rick Willis, KUSI-TV; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Chris Davis, freelance; Aaron Burgin, fulltimehoops.com.
