The first three teams in the Union-Tribune Top 10 are easy.

Between the numerous “Shootouts”, “Classics”, “Showcases”, and “Invitationals” which jot the basketball map at this point in the season, getting a handle on Foothills Christian, St. Augustine, and Torrey Pines, numbers 1, 2, and 3, respectively, is piece of cake.

Those teams annually play intersectional schedules and test their wares against the best of the best in the state.

It’s the others that are hard to read.

Serra is 16-0 and Vista 13-2, but they play largely local schedules or in one of the second-tier “classics.”  Same with Helix (13-5), La Jolla (11-2), and Santa Fe Christian (10-4).

A better idea of those clubs’ profile will come only in the playoffs.  For now, it’s about getting deeper into league play and, for a few, this weekend’s Martin Luther King games.

Foothills rose from 11th to eighth in the weekly Cal-Hi Sports top 20.  St. Augustine elevated one position to 15th. Torrey Pines and Vista are on the bubble.

Mission Hills (13-1) dropped to 11th from sixth in Cal-Hi‘s girls’ top 20 and The Bishop’s (15-1) remained 20th. La Jolla Country Day (9-6) is on the bubble.

Mission Hills’ only loss was 65-62 in overtime to San Francisco Sacred Heart Cathedral in December.  The Bishop’s dropped a 73-68, overtime decision to Eastlake but rebounded last week to beat the Titans, 70-65.

The Knights’ Destiny Littleton remains on fire, averaging 51.7 points a game and closing in on the state career scoring record of 3,837 set in 2003-04 by San Diego’s Charde Houston.

Boby’ records through Monday, Jan. 7:

Others receiving votes: Mission Hills (9-5, 12 points), Mater Dei (11-4, 10), Poway (13-4, 10), Rancho Bernardo (12-3, 7), La Costa Canyon (13-4, 6), Canyon Crest (11-2, 3),  Coronado (17-2, 2), Patrick Henry (12-5, 1),  Kearny (6-6, 1).

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.

Next month, on Feb. 14 [2017], will mark the seventh year since we undertook a challenge.

I wanted to write the history of San Diego County high school football.

That’s where my career started and where it will end.

Well, I didn’t write the history (that is almost infinite), but I gave it a shot.

I attempted to write a narrative about each season. More than 100.

I just counted.

The number includes all seasons from 1914 forward.  I combined the years 1891 to 1913.

Almost all of the narratives are broken into short subjects, vignettes and photographs (pictures mostly from rustic and ragged microfilm at several Southern California sources).

Some years, like 1955, include multiple entries and, starting in 2013, football was covered on a week-to-week basis.

Most seasons usually required an average of about 2,000 words, although there are some with less and many with more.

My superstar writing friend Dave Kindred told me, “It wouldn’t sell and it would be too long,” when I suggested to David that maybe I’d write a book about this parochial subject.

He was right on both counts. But thanks to Henrik Jonson, my cyber guru, we put together a web site:  Partletonsports.com.

Partleton was the name on my father’s birth certificate when he was born in Barbados, “Little England” as it was known.

Dad changed his last name to Smith after he entered the United States following service in the Canadian army in World War I.

I asked him often why he hadn’t been more inventive. He could have changed his name to Jones.

I’m going to continue looking for nuggets of information in football, basketball, track and field, and probably baseball.

It’s a labor of love and in retirement you have to have interests.  I’ve got season tickets to San Diego State basketball and I catch a prep football or basketball game every week.

That and trying to keep Susie happy and watching our 4 grandsons grow up.

Football, it’s  a wrap.

Cathedral finished fifth in Cal-Hi Sports‘ state top 25, Helix was 14th, and Madison 19th in an outstanding  San Diego Section season.

Coach Sean Doyle’s Cathedral Dons, wearing the letter “U” on  their helmets in the state championship in honor of Cathedral’s previous University of San Diego High designation (and Doyle’s alma-mater), ran the table in a 15-0 season.

The closest any teams have come to this Cathedral club were the 14-0, Tyler Gaffney-led Dons of 2008, and the 14-0 Morse Tigers of Teddy Lawrence and Company in 1990.

I agreed with John Maffei of the San Diego Union-Tribune when the prep writer called this year’s Dons squad the best in the 56-year history of the San Diego Section.

My reasoning was that no one had ever won for 15 consecutive weeks and Cathedral, unlike its ’08 predecessor or John Shacklett’s ’90 Morse, played a heavy intersectional schedule.

The Dons played five teams from out of the section, including three early in the season. They defeated  L.A. City power Narbonne, 35-28, in the Southern California 1-AA final, and Stockton St. Mary’s in overtime, 38-35, for the state title in a repeat of a 37-34 victory over St. Mary’s in ’08.

Cathedral outscored its 15 opponents by an average score of 40-15.  The ’08 team scored a record 671 points and had a winning margin of 48-17.  The ’90 Morse team had held the section scoring record of 649 points with an average advantage of 46-13.

Neither ’08 Cathedral or ’90 Morse played the type of schedule of this year’s Dons.

After a 56-15 win over Honolulu Punahou, one of the strongest teams in Hawaii, the Tigers’ schedule featured only San Diego Section squads.

The situation was almost the same with Cathedral in ’08.  The Dons had a 63-7 victory over weak Chino early in the season and then did not meet an intersectional foe again until the final versus St. Mary’s.

WARHAWKS’ ROUSING FINISHES

Rick Jackson’s Madison Warhawks (13-2) became one of the most popular teams in the state with some incredible play in the San Diego Section D-I championship and in the Southern California final.

The Warhawks overcame a 31-7, St. Augustine halftime lead to defeat the Saints, 35-31, for the section D-I crown and then overcame a 19-point fourth-quarter deficit to top Calabasas, 60-53, in overtime. They won the state II-AA title, 23-17 over San Jose Valley Christian.

Helix (11-3) had an opening game loss to Timpview, Utah, which posted a 9-3 record and went to its state finals.  The Highlanders also defeated strong Northern entry Concord Clayton Valley and played two tough losses with Cathedral, including  the section Open final.

VERDELL LEADS SCORERS

Mater Dei’s Oregon-bound C.J. Verdell scored 40 touchdowns and added a 2-point conversion for a section-leading 242 points. Tyler Saikhon of El Centro Southwest was second with 188.

Verdell’s is the 10th highest, one-season total in San Diego County history. Verdell scored 204 points in 2015, second only to the 210 of Helix’ Nate Stinson.

Not all teams submitted team and individual stats, which were compiled by Max Preps.

For a complete list of San Diego Section scoring leaders link to “Football” and “Individual Performances” in the drop down  menu.

Foothills Christian, St. Augustine, and Torrey Pines, we know about.  All three played before overflow crowds of more than 3,000 persons in the Under-Armour tournament at Torrey Pines over the Christmas holiday.

What about the Vista?

The Panthers are fourth in the weekly San Diego Union-
Tribune poll but they’ve managed to stay under the radar while building a 13-2 record.

A  sighting last week in the Silver Division of the La Verne Damian tournament shed some light.

the Panthers defeated  Woodland Hills Taft, 60-52, for the championship and beat an 11-2 club that annually is among the  best teams in the Los Angeles City Section.

Meanwhile, Foothills Christian, led by the explosive Jaylen Hands, won the Under-Armour National Division by defeating St. John’s of Washington, D.C., 61-57, and is tied for first in the local poll with St. Augustine.

I voted for the Saints No. 1, based on their 85-75 victory over Foothills in the Under-Armour preview but can’t argue with the first-place tie.  The Saints flattened out, losing 2 of their last 3 games in the tournament.

Foothills rose from 11th to eighth in the weekly Cal-Hi Sports top 20.  St. Augustine went to 16th from unranked.  Torrey Pines and Vista are on the bubble.

Records through Monday, Jan. 2:

NR–Not ranked.

Others receiving votes: Orange Glen (7-2, 10 points), La Costa Canyon (11-3, 10), Poway (10-4, 10), Rancho Bernardo (8-2, 9), Mater Dei (7-4, 4), Patrick Henry (11-3, 1),  Coronado (15-2, 1).

Poll participants include John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Steve Brand (San Diego Hall of Champions), Terry Monahan,  Union-Tribune correspondent; im Lindgren 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.

Mickey Flynn became known as the “Ghost of La Palma”.

Because of the 1950-55 success of Clare Van Hoorebeke’s Anaheim Colonists program, the Anaheim parks department had agreed to expand the La Palma Avenue baseball park to include 7,500 grandstand seats in the outfield.

The first football game drew an overflow crowd of 9,000 persons in 1956 and Flynn scored the only touchdown with a 71-yard run in the fourth quarter that defeated Redlands, 6-0.

Flynn’s exploits soon gave way to his being compared to an invisible figure.

Sid Ziff, the sports editor of the Los Angeles Mirror, was credited with the origin, but longtime patrons of La Palma Stadium suggested that Flynn became known as the Ghost for another reason.

“The lighting on the field was not the best back then,” wrote Steve Kresal of the Los Angeles Times in 1989.  “Flynn could disappear into the shadows, then reappear downfield on his way to a big gain.”

Flynn, who averaged almost 14 yards a carry in the varsity seasons of 1954-56 and who was the individual star of the 1955 Anaheim-San Diego playoff, was the first athlete inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame in 1986.

By the grace of a 17-14 advantage in first downs, San Diego High survived a 20-20 standoff with Anaheim in the CIF playoff semifinals before 10,271 persons at Long Beach Veterans’ Memorial Stadium.

A heart-thumping conclusion represented the final shot in a frenetic battle of undefeated teams that brought an end to a week of intrigue and one-upmanship.

Anaheim had defeated Glendale 27-13 at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, and San Diego ushered out Bellflower in Balboa Stadium, 26-6, in the quarterfinals round, setting up what many figured would be a “semifinal for the championship”.

MONDAY, DEC. 5

San Diego assistant coach Birt Slater met with Anaheim athletic director Dick Glover and CIF commissioner Ken Fagans in Los Angeles.

Anaheim won a coin flip to determine the home team, according to the Anaheim Bulletin, but the Colonists did not have a home field, although they played in the low-capacity La Palma Avenue Park.

A grandstand to be built at the La Palma facility wouldn’t be ready until the 1956 season, but there were several stadium possibilities in the region.

Glover wanted the new, 7,500-seat Orange Coast College facility in Costa Mesa.

Slater, speaking for head coach Duane Maley and the San Diego administration, argued for the 13,000-seat Long Beach Veterans’ Stadium.

Slater said Orange Coast would not be large enough for an expected huge crowd that would follow the Hillers from San Diego.

Glover, citing observers’ reports, asserted that San Diego attendance was only about 2,000 out of the 3,500 that watched the Bellflower game.

Glover also claimed that Colonists followers outnumbered San Diego’s in Balboa Stadium in 1953, when Anaheim won, 21-7.

TUESDAY, DEC. 6

Anaheim, perhaps with some prodding from Fagans and with a promise of a huge visiting crowd from San Diego, agreed to move the game to the larger, financially more rewarding Veterans’ Stadium.

“A football field is still 100 yards long no matter where it’s located,” Anaheim coach Clare Van Hoorebeke cryptically replied to a question concerning his opinion about the contest’s being moved from the “originally-planned” Orange Coast venue.

San Diego seemed to be making mountains out of mole hills.

The Cavers also wanted to wear their powder blue jerseys, which were introduced this year and were a popular departure from San Diego’s traditional Columbia blue.

Anaheim had the choice of color and opted for its home blue tops.  “San Diego will play in their ‘Sunday School’ whites,” according to the Bulletin.

“The ‘Border Bandits”, declared the newspaper, “acted like true scoundrels when they tried to force the game to be moved to San Diego and then insisted on their choice of jersey color.”

San Diego had another reason for wanting the game moved from the Costa Mesa campus.  Anaheim was familiar with the layout and had won two games there this season.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 7

Dick Glover responded to Orange County fans who felt the Colonists let them down by agreeing to play at Long Beach Vets.

If not Orange Coast, why not the equally familiar Santa Ana Bowl, capacity 9,000?

Glover had several reasons:

• “Long Beach charges 10 per cent of the gross, Santa Ana 10 per cent of the first thousand (dollars) and 15 per cent after that.
• “Veterans Stadium is in the back yard of Cypress and Los Alamitos (communities from which Anaheim would draw support) and we have an (financial) obligation to our own school.”
• Glover also pointed out that the clay soil of Orange Coast’s parking would cause problems in the event of rain.
• Orange Coast College was 18.1 miles from Anaheim High. Santa Ana Bowl was 8.2 miles and Long Beach Veterans Stadium 14.8 miles.

THURSDAY, DEC. 8

How good was Mickey Flynn, the 160-pound junior who, with “pony “backfield mates Joe Avitia (155), Don Penfield (145), and George Dena (145), had led the Colonists on a 27-game winning streak in the Sunset League?

• Anaheim scored a touchdown on its first or second play in nine of 11 games.
• Flynn was averaging 68 yards on his 19 touchdowns and had scored on his first carry in eight games.
• Gary Land, who sustained a broken ankle in a practice two weeks before, had been ably replaced at right guard in the Cavers’ line by junior Gary Becker. Ron Collins, who had sustained an elbow injury earlier, was ready to go at center.

FRIDAY, DEC. 9

John De La Vega of the Los Angeles Times described the game as a “hair-raiser.”

Jim Trinkle of The San Diego Union also captured the moment in his game account: