1957: Hoover 9 Surprises With Run to CIF Finals
The top four teams in won-loss percentage in the County were San Diego (25-3, .880), Helix (16-5, .762), Mission Bay (17-6, .737), and Hoover (19-9, .679). It was the latter that battled through four rounds of the CIF Southern Section playoffs to get to the finals. Hoover was an uninspiring 10-8 heading into the stretch […]
Read More1956 Baseball: Cavers Lose 4 in Row, Longest Streak in 28 Years
The Cavers were out of sorts. San Diego High finished with an 18-8 record, its poorest since the 17-10 of 1950, and the Cavers lost four games in a row down the stretch to fall out of City Prep League and playoff contention. According to Don King’s Caver Conquest, the athletic history of the school, […]
Read More1955 Baseball: Grossmont Wins Big One That Eludes San Diego
Another outstanding San Diego High team (27-4) was unexpectedly bounced from the playoffs but Grossmont won a Southern Section championship, joining the similarly successful 1951 squad. Only one team from each league was invited to the playoffs, so Hoover was a non-participant despite a record that was a reported 24-4. San Diego junior Deron Johnson […]
Read More1954 Baseball: 24-0 Cavers Shocked in First Game of Playoffs
San Diego High, for decades the No. 1 team in Southern California baseball, was undefeated and favored to win an 11th CIF championship. Until…. The Hillers, as they were most often called (besides Cavemen, Cavers, and Hilltoppers) during the era, lost a quarterfinals playoff to a team it had beaten, handily, twice before. This San […]
Read More1953 Baseball: La Jolla Almost Wins It All With “Pupil” Coach
Walt Harvey was a football and track coach and once confessed he “didn’t know anything about baseball.” Harvey was a 1936 Hoover High classmate and friend of Les Cassie, who was a successful baseball coach at San Diego High. Cassie didn’t know it but he deserved an assist when Harvey found himself coaching the varsity […]
Read More1942: Cardinals (Baseball), Hillers (Track) Southern California’s No. 1’s
Hoover, as newspaper accounts and the school yearbook indicated, might have been an undefeated, 12-0 champion. Published reports in The San Diego Union show that the East San Diego team played only a couple military teams in early-season March, emerging victorious in each. Other games may not have been reported. Schools were cutting back on […]
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