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 20^th in the Cal-Hi girls’ state top 20 while 20-2 Mission Hills moved from fifth to fourth.

Union-Tribune Boys’ poll through Monday, Jan. 30:

NR–Not rated.

Others receiving votes: Coronado (22-2, 6 points), Serra (19-4, 4), Rancho Bernardo (15-5, 4), Canyon Crest (16-5, 2), Olympian (19-2, 2).

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.

 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 annual Beverly Hills Invitational, the premier prep hoops event in Southern California during World War II.

It wasn’t the Southern Section playoffs, on hiatus in 1944 and ’45, but the tournament  had more cachet.

Sixteen of the best teams in the Southland were included in a killer bracket in which the winner would have to play four games in two days at Beverly Hills High.

4 GAMES, 4 WINS

Hoover opened at 4:15 p.m. on Friday, February 24, 1945, against Bay League power Santa Monica.

Barnes stunned the Vikings with a school-record 36 points as the Cardinals eased to a 54-44 victory.

With a couple hours to relax and  get a bite to eat, coach Rickey Wilson and players watched Santa Barbara score a 45-27 victory over Redondo Beach Redondo, the Southern Section champion in 1942-43.

Hoover took on Santa Barbara at 9:15 that night.  Barnes scored 12 points and the Redbirds won again, 46-36.

The Cardinals were back at it at 2 the next afternoon and Barnes, virtually unstoppable around the basket from his pivot position, scored 18 points in a 46-44, overtime triumph against South Pasadena.

No time for a sit-down, Saturday evening dinner.

The boys tipped again versus Whittier in the championship game at 7 p.m.

Barnes led the way with 21 points for a four-game total of 87 and Hoover earned a 47-36, title-clinching win.

All in a day’s work, or about 30 hours.

HELMS NOTICES

Ten days later the Helms Athletic Foundation not surprisingly announced that Barnes was the Southern California player of the year.

Barnes was the only major division player to capture the individual honor during San Diego’s Southern Section association, which ended in 1960.

San Diego, in 1935-36, was the only team other than the Cardinals to win the major championship.

Hoover also had won the first Beverly Hills tournament in 1943, the competition lessened by the still-operating Southern Section playoffs.

Head coach Rickey Wilson stuck around through the 1945-46  season and then moved to Amherst College in Massachusetts.

HUGE CROWD

Hoover finished with a 16-2 record, including an 8-0 run through the Victory League.

The only losses were 40-36 to an alumni squad and 26-25 to San Diego in the Victory League preseason  tournament.

The Cardinals had lost four of the previous five to San Diego but swept the Hilltoppers in league play, 39-28 (Bob Kuykendall scored 20), and 29-24.

The second game at Hoover was played before a turnaway crowd of 2,000 persons, according to Bob Lantz, The San Diego Union correspondent.

TROUBLE ON THE HILLTOP

Hoover’s victory over San Diego brought to light a simmering issue at San Diego High, where coach John Brose, faced with a “strike” by five players, didn’t blink.

“We’ll carry on with a better spirit and healthier attitude than before,” said Brose after five players who did not practice on Monday, had met secretly, and turned in their gear.

The players included Tom Powell, the Victory League’s leading scorer in football and a starting center for Brose; Mario Lopez, Jack Harshman, a future major league outfielder-pitcher; John Herman, and Fontelle Kennerly.

All of the players either were starters or saw regular playing time, according to The San Diego Union.

Trouble apparently had been brewing all season and came to a head after the five-point loss to Hoover.

Brose had criticized his team for its “indifferent attitude and listless play” and then announced before the Hoover game that he was benching all of his starters, except team captain Powell.

Brose inserted the rest of the regulars in the second quarter, but played his reserves most of the second half as Barnes scored 19 points and kept the Cardinals in command.

None of the San Diego players returned.  Brose promoted second stringers and the Hillers still won seven of their last nine games, including 5 out 6 in the league to finish in a tie for second with Coronado at 6-2.  They were 15-6 overall.

HOW STRICT?

Wartime travel restrictions forced cancelation of an early December game at Hoover against Redondo.

The Seahawks would have had to travel 120 miles each way, a journey close to 3 hours each way. A CIF travel limit of 25 miles apparently still was in effect, although CIF schools had been slowly loosening the travel edict.

Long Beach Poly, Los Angeles Mt. Carmel, and Fallbrook had come south for games during the football season and Hoover had visited Redondo.

Victory in Europe was achieved on May 8, 1945, and in Japan on Aug. 15, 1945.

DISTANCE QUESTION

Dick Jackson’s set shot in overtime gave San Diego a 17-15 victory over Sweetwater. The Union declared that Jackson’s attempt was launched from 20 feet.

The perhaps more partisan San Diego High Russ said Jackson’s shot, with three seconds remaining in the extra session, was a 30-footer.

KEEP THE DOORS OPEN

Basketball was a Hoover thing.

Cardinals principal Floyd Johnson, with some urging from coach Rickey Wilson, reached an agreement with the recreation department to open the Hoover gymnasium on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights from 6:30 to 9:30.

The facility, largest in the city, with bleachers and a balcony on the east side of the building, and bleachers on the opposite side, would be open to all “junior and senior high boys throughout the city.”

Basketball edifices in the city were not plentiful.  Gymnasiums existed at Hoover, San Diego, San Diego State, and at the municipal facility in Balboa Park.

La Jolla, San Diego Vocational, and Point Loma played their homes games on outdoor courts and had to reschedule “rained-out” contests in February.

SIGNS OF THE TIME

The Hillcrest-Five Points “Little Freeway” on Washington Street opened in February.

The four-lane thoroughfare between Mission Hills  and the bayfront area included a bus route for defense workers coming from the northern and eastern sectors of the  city.

The part-time route would be in effect when shifts were changing at Consolidated, Ryan, and Solar aircraft plants.

Traffic signals were to be put in place on Washington Street at Hawk and Ibis, Harbor Drive at 32nd Street, Boundary and Maple, Laurel and Commonwealth, Covington Road at Boundary, and at 32nd and Commercial.

The lights were part of  a “catching up” program that had been delayed by war production board restrictions.

SET SHOTS

.Hoover’s player of the year was the same Dick Barnes who was the first player from San Diego drafted by a National Basketball Association team, in the fifth round by the New York Knickerbockers in 1950. Barnes played at San Diego State following Hoover  but passed on the NBA…Peggy Brose, the daughter of San Diego coach John Brose, was an honored, longtime coach of girls’ high school basketball a generation later in San Diego…an up and comer at Point Loma was sophomore Don Larson (sic), better known as Don Larsen, who pitched the first perfect game in the World Series for the New York Yankees in 1956…Kearny principal Edward Taylor, the man behind the creation of the annual City football carnival in 1939, spoke of Victory League schools forming their own section, apart from commissioner Seth Van Patten’s Southern Section…Taylor was quoted in The San Diego Union of Jan. 10, 1945, about an upcoming  meeting of league bosses at which the idea would be discussed…no information came out of the meeting to indicate the idea was just that, an idea…Coronado coach Hal Niedermeyer thought that the 13 points George Masek scored against Vocational represented the highest point total ever for a Coronado player at the guard position in Niedermeyer’s 16 seasons….

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, who broke the seasonal tie for first between Foothills and the Saints.

Foothills, with 6 first-place votes to St. Augustine’s 4,  this week is the No. 1 team in the San Diego Section.

The teams’ position in the weekly Cal-Hi Sports‘ top 20 didn’t change, Foothills remaining seven in the state and the Saints’ 11th.  Torrey Pines is on the bubble.

Foothills should get a passable test Saturday in the “Greatest Show on Earth”  Shootout against Woodland Hills Taft at Los Angeles Cathedral.

Other San Diego voting saw Mission Hills jump from seventh to fourth,  Vista drop from fourth to sixth, Mater Dei climb from 10th to seventh, and La Jolla fall from sixth to ninth.

A 62-60 victory over No. 4 Chatsworth Sierra Canyon moved Mission Hills (18-2) from eighth to fifth in the girls’ Top 20.  A 65-52 win over Capistrano JSerra helped The Bishop’s (20-1)  remain 20th.  La Jolla Country Day (10-10) is on the bubble.

Union-Tribune boys’ poll through Tuesday, Jan. 17:

NR–Not rated.

Others receiving votes: Orange Glen (13-5, 8 points), Serra (18-3, 8), Coronado (21-2, 5), Mission Bay (15-6, 5), Canyon Crest (14-5, 4), Olympian (18-2, 2), Rancho Bernardo (14-4, 2), Valhalla (17-4, 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.

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 Christian’s Jaylen Hands  and Brandon McCoy of Cathedral were selected to play in the 40th annual  McDonald’s boys’ game.

Littleton scored 30 points in a 72-47 victory over Ramona to break Houston’s record of 3,837.  At that point, with six minutes remaining in the third quarter, the game was stopped.

Littleton’s point total stood at 3,838.

Houston  was in attendance, congratulated Littleton, and presented her a bouquet of flowers at midcourt, according to Mark Tennis of Cal-Hi Sports.

The Bishop’s coach Marlon Wells, who also mentored Houston at San Diego High from 2001-04, then pulled Little and sat her for the rest of the game, reported Tennis.

It was a classy move by Wells and classy of Houston to be there, part of a Martin Luther King event at Mount Miguel.

Littleton was preceded in the girls’ McDonald’s event by Houston and La Jolla Country Day’s Candice Wiggins in 2004, Day’s Kelsey Plum (2013), and Horizon’s DiJonai Carrington (2016).

Wiggins is eighth in career scoring in California with 3,252 points.  Terri Mann of Point Loma (1987)  is ninth with 3,188,  according to Cal-Hi Sports.

Jelani McCoy of St. Augustine (1994) and Chase Budinger of La Costa Canyon (2006) are the only previous McDonald’s boys invitees from the area.

Foothills Christian improved from eighth to seventh and St.  Augustine from 15th to 11th in the weekly Cal-Hi  boys’ top 20.  Torrey Pines and Vista are on the bubble.

The Union-Tribune boys poll remained static in  the top three positions, Foothills and St. Augustine tied for No. 1, followed by Torrey Pines and Vista.  Helix moved to No. 5.

Union-Tribune  poll through Tuesday, Jan. 17:

NR–Not rated.

Others receiving votes: La Costa Canyon (14-4, 14 points), Poway (14-4, 7), Canyon Crest (13-4, 2),  Coronado (19-2, 2), Santa Fe Christian (10-5, 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.

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.