Mission Bay has not been a “brand” name in San Diego Section basketball, but the Buccaneers continue to hold sway in the Union-Tribune weekly poll.  They’re now 15-3 after Tuesday night’s 71-63 victory over Patrick Henry.

The Bucs have beaten so-called brands No. 3 Foothills Christian and No. 8 St. Augustine and lost to No. 5 La Jolla Country Day.

It’s been that kind of year.  A dominant team has not surfaced.

The West Hills Wolfpack don’t travel in the above circles, but Cam Barry, a 6-foot, 1-inch senior guard is developing his own brand.  Barry is the state leader with a 36.6 scoring average through 10 reported games and ranks fifth in the country, according to Max Preps.

Foothills’ ballyhooed Taeshon Cherry  is one of the San Diego Section leaders with a 20.6 average in 10 reported games.  Max Preps did not have any stats for Mission Bay’s catalyst, Rejean (Boogie) Ellis, whom the school listed as 7-foot, 2-inch point guard, along with several other “seven-footers”.

Union-Tribune Boys’ poll through Monday, Jan. 8:

NR–Not rated.

Others receiving votes: Poway (10-5, 7 points), Helix (11-8, 3).

Poll participants:  John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Terry Monahan, freelancer; Steve Brand, San Diego Hall of Champions;  Adam Paul,  Ramon Scott, EastCountySports.com; John Kentera, Prep Talent Evaluator; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Steve (Biff) Dolan, Mountain Country 107.9 FM; Christian Pedersen, S.D. Preps Insider; Aaron Burgin, Fulltime Hoops; Brad Enright, L.A. Court Report.

Like the automobiles that are continually jarred by San Diego’s city streets, the supposed top teams in the San Diego Section negotiated a December full of potholes.

Which is the best, as the season enters  league play and the weekend shootouts or the so-called”classics”?

I cast my vote for Torrey Pines, followed by Mission Bay, Foothills Christian, St. Augustine, La Jolla Country Day, Vista, Mater Dei, Montgomery, Santa Fe Christian, and San Marcos.

Don’t press me.  I can’t explain why.

There were so many surprising results, some stunning. Perhaps it was the grind of the four-day Torrey Pines Holiday Tournament, one of the country’s premier events, or coaches just trying to find the right combinations and still evaluating personnel.

–But Torrey, 10-0 and an early championship favorite, fell behind by 15 points and was beaten in the Falcons’ annual Holiday Classic, 69-68, by St. Augustine, despite the Saints featuring an all-underclass lineup and missing two expected starters who transferred.

–St. Augustine followed its inspired win over Torrey Pines with a 78-52 loss to state-ranked Los Angeles Fairfax, which was beaten by Foothills Christian.

–Mission Bay beat Foothills Christian, 72-56, but lost to La Jolla Country Day, 62-50.

–Foothills Christian not only lost to Mission Bay, but also to 7-7 Westview, 73-71, in overtime and then beat two Los Angeles City Section powers, Westchester, 73-49, and Fairfax, 74-73.

Mission Bay (12-3) is Cal-Hi Sports‘ No. 12 team in the state and Foothills is 14th.  Torrey Pines surprisingly was not even at least on the newsletter’s “bubble” .

Union-Tribune Boys’ poll through Tuesday, Jan. 2:

NR–Not rated.

Others receiving votes: Poway (9-5, 5 points), Rancho Bernardo (6-4, 4), Santa Fe Christian (8-5, 3), Mount Miguel (14-2, 2), Helix (8-6, 1), Westview (8-7, 1).

Poll participants:  John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Terry Monahan, freelancer; Steve Brand, San Diego Hall of Champions;  Adam Paul,  Ramon Scott, EastCountySports.com; John Kentera, Prep Talent Evaluator; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Steve (Biff) Dolan, Mountain Country 107.9 FM; Christian Pedersen, S.D. Preps Insider; Aaron Burgin, Fulltime Hoops; Brad Enright, L.A. Court Report.

A nagging, Week 2 loss to Lancaster Paraclete that Helix appeared to overcome reared up again after the Highlanders were beaten by Folsom, 49-42, in the state 1-AA championship.

Helix, seventh in the state going into the game as selected by Cal-Hi Sports, dropped to a final ranking of 10^th.   Helix might have finished eighth or ninth, but the loss to Folsom, combined with Harbor City Narbonne’s stunning, 50-13 win over Paraclete, sealed the Highlanders at 10^th.  Narbonne was ninth and Long Beach Poly eighth.

Mission Hills is 12th in Cal-Hi’s final rating and Torrey Pines, which came close in Avocado League battles with Mission Hills, crashed the top 50 at 49^th.  San Marcos was 54^th and Ramona and Steele Canyon earned honorable mention.

HIGH SCORER IN DESERT

Tyler Saikhon of El Centro Southwest led all San Diego Section scorers with 234 points after finishing second in 2016 with 188.

Saikhon is the third Valley runner to outscore all others, joining Brawley’s Zay Shepard, who had 192 points in 2003 and 276 in ’04, and Imperial’s Royce Freeman, whose three-peat probably never will be surpassed.

Freeman had 240 in 2011, 216 in ’12, and 258 in ’13 before embarking on a collegiate career at Oregon that will likely conclude with his selection in the 2018 NFL draft.

Scoring totals are not always accurate or are incomplete, because they often are impossible to find in newspapers or are unreported.  Max Preps, from which the below totals come, tries to keep score.

Steele Canyon’s winning the State Division 3-A championships was comparative to an NFL team sneaking into the playoffs as a wild card and taking home the Super Bowl trophy.

The Cougars of Coach Scott Longerbone were 4-4 at midseason, got into the San Diego Section playoffs as a No. 7 seed, won 4 games in San Diego, and went on to the state championship with a 44-42 victory over Central Coast champion Half Moon Bay, which had won 14 in a row.

Steele Canyon (12-4) tied La Jolla Country Day’s 2016 state finalist and several others for the most games played by a California high school.

Sixteen games! It’s what they play in the big league.

San Diego Section teams won 2 of 5 state finals in 2016 and 1 of 5 this year.  But the section was more competitive this season, no blowout losses compared to 2016, when The Bishop’s was beaten by Oakdale, 47-0, and Horizon was taken down by Strathmore, 62-22.

The most decisive score differential in 2017 was Calexico Vincent Memorial’s 38-20 loss to San Francisco Galileo.

The most recent CIF state format was adapted in 2015.  San Diego Section teams are 5-8 in that period and 9-13 since state playoffs were reinstated in 2007.

SECTIONS

*Sac-Joaquin.  *^North Coast. ^*Central Coast. #*Oakland. **Central. *#San Francisco.

QUICK KICKS

The Los Angeles Rams’ Jared Goff is one of the hottest quarterbacks in the NFL but five years ago, Goff’s Marin Catholic team from the North Coast Section was  a 38-35 loser to Madison in the state D-IV championship…San Francisco Galileo, conqueror of Calexico Vincent Memorial in VI-A, is the alma-mater of many Italian-American baseball players  of generations past and of  prominent people in business and the arts but probably is best known as the school from which O.J. Simpson graduated and the school that baseball immortal Joe DiMaggio did not attend…DiMaggio never went to high school…San Diego State came hard at the last minute and received a commitment from Helix quarterback Carson Baker, who originally had  chosen California-Davis….Baker completed 19 of 31 passes for three touchdowns and ran for another as Helix battled Folsom before losing, 49-42…Highlanders sophomore Elejon Noa rushed for 1,013 yards in five playoff games…Galileo scored touchdowns on three of its first five snaps in the third quarter after trailing, 14-8, at halftime…Cameron Junger passed for five touchdowns and rallied El Centro Southwest from a 34-14 deficit early in the third quarter but Milpitas scored the winning touchdown with 2:37 remaining in the game…Steele Canyon withstood a Half Moon Bay rally after the school on Highway 94 led, 34-15, in the third quarter…the championship was a breakthrough for Coach Scott Longerbone’s program…the Cougars had not moved beyond the San Diego Section semifinals in seven previous tries….

Three coaches each moved up three spots in the annual review of those with at least 100 victories in their careers in this area or in the San Diego Section.

Monte Vista’s Ron Hamamoto now has 218 victories and is fifth all-time behind Herb Meyer (339), John Carroll (248), Bennie Edens (239) and John Shacklett (229).

Hamamoto started the season eighth.  Mission Hills’ Chris Hauser, with 154 victories, climbed from 19^th to 16^th and Madison’s Rick Jackson, with 128 wins, moved from 32^nd to 29^th.

Jackson, whose overall record is 128-39-1, has the best active won-loss percentage, .765, and will enter the 2018 season as the Section all-time leader among coaches of least 100 victories.

Carroll is second in won-loss percentage at .763. Kearny’s Birt Slater  next at .753, followed by Chula Vista’s George Ohnessorgen (.745), and Eastlake’s John McFadden (.735).

Several mentors, if they return next year, are not so far from 100 that they couldn’t make the jump in one season.

Olympian’s Paul Van Nostrand has 94 victories, Grossmont’s Tom Karlo, 91, Ramona’s Damon Baldwin, 90, and St. Augustine’s Richard Sanchez, 89.

Chula Vista’s Chet DeVore, who coached from 1951-55, was 44-7-1 and has the highest percentage (.856) among coaches of at least 50 games.  San Diego’s Duane Maley, 1947-59, was 97-19.3 (.828).  Hobbs Adams of San Diego, 1929-34, was 41-11-2 (.772), and Amos Schaefer of Coronado, 1926-35, was 55-25-5 (.676).

John Perry was 53-15-5 (.760) from 1920-27 at San Diego and 40-34-6 (.538) from 1930-39 at Hoover for an overall 93-49-11 (.644).

Mira Mesa will have its third coach in the school’s 41-year history.  Gary Blevins (145-117-4, .552) announced his retirement.  Blevins succeeded Brad Griffith, who started the program in 1977 and was 112-82-3, .576 when he retired after the 1994 season.

For a complete list of 100-game winners, go to the “Football” menu on the home page and drag to “Coach 100 Club”.

The San Diego Section has four chances to win at least one of the six state championships this week.  Last year the Section was 2-3, with victories by Cathedral in Division I-AA and Madison in D-3.

Most of this week’s games appear tossups, but no team has a challenge like that facing the Helix Highlanders, who will be a decidedly visiting team at  Hornet Stadium on the Sacramento State campus.

Helix’ opponent is the Sac-Joaquin Section’s 15-0 Folsom, painfully remembered as the team that clobbered Oceanside, 68-7, in Pirates coach John Carroll’s final game in 2014.

Sacramento is the hub of the Sac-Joaquin Section and Folsom, for which Johnny Cash brought some notoriety when he wrote “Folsom Prison Blues” in 1957, is its heartbeat, about 17 miles and 20 minutes from Hornet Stadium.

The Bulldogs were 16-0 in 2014, 14-1 in 2015, and 12-2 in 2016.

The Highlanders had success against another tough team from that area, defeating Loomis Del Oro, 35-24, for the Division II championship in 2011, but that game was played at the Carson Stub Hub in Southern California.

Cathedral topped Stockton St. Mary’s of the Sac-Joaquin Section, 38-31, for the 1-AA championship in 2016.  That game also could have been considered a home engagement for St. Mary’s, which is located about 45 miles from Hornet Stadium.

As a prognosticator, I’ve been a shade above average, nothing to brag about.  I’m 13-9 in the last three weeks, falling from 8-3 in Week 12 to 2-3 and 3-3. Here’s another shot trying to pick the winners:

DIVISION 1-AA

The moons seemed to be aligned for Folsom, realistically the home team at this “neutral” facility.  The Bulldogs have scored 721 points and average 48 points a game.  No team has come closer than Carmichael Jesuit, which bowed, 27-14, in the Sac-Joaquin playoffs.

Helix’ outstanding defenders Isaac Stuart-Taylor and Rashad Scott will be tested by Folsom wide outs Elijah Badger and Joe Ngata. Joe and his brother Daniyel combined for five touchdowns last week in the Bulldogs’ 54-35 win over 12-2 Fresno Central.

Helix, 13-1 after an opening loss to Paraclete, was tough and resourceful last week, hiking 165 miles through the Los Angeles and Ventura County fire areas, overcoming an early deficit, and walking away from Cal-Hi Sports’ No. 8 team, Westlake Village Oaks Christian, 28-13.

Scott’s 27-yard touchdown interception return put the Highlanders ahead for good, 14-13.

The win elevated Helix from 13^th to seventh in Cal-Hi’s top 50.  Folsom now stands fifth.

The Pick: Folsom 28, Helix 21, @Sacramento State.

D3-A

Rancho San Diego and areas around Mt. San Miguel are agog.  The Cougars’ game with Half Moon Bay has been moved from Steele Canyon (11-4) to Southwestern College in response to an anticipated crowd that would swamp Steele facilities.

Steele, under Coach Scott Longerbone, has come all the way from being a No. 7 seed in the San Diego Section playoffs to knock off unbeaten Ramona in the San Diego finale and top Orange El Modena last week.  Those wins came after blowout losses to Helix and Grossmont in the middle of the season.

Half Moon Bay (14-0), from the Central Coast Section, overlooks the Pacific and sits 57 miles South of San Francisco on Highway 1.  The also-named Cougars represent one of the oldest schools in the area, opening in 1909, and are members of the Peninsula Bay League.

The Central Coast is not regarded as one of the upper-echelon sections in California football, although the West Catholic League of San Mateo Serra, San Jose Village Christian, Mountain View St. Francis, and San Jose Bellarmine have solid, state-wide reputations.

The Half Moon Cougars received a 46.0 score from Cal Preps.com, while the Steele Cougars’ score is 42.8.

The Pick:  Steele Canyon 24, Half Moon Bay 20, @Southwestern College.

D4-A

The Pick:  Milpitas 31, @El Centro Southwest 35.

D-6A

The Pick:  San Francisco Galileo 30, @Calexico Vincent Memorial 45.

TRUE GRID

Folsom’s Cal Preps.com score is 73.6, Helix’ 67.5……Helix’ Cal Preps.com score dipped from 68.4 after Paraclete was shocked by Harbor City Narbonne, 50-14…San Diego teams came close to sweeping all six Southern California playoff games last week…Monte Vista was edged by Anaheim Katella, 36-35, after leading, 35-7, and El Camino was upset by Los Angeles Crenshaw, 13-10…Cathedral lost to Loomis Del Oro of the Sierra Foothill League, 22-12, in the season opener…Del Oro, 8-6 overall, was on the short end of a 54-10 score against Folsom…the Folsom state prison is 3.3 miles from the high school campus, opened in 1880, and was the first California lockup to have electricity…Milpitas (12-2) won its Northern championship, 52-38, over Moraga Campolindo, the team that overcame a three-touchdown deficit in the final seven minutes  to top El Capitan, 35-28, in the state final in 2014…Milpitas has a 38.7 Cal Preps.com score to 14-0 El Centro Southwest’s 38.2…San  Francisco Galileo (10-2) is the alma mater of O.J. Simpson…the Imperial Valley is hosting two championship games within five miles…El Centro Southwest is at home and Calexico Vincent Memorial (12-2) is playing at Calexico High….