Nado Natterings
A weekly column by David Axelson

Nado Natterings
by David Axelson, Chief Executive Officer
The Islander Sports Foundation

14 Feb 2007 Issue #6

In the last home doubleheader of the CHS roundball season Friday night, the CHS Girls Basketball Team dominated Madison 53-25. The win was impressive on several levels, including that starting center Arrielle Luna played sparingly due a sprained ankle.

Junior guard Bria Phillips had an outstanding game, with 16 points, six rebounds, six assists and three steals. Sophomore front court player Emily Bell also had a fine effort, scoring 14 points and snaring six rebounds, while senior guard Kelsey Branch contributed 11 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals.

In an interesting statistic, the Islanders converted 23 baskets from the field during the game, with 16 of the field goals coming from assists (passes which lead directly to a score). That is an unusually high ratio of assists per field goal scored.

“That was as good a team game as we have played this season,” said CHS Head Coach Toler Goodwin. “Those are assist numbers we haven’t been at all year. We played with a great deal of intensity and focus throughout, both offensively and defensively. We didn’t waste too many possessions and we took care of the ball. We played with a lot of really good energy. We attacked the ball coming off the glass, so we didn’t give up any second chance opportunities.”

Friday’s victory was preceded by a 45-29 win over Clairemont Tuesday, with the Islanders again led by Phillips with 13 points, and Branch supplying nine more. “The games were relatively similar,” Goodwin said of the two Central League victories. “The only major difference was that we were a little sloppier defensively Tuesday. Emily Waickwicz started in Arrielle’s place and played well. Angela Strohbeck played a solid second half and we had nine people score against Clairemont. Emily Bell did a really nice job Friday. Bria Phillips really played well. People have been getting opportunities to play and they have been taking advantage of them.”

The Central League title comes down to the final two games of the regular season to be played this week. Tuesday Coronado hosts Hoover at 5 pm and then travels to Crawford Friday night for a 6 pm tilt. Both the Colts and the Islanders have one loss in league play, so the league title and the right to host a playoff game are on the line Friday evening.

Boys Basketball Upends Madison 43-40 Friday Night

The Coronado vs. Madison game Friday night was physical from the opening tip, with the War Hawks and Islanders fighting each other for every rebound and possession. It wasn’t pretty or even perhaps artistic, but the important element was that Coronado prevailed 43-40.

Matt Oakley, who would go on to score 16 points, grab nine rebounds and block two War Hawk shots, picked up his fourth foul just 90 seconds into the third quarter. Fortunately, Chas Marks (14 points and a team-leading 11 rebounds) and Benson Lorden (12 points, four rebounds, and four steals) stepped up to carry the day.

With 6:47 remaining in the third quarter, Marks hit a three-pointer, which was followed a couple of minutes later by two free throws from Lorden. Less than 30 seconds later, Lorden stole a War Hawk pass at the top of the key and scored on a layup. Marks hit two free throws and shortly thereafter, Lorden stole yet another Madison pass and finished the play with a layup.

Proving that three is a charm, Lorden opened the fourth quarter with another steal and layup, which brought Coronado to within two points of Madison. Oakley, at this point rested and ready to contribute, grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on a follow shot and then two minutes later, duplicated that effort. A short while later, after rebounding his own missed free throw, Oakley scored on a driving, slashing layup to give Coronado a 39-35 lead.

Another Oakley offensive rebound (he had a total of seven in the game) and the resulting two free throws; two strong defensive rebounds from Marks; and two free throws from Lorden with 16.5 seconds remaining in the game sealed the 43-40 victory.

Head Coach Sandy Dillon knew the game was an unusual one. “All I could do was to play chess and hope to get the right combination of players out there at the right time. That was a big win. Benson really stepped up and Matt had the fourth quarter of his life. I was very pleased. We weren’t the best team on the floor that night.”

Marks’ week, which included 11 points in Coronado’s 56-38 loss at Clairemont Tuesday, puts him within five points of 1,000 for his career. “He’ll probably be the second highest scorer in school history behind Randy Nixon,” said Dillon of his senior forward.

This week the Islanders are on the road twice with a 4:30 pm game at Hoover Tuesday and a 7:30 pm game at Crawford Friday. The Islanders, currently 13-9, figure to be seeded somewhere in the eight or nine range in the CIF Division IV playoffs.

Girls Water Polo Concludes Regular Season at 21-6

Coronado held on to their share of the Western League Girls Water Polo championship with Bishop’s last week, as they held serve 15-2 against Cathedral Catholic Thursday. Leading the scoring for Coronado was Katie Estrada with four goals, with Sabrina Anonas adding three more.

Friday the Islanders traveled to Tustin to take on Foothill High School, the winner of the recent SoCal Invitational and an 8-1 victor over Coronado exactly one week before. This time the score was closer, as the Islanders lost by the score of 9-6. Hannah Sebenaler scored three goals, Lenea Smith added two and Anonas had one goal to her credit.

Head Coach Dave Throop noted the improvement in the team’s effort. “This week we shot better against Foothill. The girls got a lot of positives out of it. We actually played defense more aggressively. The strong points of our team are our defense, our depth and our swimming ability. If we get all three of those working, we’ll be okay. I feel very strongly that our top nine or 10 girls would start on any team in San Diego.”

Estrada, the Islanders’ center forward, drew a lot of attention from Foothill. “Their defensive game plan was to key on Katie,” said Throop. “The other girls stepped up. Katie is playing at a very, very high level. She’s going to get fouled more often than she gets a shot. She’s attracting a lot of double teams.”

Although the official bracket for the CIF Division II Playoffs wasn’t scheduled to be announced before the deadline for this week’s column, Coronado should be a lock for the No. 1 seed as they defeated Bishop’s, the likely No. 2 seed, twice in their three meetings this year.

Coronado’s first game will be at home Wednesday evening at 5 pm, with the quarter-finals set for Saturday morning at 8:30 am. The semi-finals are the following Tuesday (Feb. 20) and the finals are Saturday, Feb. 24 at 5 pm. All of the games after the first round will be played at La Jolla’s Coggan Family Pool.

Add Women’s Water Polo

A sign of the depth of talent found in the CHS Girls Water Polo program occurred over the weekend in the UC San Diego Triton Invitational. The 16-team event featured teams from all over the U.S. and included four Islander alums.

Competing in the tournament were Elizabeth Hopkins representing Maryland, Emily Bigham from UC Santa Barbara, Mary Lowe from UC Davis, and Sarah Clinton from San Diego State. There were four separate tournament teams dining in Coronado Sunday evening, including the Princeton Tiger squad as guests at the home of Bob and Debby Syverson, and the Maryland Terrapin contingent at the home of Phil and Paulette Hopkins.

CHS Boys Soccer Maintains No. 9 County-Wide Ranking

Another week has gone by and Coronado’s Boys Soccer Team is still the team to beat in the Central League. With a 1-0 victory over Hoover, on a goal by Christian Herrera, and a 4-1 win over Crawford, the Islanders hold a one game lead over second place Clairemont with two games remaining. The Chieftains are 5-0-3 and the final regular season game for both teams is at Coronado Thursday at 3:30pm.

In the victory over Crawford, the Islander goals were scored by Alex Wood, Michael Gasparo, Nick Hamilton and Herrera.

Coronado, which is 20-2-2 this season and 7-0-1 in league, is currently ranked No. 9 in “The San Diego Union-Tribune” poll. When asked if any recent results would impact the seeding situation for the CIF Division III playoffs, Head Coach Brian Hiatt-Aleu replied, “I don’t think so. I would hope we get a top two seed, but you never know. If we win our last two games, we should get it. We’re at the mercy of what other people think. The CIF has five people, supposed soccer experts, to help with the seeding. Nobody knows who they are. Nobody that has represented our part of the city has made contact with me. We’re the only team south of I-8 that is in the Top 10 and nobody has said a word to me. It is real mysterious how all of this ends up.”

Hiatt-Aleu continued to discuss the coming playoff scenario. “It would be nice to have home field advantage. It would be tough to play at St. Augustine or Cathedral Catholic, when we should be playing at home. Having home field advantage is almost worth a half a goal or more. In the polls, when I vote, I usually put us around No. 5, because I think that’s where we’ve earned to be. You’ve got to be honest. The teams that have beaten us, I put them ahead of us.”

Regardless of the system, it would be hard to overlook a team with a 20-2-2 record and not reward them with a season of that magnitude.

Girls Soccer Scores With Strong Results Last Week

Last week the CHS Girls Soccer Team had a couple of strong results on their side of the ledger. First they had a 2-2 tie at home against San Diego Country powerhouse Cathedral Catholic. Then they knocked off Scripps Ranch 2-1.

Islander Head Coach Kiko Medina picks up the narrative on the Cathedral game. “Our goals were by Mackenzie Coutts and Leah Hatheway. A week ago I would have said that the goal by Andrea Davis would have been our goal of the year, but both of these were stellar goals and made that one look average. The referee was trying hard to help us lose the game. They awarded a penalty kick with under a minute to go to Cathedral. Lauren Shuffett came up with a huge save to keep the tie for us.”

Medina continued to say that the victory over Scripps Ranch was routine. “I thought we played below average and we were still able to get a win. In the past, that wasn’t the case. We had goals by Colleen Burns and Callie Caldwell.”

Coronado lost a couple of previously scheduled non-league games due to cancellations. So this Monday’s game against Western League foe University City is the regular season finale for Coronado.

Like the other winter season teams, the playoff seedings are somewhat of a mystery to the head coach in question. “In Division III we might be able to squeeze into the Top 4,” said Medina hopefully. “Cathedral should be No. 1 and honestly the other three of the Top 4 are up in the air. Valhalla, OLP, La Jolla, El Capitan or Coronado might be in there. We’ll have to wait and see when they post the seedings Saturday.”

CMS Boys Soccer and Girls Softball Win SCMSL Titles

Coronado Middle School teams compete in an 11-team conference named the South Coast Middle School League, which features La Jolla Country Day, The Bishop’s School, Francis Parker, Horizon, Santa Fe Christian, Tri-City Christian, Christian, the San Diego Jewish Academy, Warren Walker and Rancho Santa Fe Middle School.

Both the Boys Soccer Team and Girls Softball Team won league titles in their sports last week. Just because their title occurred two days earlier, we’ll lead with the Boys Soccer team, coached by Dan Runyon and ably assisted by Sergio Flores. Coronado defeated Rancho Santa Fe 3-0 in the finals played at Coronado High School.

TJ Bruyge earned the shutout in goal, while Austin Copp, Dylan Peterson and Kyle Runyon scored the team’s three goals.

Great defense was supplied by Ruben Perez-Berton, Tommy Hart, Sergio Flores and Nate Hoffman. Andrew Toomey and Curtis Nixon played center mid and stopper respectively and dominated the middle of the field. Other contributors included Jacob Lujan, Bobby Ferrer, Luis Leal, Alfonso Tort, Shaun Koshland, Daniel Spencer, Mario Gomez-Hall, Luke Hoffman and Alvaro Arozarena.

The Coronado High School Boys soccer program will have a large talent influx next year, as 12 of the members of the championship team are graduating eighth graders. The team finished with an overall record of 7-1-1, and outscored their opponents 26-4 this season.

The CMS Softball Team, coached by Randy Adair, won the SCMSL title for the second consecutive season, defeating Bishop’s on the road 3-2 in the semi-finals and then traveled to La Jolla Country Day and defeated the Torreys 7-6 in the title game.

The team finished with a 7-1 overall record and outscored their opponents 84-13 in the eight games they played.

Team members included: Jodi Adair, Nicole Aguilar, Brooke Bernardy, Shelby Couture, Kaitlyn Dunphey, Kyla Englehart, Julia Garza, Sally Harris, Olivia Nebo, Lauren Penn, Alana Pompa, Anik Ribera, Kelsey Thackston, and Alexa Tyer.

Congratulations to the coaches and players of both teams.

Sponsorship Opportunity for CHS NJROTC Marksmanship Team

The good news is that the CHS NJROTC Marksmanship Team is really good, having placed third out of 60 schools in the SoCal/Arizona Region in a competition Feb. 3. The even better news is that their hard work has earned them an invitation to the JROTC Western Regional Competition to be held at the Olympic Training Center at Colorado Springs March 1-3.

The team is coached by Gunnery Sergeant Wayne Wootton. Team captain is junior Ariana Pybus and the other varsity team members include seniors David Foy and Kelly Sand, and sophomores Jessica Junk and Ashley Lazareno. The team’s composition is somewhat unique, as four of the five team members are females.

You’ve probably guessed the bad news, which is that funding is needed to send the team and their equipment to Colorado Springs. The trip will cost approximately $4,300, with only a portion of that amount raised currently.

The team, which currently practices their shooting in an alley behind the school, between the gymnasium and the library, will make the jump to literally a world-class competitive environment at the Olympic Training Center. It will be a unique experience, complete with electronic timing and the chance to meet Olympic-caliber shooters (no pun intended).

For more information or to make a donation, please contact CHS NJROTC Program Director Capt. Lee Pontes at 522-8907, Ext. 2401 or contact Pontes via E-mail at lpontes@coronado.k12.ca.us.

Track and Cross Country Teams Hold Fundraiser for New Uniforms

Combining two of my favorite things in life, food and athletics, the CHS Track Team and the CHS Cross Country Team are holding a joint Fun‘Raiser Thursday, Feb. 22 from 4-9 pm so that they can purchase new uniforms for the squads. The goal is to have new uniforms in time for the team’s league dual meet season in mid-March.

Coronado’s La Salsa Restaurant will donate 15 percent from each diner’s bill that evening only, if you bring a Fun’Raiser flyer to their establishment. More eaters at La Salsa translates into more money there is available for uniforms.

The CHS Boys and Girls Track Teams feature some of the top athletes in the county again this year, so let’s make sure they are well-dressed during their competition.

To receive a copy of the flyer that triggers the donation, please contact Susan Enowitz at 522-7960 or Shannon Player at 435-1764. They can forward the flyer to you via E-mail, or perhaps in the regular U.S. mail, if you prefer.

Add Track Team Workouts

The first official day of track and field practice per CIF rules is Feb. 17. But because that is a Saturday and the following Monday is a school holiday, the official first day of practice will be Tuesday, Feb. 20. However, if you would like to get a jump on the conditioning, the CHS team is at the track every week day at 3 pm. For more information, check out the team’s website at IslanderTrack.com or call Head Coach George Green at 435-3633.