We participate in athletics for a variety of reasons. When life and property are threatened and lost, as was the case during the past week with the San Diego County wildfires, sports properly take a back seat to tragedy. Our thoughts are still with the families who have suffered from the fires, and will be for a long time to come.

Due to the fires, all competition for San Diego County high schools was cancelled. The lone exception for Coronado High School was the Boys Water Polo Team’s participation in the NorCal Invitational. The tourney is held in San Jose, serves as the unofficial state championship of the sport and is a competition where air tickets and family plans are made well in advance.

The Islanders week started in Santa Cruz at Cabrillo College Thursday in a game against Soquel High School, which the Islanders won by the score of 8-5. John Arnold’s four goals and three assists from Matt Digges led the balanced scoring attack.

The following day, the Islanders started the tournament with a 14-7 victory over Jesuit High School, which featured nine Islanders scoring. Tommy Corcoran led the proceedings with three goals, and Joey Jankiewicz dished out five assists. Sophomore Patrick Queisser played in the fourth quarter of the game, and had one steal and some nice saves, according to Head Coach Randy Burgess.

The next game came against Bellarmine Prep, which the Islanders lost by the score of 15-12. Arnold and Digges had four goals each, and Chris Brown and Jankiewicz both contributed four assists. "It’s a tough game playing the home team," said Burgess of Bellarmine, which went on to defeat Harvard Westlake in the finals of the tournament. "We were down 6-4 at halftime and we hung in there."

The next game of the four-game event came against San Clemente and the Islanders emerged with an 11-10 win. The game saw senior Matt Landon earning a start and he responded with a goal, while drawing two exclusions. Corcoran scored five goals and Brown added two assists and four steals.

In the fifth place game, Coronado defeated El Toro by the score of 8-7. Sean Castillo, Brown and Digges all scored twice. Junior Dylan Carr got the start in goal and played well, with an assist, a steal and five saves to his credit. "He’s coming back from a bad injury (spiral fracture to a finger) and it was good to see him get some quality time," Burgess said.

All things considered, a fifth place finish among the best teams in California is a good result. "We’re not quite a top-tier team," commented Burgess. "But we’re working toward that. Having the week off threw the guys off a little bit, but that’s not the reason we lost. We have to learn to play four complete quarters."

The team has to make up two games that were postponed last week, one against the Bishop’s School, the other against LaJolla. "We might get one this week and one next week," said Burgess. This week the team has to face Scripps Ranch and University City and work in the make-up games within the next 10 days.

As you might imagine, coaches with perfect records don’t like to have off weeks and Islander Head Football Coach Bud Mayfield is no exception to that concept. "I didn’t like the week off," while acknowledging the purpose behind the CIF ruling that prohibited practice or contact between coaches and their teams of any kind. "They (Clairemont) don’t have as much on the line as we do. I’m worried about 8 days with out conditioning and about our timing. We’ll have three practices (Monday through Wednesday) and see how much has carried over." this week’s Homecoming tilt against Clairemont, with game time set for 7:30 pm.

Since football is one of the lone revenue-generating sports in interscholastic athletics, those games have been rescheduled country-wide, essentially adding another week to a season that started in mid-August. The Islanders road game with University City will now be played Friday, Nov. 21 at 3 pm.

The other CHS fall sports programs have all taken various routes to re-scheduling their missed matches, with The CHS Girls Tennis Team and their counterparts opting not to complete the regular season. Tennis, which employs a Byzantine playoff format of CIF Team competition, then Western League individual competition, followed by CIF individual competition, has the toughest scheduling challenge. Head Coach Robbin Adair, who has served as the CIF Tournament Director for many years, has the added obligation as the JV Boys Basketball Head Coach, with practice commencing Nov. 15.

The Islanders, will face LaJolla Country Day in the first round of the Team CIFs and if they win that round will face USDHS today at 2 pm. The strength of the Western League was evident in the playoff seedings as all six teams in the conference made the playoffs. LaJolla, University City and Scripps Ranch were seeded 1-2-3 in Division II, while USDHS is second, Our Lady of Peace fifth and Coronado ninth in Division III. Next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Coronado will host the Western League Tournament at various locations in Coronado.

The CHS Girls Golf Team under the direction of Kari Weidner, played their final regular season match this week against USDHS and are preparing for the City Conference Individual Tournament Nov. 13. The San Diego Section CIF Golf Tournament, originally scheduled for the Warner Springs Golf Course, will have to be moved due to the recent fires.

Phil Trotter, Girls Volleyball Head Coach has to reschedule matches with Hoover and Madison and work them in around matches with Gompers Secondary earlier this week and a match against University City from the Western League on Thursday. "The University City match will get us ready for the playoffs," Trotter said. "We were off all week, but the fires certainly put everything in perspective. We’re playing well now and I hope we can get our rhythm back."

The Boys and Girls Cross Country Teams plan to skip this week’s dual meets to train, according to Head Track Coach George Green. "We’ll make everything up at the Harbor League championships next week on the 13^th."

On the club sports front, a team representing the Coronado Peninsula Water Polo Club, comprised of 8^th grade and younger girls, will represent the state at the prestigious Speedo Cup Championships in St. Louis November 14-17, according to CPWP Coach Dave Throop. "We’ve had a group of girls training together for a long time and they have grown into a family," commented Throop. "The teams that go to this event are usually all-star teams and we’ve been wondering for 3 or 4 years if this group could develop and have the opportunity to go to this. We defeated the San Diego Shores team 5-2 to earn the right to go to the Speedo Cup."

"They were really nervous," said Throop of his squad. "They thought it was a do or die type of thing. I tried to give them some perspective and they and they did a pretty good job after they settled down." Lenea Smith and Hannah Sebenaler scored two goals each, with Sabrina Anonas adding a tally for the Coronado team to account for the five goals.

The squad includes a mixture of kids from sixth through eighth grade, who have been competing above their age level for several years. As 13’s, they competed against 18 and under athletes. Now they are holding their own against high school and collegiate competitors.

Other squad members include: Alana Burgess, Carly Hoshko, goalie Alex Adamson, Aly Rodgers, Chelsea Prestidge and Kathryn Bailey. Throop gives credit to CHS alumnus John McCauley, who ran the team from the time they were in the ‘Grommet’ program. "John did a great job coaching them and keeping them motivated. They were the recipients of a lot of great coaching on his part. The girls are really close and good friends. If the precedent holds, they will be a talented group of high school players."

Finally, 12 members of the older level of the Coronado Peninsula Water Polo Team, which will comprise the majority of the CHS Girls Varsity Team this season, recently competed in the Women’s National Championships in Moraga, CA. One of the teams they played, representing the New York Athletic Club, contained nine past or future Olympians. "It was a good learning experience," said Throop. Erin Jones made honorable mention All-American from the tournament. It’s an opportunity for us to get away, see the girls in a pressure situation, and see what our strengths and weaknesses are. It’s a springboard for the coming season."