Nado Natterings
A weekly column by David Axelson

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

18 April 2007 Issue #15

Conventional wisdom is often neither wise nor accurate, but in the case of San Diego County Boys Lacrosse in 2007, the preseason predictions by the experts are holding true to form. The 2006 Final Four teams, led by eventual champion La Costa Canyon, also featuring Coronado, Torrey Pines and Poway, are all back in the running for a CIF championship banner.

The next step in the title quest for the Islanders occurred on their home field Friday night, as Coronado dominated Poway 12-6. The Titans eliminated the Islanders in last year’s playoffs in a physical and well-played contest by the score of 7-6. It would be fair to say that there is no love lost between the two schools on the lacrosse field, as the programs compete against each other from middle school through high school.

Friday night the Islanders took no prisoners and dominated the contest from the opening face off. Senior attack Geoff Worley lit up the Islander portion of the scoreboard one minute into the contest, scoring on an assist from senior midfielder Erik Karlsson. The roles were reversed 42 seconds later as Karlsson scored on a Worley assist.

Poway scored at the 5:40 mark of the first quarter on a man up situation and scored their second goal 15 seconds into the beginning of the second quarter to even the score at 2-2. Then the superior passing and ball movement of Coronado went on display for the appreciative home crowd and the Islanders ran off five consecutive tallies to take a 7-2 lead at the intermission.

Pat Murphy scored on a rebound from his own missed shot; Worley scored again; Karlsson scored an unassisted goal; sophomore Jackson Cusick found the back of the net; and Jack Christiansen scored on a beautiful Worley pass with one second remaining in the half.

Coronado seemingly collected all of the groundballs in first half, a sign of effort in lacrosse. In addition, the precision passing between and among the Islanders is worth the price of admission. Worley, who will play collegiate lacrosse at Vermont next year, is the primary Islander playmaker, but is by no means the lone pinpoint passer on the squad. Coronado moved well away from the ball and on a couple of occasions, literally ran around Poway defenders.

The Islander scoring onslaught had a couple of benefits. The first is the obvious one and that is that the Titans were seemingly demoralized coming out for the second half. The second was that the vocal Poway fan contingent went strangely silent midway through the second quarter.

Karlsson scored on an assist from Cory Couture to get Coronado on the scoreboard at the 6:46 mark of the third quarter and the two teams literally traded goals for the rest of the game. On the Islander side of the ledger, Karlsson scored again four minutes later. His effort was followed by scores from Bobby Braun, Worley, and the final tally of the game from Olivier Schmied with 4:42 remaining on the clock. Worley finished with a total of three goals and three assists, Karlsson four goals and one assist.

Although his name didn’t turn up in the scorebook, senior Co-Captain Jake Vita handled the face offs for Coronado in the contest and did a fine job in that very physically demanding role. Goalie Jake Benzian unofficially was credited with 13 saves against the potent Poway attack.

The Poway victory marked the fist time this season Coronado has been on the plus side of the won-loss ledger. Currently the Islanders are 5-4 on the season, although the losses have come against some outstanding teams, including a 12-9 loss to Torrey Pines and a 4-2 loss to La Costa Canyon earlier in the season. Islander Head Coach Alex Cade front-loaded his 2007 schedule in terms of difficulty, playing De la Salle, St. Ignatius, La Costa Canyon and Torrey Pines in his first four games and DeMatha earlier last week. That contest resulted in a well-played but close loss by the score of 11-8.

Currently ranked No. 1 in San Diego Country by Laxpower.com, Torrey Pines has played a relatively easy schedule in the early going, but has two games with LCC and one with Poway in the next month. The difficulty of their early schedule has Coronado ranked No. 2 ahead of No. 3 LCC and No. 4 Poway.

This week Coronado plays at Bishop’s Tuesday and at Cathedral Catholic Friday. Bishop’s was a surprise 10-8 winner over Torrey Pines 12 days ago, and are ranked No. 7 by Laxpower.com.

CHS Swim Teams Knock Off University City

Last week the CHS Boys and Girls Swim Teams defeated their counterparts from University City, with the Boys squad winning 98-72 and the Girls out-pointing the Centurions 107-68. Winning is always good, but the big prize for swimmers, much like in track and field, comes at the CIF meet which concludes the season. At this point, training and improving their times are the key elements.

Head Swim Coach Dave Throop provided some insight into the CHS program this year. “The kids have been awesome. As a training group, they have been able to do things at a high level. The volume of work and the intensity of the work they handle are very impressive for a high school team.”

Starting with the Boys squad, Throop highlighted some of his stars. “Lee Sebring has been our most consistent upperclassman. He represents everything positive the program is doing. He has qualified in the CIFs in the backstroke already. Eric Clapper and Jackson Crow-Mickle are blue collar kids and keep the other swimmers motivated. Jacob Smith is doing well and is specializing in the sprint freestyle events, the 50, 100 and 200 yard races. Freshman Andrew Ireland is contributing in both the 200 and 500 yard freestyle; and Sean Cook has been working his tail off to get to the championship part of the CIF meet. Adam Ratcliffe is carrying on his older brother Alex’s tradition, and is our lead butterflyer right now. He had qualified in the 100 fly.

Our fastest breaststroker is Jackson Hummeldorf and he has been working very, very hard. Tommy Schofer is a freshman flyer and trains with Ratcliffe. He should go under a minute for the 100 fly and has been very solid.”

The Girls squad has their share of stars as well. “Molly Patrick is a great aquatics athlete,” said Throop. “She exemplifies everything you want from an athlete in both water polo and swimming. She is swimming well. As it is her senior year, she can pick her events. She has earned that level of respect. She is swimming the 100 free and the 100 back and has qualified in both of those. Kathryn Bailey grew up as a distance swimmer, but we need for her to do sprint stuff in the long term. Kelly Ronimus is actually keeping the boys in check and they are having trouble staying up with her in our workouts. Kelly swam a 2:10 in her first 200 free of the season and is now down to a 2:04. She just goes out and swims. She has qualified in the 100 and 200 free.

Alana Burgess made huge drops in the breaststroke last year because she worked so hard. Carly Hoshko can swim in all of the events and she has handled that role well. Those two are swimming well and working hard. It’s been a very good group, a lighthearted group, but they like to work hard. It’s been very pleasurable to coach them. We’re a team and I’m really proud of the team that has been there.”

The teams have two dual meets remaining, one with Patrick Henry and the other with The Bishop’s School. Those meets are followed by the City Conference Meet and then the CIF meet.

Islanders Nine Splits Two With Mission Bay

The Mission Bay Buccaneers have almost won more CIF sectional baseball titles than you can count, so anytime you can beat a team that good, especially in the Western League opener for both teams, that constitutes a good week.

Tuesday of last week, Coronado hosted Mission Bay and emerged with a hard-fought 2-1 victory. The contest was scoreless through five innings before Coronado scored with two outs in the sixth. Tim Leary, who is the leading hitter for the Islanders this season, hit a double down the right field line that landed among three Mission Bay defenders. Bryan Crabb pinch ran for Leary and promptly stole third base. Clean-up hitter Danny Cepin coaxed a walk and the Islanders had runners on the corners. Cepin and Crabb then executed a delayed double steal to perfection, with Crabb scoring on the play.

Mission Bay answered with a run in the seventh inning, on a double, two wild pitches and a bang-bang play at the plate. In their half of the eighth, Coronado pushed across the game-winning run on a single by Chas Marks, a walk to Kyle Pokorny and a game-winning RBI double to right center by Leary.

Leary also drew the starting pitching assignment, but was able to throw for only one inning before injuring his shoulder. Junior Tucker Johnson took the mound in the second inning and proceeded to pitch five innings of shutout ball, yielding only two hits, while walking three. Josh Fink faced two Buc batters in the seventh and Steven Conrad came on to finish the seventh. He closed out the eighth inning facing only four hitters and earned the victory.

Johnson, who is recovering from a hip injury sustained at the beginning of the season, is now the owner of a fine 2.45 earned run average. A couple of his best outings, including Tuesday’s, resulted in a no-decision.

“It was an interesting game and we were thrilled to win,” said Head Coach Sam Ceci. “We battled back in the eighth inning, which was real sweet. Tucker held Mission Bay scoreless for five innings, which is pretty impressive. Conrad came in and did okay too.”

Jake McMahon and Leary had the only two-hit games for Coronado. McMahon’s afternoon included a one-out triple in the fifth inning, but Mission Bay defended the Islanders attempt at a suicide squeeze perfectly.

Thursday the same two teams met at Mission Bay, with the Buccaneers coming out on top 6-1. “We were flat, but we played them tough through the fourth inning,” commented Ceci. “We had an error or two and there is no way to recover when you’re not hitting the ball. They wanted it a little bit more than we did. Thursday there wasn’t a good performance in the bunch, although Keith Englehart made a couple of good catches in left field.”

This week the home and road Western League format continues, this time with Coronado traveling to Point Loma Tuesday and then hosting the Pointers Thursday at 3:30 pm. Then Coronado will host University City Saturday at 2 pm.

“This will be a big week for us,” Ceci said of his team, which now holds an overall record of 15-3, 1-1 in the Western League. “If we can get two out of three this week, we can still have a lot to say about what happens in the Western League. The four best teams (Mission Bay, Coronado, Cathedral Catholic and University City) all have a loss. La Jolla is tough too, they just keep winning.”

CHS Track Team Wins Dual Meet Madison

CHS Head Track and Field Coach George Green checks in with the details of the Islanders 80-55 victory in Girls Track and the 69-54 win on the Boys side.

“The big news from the meet is the two new school records set by Sarah Player and Kyle Brown in their respective 100-meter dashes. Sarah finished nearly a second in front of the second place runner with a time of 12.57 seconds to eclipse the 100-meter record set in 2003 by Nila Heurtelou. Converted to 100 meters, her time was also about .15 faster than the 100-yard record of Tricia Rexrode of 11.4 set in 1983. However, Rexrode’s record will stand as is in the archives, since the 100-yard distance is no longer run. Brown edged Marvin Dingle’s 100-meter record of 11.44 set in 2001 with a time of 11.42.

As usual, the Girls Team had many multiple winners, with Player taking not only the 100 meters, but the 100 hurdles (hand timed in 15.9); the 300-meter hurdles (48.9) and the high jump (5-0), all excellent marks. Neisha Scales placed second in the 100 in 13.52 and was second as well in both the 200-meter dash and the long jump.

Sallie Privett and Adie Davis gathered their usual quotient of points by placing 1-2 in the 800, 1600 and 3200 meter runs. They also ran the 400 against Madison’s Ciera Short, one of the top 400 meter runners in the section. Sallie set a personal best time and finished second in 64.4 with Adie fourth in 68.2. Danielle Gillberg placed second to Player in both hurdles races and tied for second in the high jump along with Briana Giorgione, who along with Danielle Eckert took all of the pole vault points.

The Boys Team was led by Brown, distance runners Ben Enowitz and David Grimes, and Kenny Twomey who won the 300-meter hurdles, the high jump and placed second in the triple jump. Brown, in addition to his record performance in the 100, won the 200, the long jump and the triple jump. Tracy Cummings took second in the shot put with a throw of 37-7, and Alton Smith was the lone runner in the 100 hurdles.

Three days later at Valley Center’s Jaguar Invitational, the Islanders won more than their share of medals. Player made a big impression on all 36 schools attending both the morning and afternoon sessions by posting the best times of the day for the 100 dash, the 100 hurdles and the 300 hurdles, not to mention placing third in the high jump.

Privett placed third in the fast heat of the morning session 800 meters with a time of 2:25.35. Davis posted 2:35 for her heat of the 800. Twomey medaled in his flight of the triple jump; Scales medaled in the long jump; and Enowitz ran 4:46 for the 1,600 and then cam back in the 3,200 with a time of 10:30.

Brown won his flight of he triple jump, his heat of the 100 and posted the best mark of the day in the long jump by beating section leader El Camino’s Nelson Rosario with a personal-best distance of 22 feet, 10.5 inches. Coronado’s long jump record is the oldest on the books at 23 feet, .75 inches set in 1938 by Ralph Mitchell. Look at your thumb. It’s probably longer than Kyle was short of this historic mark.

Softball Runs Into Two Tough Western League Foes

CHS Softball Head Coach Marti Bonelli checks in with news from her squad’s week in the tough Western League. “Tuesday we traveled to Cathedral Catholic and were beaten 15-0. Cathedral pounded out 15 hits, had three walks and two hit batters. We also committed six errors. We obviously did not play the way we wanted, but on the positive side, it was the first two innings that hurt us. After those two innings, we actually settled down and held them to three runs. Offensively, we were putting the ball into play, but not with any consistency nor with much authority. Cathedral plays solid defense and we learned you have to earn runs from them.

Thursday we hosted Mission Bay and again we had a very porous first inning and found ourselves trailing 8-0 after the first half inning. The team played very well after the first inning, allowing only one unearned run in the sixth inning. Alexis Wright settled down nicely and only gave up four hits in the last six frames.

Offensively, we managed to push across three runs, but consistently came up short in key at bats. Sandra Cepin, our sophomore first baseman, collected three hits in four at bats. Junior shortstop Christy Mebust gathered two hits.

We finish the first round of Western League play Tuesday, hosting La Jolla High School. Then on Thursday, we start the second round by traveling to University City. While we absorbed some big losses during the first round, we also had some innings of good play and did have a win. This time of year it’s all about who can continue to improve and keep a positive attitude. We know we can play much better, and we do it on a daily basis in practice. The key now is to show the rest of the teams that we can execute on game day.”

Boys Volleyball Downs Mission Bay

The CHS Boys Volleyball Team had a home victory over Mission Bay last week, a match that included a big comeback. Trailing 13-3, the Islanders rallied back and took the first set 26-24. They followed that up with a 25-17 win in the second game and a 26-24 victory in the third.

“Phil Smith hit the ball real well,” said Head Coach Steve Merrill. “Dan Ross had some good digs and served tough. Ian Petersen played well in the back row. He dug the ball and passed well. Jacob Streifer set some clean outside balls and passed well, while Kyle Tolmosoff had his second start as a middle hitter.”

This week the Islanders play Mira Mesa Wednesday at home at 3:30 pm. Friday they start Central League play at Clairemont at 3 pm. “We beat Clairemont earlier in the season in a tournament,” said Merrill. “We’re looking to go in there and play well.”

Boys Tennis Downed by University City

Head Tennis Coach Robbin Adair provides his team’s news for the week. “Tuesday we lost to U.C. 12-6 here on our courts. Krishna Samperio swept all three singles sets 6-2, 7-5, 6-4, while Brenton Mashburn and Robbie Cattell dropped all three. Over in doubles, we had lots of really close sets. Daniel Grazian and Frankie Harrison went 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, while Chris Mitchell and Evan Wheeler went 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Patrick Holman and Jordan Vance posted scores of 3-6, 4-6, and 3-6.

Next week is really busy as we have four matches. Monday and Wednesday we are at home against El Capitan and Mira Mesa. Tuesday and Thursday we are on the road with La Jolla and Scripps Ranch.