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Nado Natterings

A weekly column by David Axelson

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

2 May 2007 Issue #17

Last week the CHS Girls Lacrosse Team strengthened their hold on the No. 2 ranking in San Diego County by virtue of a 13-2 victory over Scripps Ranch, followed by a lopsided 16-5 win over No. 5 ranked Torrey Pines.

“We played very well,” said Head Coach Jessica Battle. “Going in to the Torrey Pines game, I didn’t think we would play that great. They have lost a ton of seniors and we did play very well.”

When the goals come in bunches, the individual tallies are sometimes hard to remember a week after the fact, but Battle credited Hannah Sebenaler, Bria Phillips, Greer Goebels, Jillian Reidy, Coco O’Brien and Erin Colvin with scores in the game. Melissa Humphrey added to the scoring festivities in the Scripps Ranch game. “Most of the scoring in the two games was done by them,” Battle said after reflecting on the past week’s games.

On the defensive end of the field, Battle credited goalie Alyssa Littin for her continued fine play. “She didn’t get a ton of activity against Torrey Pines, but she did come up with some big saves, which was good. Jenna Harrison played well and my D wings Sandy Shepherd and Kelsey Branch played well also.”

But all of that activity is merely a prelude to the goings on this week, as No. 2 Coronado (12-1 overall) travels to No. 1 Poway (13-2) Monday evening for a battle featuring the two best teams in the section. Battle said simply, “That’s huge.”

The week’s schedule continues with an away game at Serra Friday, followed by a Saturday matinee at 12:30 pm with Rancho Bernardo. “They were one of our first games of the season,” said Battle of the visiting Broncos. “And we beat them pretty considerably (15-6). I’m guessing the game will be a little bit closer than it was before. They are a big school (in terms of enrollment) and those schools seem to do well.”

CHS Boys Lacrosse Posts 3-0 Week

Not to be outdone by their female counterparts, the CHS Boys Lacrosse Team, also ranked No. 2 in the San Diego Section by Laxpower.com, played three times last week and dominated their opponents across the board.

The week started with a trip to Orange County to square off against St. Margaret’s and the Islanders emerged with a resounding 13-3 victory. Senior Geoff Worley provided a couple of spectacular goals, according to team statistician Lee Pontes. “With St. Margaret’s packing six defenders in front of the goal, Worley came down the right side and put a stop-and-go fake on the defense and froze all six defenders. He went one way and they all went the other way.” After the choreographed defense made their collective move, Worley scored.

Then for good measure, Worley ended the first half with a wrap-around, behind the head shot for a goal with two seconds remaining on the clock. For the game, Worley took eight shots, scored six goals and contributed three assists.

Tuesday the Islanders traveled to Scripps Ranch and dominated the Falcons 12-1. Among the leading scorers in the contest was Islander Bobby Braun. Coronado took advantage of Scripps Ranch’s continued difficulty in clearing the ball from their end of the field and dominated the second half of play.

Friday the Islanders hosted University City and came away with an 18-0 victory. The most meaningful portion of this game was the starting assignment provided to senior Patrick O’Brien by Coronado Head Coach Alex Cade. A four-year member of the program, O’Brien responded by scoring two goals, much to the collective delight of his teammates. The margin of victory is even more impressive when you consider that the last four minutes of the first half and the entire second half were played with a running clock.

This week, Coronado’s lone game is a 7 pm home affair Friday against Serra. The regular season is winding to a close with only three regular season games remaining after this week’s play.

CHS Boys Golfers in City Conference Tournament

When last we visited with the CHS Boys Golf Team, they were about to play Crawford High School in an important Central League match. The Islanders, who posted an overall mark of 18-4 on the season, split with the Colts in their two regular season matches and then lost to Crawford 414-415 in an 18-hole tiebreaker held in conjunction with the City Conference Team Tournament. “We shot about our average,” said Islander Head Coach Dean Cummings. “Crawford has gotten much, much better, but we should still have beaten them.”

Golfers can be very creative in their tournament formats. If you have every tried to follow the betting on a big money golf game, you understand the concept. The upshot of the playoff loss is that Crawford, as Central League champion, earns an automatic qualifying slot in the CIF Team competition. Coronado will have to wait and see if they are judged to be among the 10 best remaining teams in Division II. That decision will be forthcoming May 8, when the seeding meeting is held.

Cummings designated Dillon Hakes, Connor Pompa, Mike Emerson, Alex Valle, Ryan Kieras and Joe McMahon as his six players in the City Conference Team competition. Out of that event, 32 golfers qualify for match play, with Hakes seeded No. 4 and Pompa seeded No. 14. In last year’s event, Hakes won three matches and made it to Thursday’s play. “I expect him to do well this year,” said Cummings of Hakes’ chances in match play. “They start Monday at Torrey Pines and the field is cut in half each day. There will be a 36-hold match played Friday for the championship.”

CHS Sailing Team Performs Well in Pacific Coast Championships

Coronado High School Sailing Team Head Coach Jon Rogers checks in with the results of his team’s final two weeks of competition this year. “The CHS Sailing Team put in an amazing performance at the High School Varsity Pacific Coast Championship hosted by the Olympic Sailing Center in Long Beach. Competing against the Top 22 teams in the Pacific Region, CHS placed sixth overall and nearly qualified for the National Championships. This was a great accomplishment considering they went into the event ranked No. 12, based on their results in the regular season.

Sailing for CHS in the A Division were Pike Harris and Nick Gomez-Hall, while the Division B squad was comprised of Ryan Sullivan and Cragan Smith.  

The CHS Junior Varsity Team sailed in the JV PCC’s at the Stanford University Sailing Center the same weekend and placed 12th out of the Top 22 JV teams in the region. The A Division competitors for Coronado were Alex Wood and Hayley Eyer, while the B Division was represented by Jessie Kephart and Karisa Chapa.

In the Team Race National Qualifier hosted by the San Diego Yacht Club April 28-29, Coronado finished tied for fifth, while competing against the Top 10 teams in the Pacific Region. The highlights of the weekend included beating eventual No. 2 finisher Point Loma and nearly upsetting the eventual champions from Newport Harbor.”

Any young sailors interested in joining CHSST for the 2007-08 season can contact Coach Rogers at jonrogers@coronadoyc.org.

Boys Volleyball Defeat Madison in Three Games

‘Leagues’ are usually loosely affiliated groups of teams, often six or eight in number, competing in the same sport. Well, that would include most athletic groupings in San Diego County, but not the incredibly shrinking Central League for boys volleyball in 2007, who’s current lineup consists of Coronado, Clairemont and Madison. Crawford could not field a team this year and dropped out. So, we have a three-way race for the league title, all of which will come to a head this week for the Islanders.

Last week Coronado defeated Madison 25-12, 25-15 and 25-17 in their lone match of the week and according to CHS Head Coach Steve Merrill, “we waxed them pretty good.” Merrill spoke regarding some fine individual play from his team members. “Outside hitter Brett Clifford played well and Drew Davis served tough. Outside hitters Mikail Tolmosoff and Phil Smith hit some balls down for us.”

This week the Islanders play a non-league match against Mission Bay Monday, followed by the final run through the somewhat depleted Central League. Wednesday night there is a home match against Clairemont and an away match will be contested Friday at Madison. The Islanders and the Chieftains split in their previous two matches this year, with Coronado winning a tournament contest and Clairemont defeating the Islanders two weeks ago on the road.

CHS Track Team Competes Throughout San Diego County

It was a busy week in CHS Track and Field and Head Coach George Green checks in with this report. “This week of the track season is always a bit stressful on the athletes. Not only did we have a dual meet last Wednesday, but some of the boys competed at Friday’s All-Boys Escondido Invitational, and many of the freshmen qualified for the Frosh-Soph Championships Saturday.

The outcome of the dual meet with Hoover was known well in advance. Hoover has a powerhouse boys team that we can’t compete with and the Cardinals have a relatively weak girls team. The final scores of 102-28 in favor of Hoover for the boys meet and 70-40 for Coronado in the girls competition, bore out those predictions. The highlight of the boys meet was the 100-meter dash match-up between Islander Kyle Brown and Hoover’s Gary Lee. Both ran very fast automatic times with Lee at 10.95 and Brown at 11.05. Although Brown’s time was under his own school record time, it was wind-aided and won’t count as a new mark.

In the girls meet, Sarah Player was on fire with great marks in the 400 and 200-meter dashes (60.25 and 25.65 respectively) and in the high jump (5-4). Sallie Privett and Adie Davies placed 1-2 in both the 1600 and 800-meter runs, but skipped all of the other events because the meet was out of Hoover’s range by then. Madison Rutherford won both the 100 and 300-meter hurdles. We put no runners in either the 3200-meter run or in the 4 x 400 relay to rest up for the Frosh-Soph meet Saturday.

As the Escondido Invitational, Ben Enowitz clocked a 10:12.84, placing fourth in his section of the 3,200-meter run. Kenny Twomey placed fourth in his heat of the 300 hurdles in 43.85. Brown placed third in the Invitational long jump against a tough field with a best jump of 22 feet, one-half inch. He came back in the Invitational triple jump with a leap of 44 feet, 11 and three-quarters inches, an effort that remarkably was good for only fourth place. The competition was so good that less than two inches separated the second, third and fourth jumpers. On Kyle’s best jump, his hand hit the sand about 8 inches behind his heels, so that is where the measurement was taken.

At the Frosh-Soph meet, our lone male entry was David Grimes, who set a personal best time of 2:09.9 in the 800-meter run, sophomore division. Freshman Privett was out-kicked in the Frosh 1600-meter race in a very close finish, in which she placed third with a time of 5:16.59. Davies followed in 12th place with a time of 5:46.13. Privett came back two hours later in the Frosh 3200-meter run where she dominated by finishing nearly 40 seconds in front of the second place finisher with a personal record of 11:47.98. Davies was eighth in 12:53.95.

Danielle Gillberg was in second place in the Frosh 100 hurdles when she hit the next-to-last barrier and went down. She got up to finish seventh and later placed sixth in the 300 hurdles with a time of 51.86. Brianna Giorgione placed twelfth in the Girls Frosh pole vault and 16th in the Frosh high jump.”

Islander Baseball Splits Two Western League Games

Baseball competition in the Western League in 2007 was already tough and is now getting tougher as the season progresses. Last week the Islanders lost to the team Coronado Head Coach Sam Ceci considers to be the most talented in the league, University City, by the score of 4-1. Coronado then evened their record for the week with a 7-1 victory over Clairemont.

But the good news in the tight conference race is that one of this week’s opponents La Jolla, the league-leader with only two losses so far, knocked off U.C. Ceci’s prediction that the Western League champion may have as many as four losses is looking to be pretty accurate.

“They were every bit as good as I thought they were,” said Ceci of the Centurion team that has beaten Coronado twice in their three meetings. “They didn’t make any mistakes. We made a couple and we paid for them. Their pitching wasn’t as dominant as it was the week before, but we couldn’t put two hits together and mount an attack.”

The Islanders had four hits going into the seventh inning, when Tim Leary hit a double and drove Kyle Pokorny in with Coronado’s lone run of the day.

Things were a little brighter for the Islanders Thursday when they played the Chieftains. Tucker Johnson gave the Islanders four innings of shutout pitching, but Kyle Couture was able to only pitch one-third of an inning in relief due to a return of a muscle strain sustained in his right (pitching) shoulder. Leary, who had a similar ailment earlier in the season, pitched an inning in relief. Chas Marks and Josh Fink assisted with mound duty as well to assist in the victory.

Offensively, Leary continued his torrid pace at the plate, with a homer and a bases loaded single, good for a total of four RBIs. Keith Englehart also hit a homer, prompting Ceci to say about his sophomore outfielder, “He’s young and has some pop in his bat. And he keeps hanging in there.”

With the Western League in a mad scramble, Ceci assessed his team’s chances at the league title as “Still a long shot at best. We’re 18-5 overall and 4-3 in league. All things considered, we are well ahead of where we thought we would be. Overall, we’re in good shape.”

Although Ceci still has his eyes on the conference race, the real battle is the season-concluding CIF Division IV Playoff race. Ceci handicapped the field, which finds the Islanders as the defending CIF champion for the first time in the school’s history. “Francis parker is probably the favorite. They have four or five good players. Christian has come along well and will win the Central League. La Jolla Country Day recently split a doubleheader with Montgomery and Santa Fe Christian (last year’s other Division IV finalist with Coronado) is 17-4 right now. They re-loaded and they are a factor. The unknown team, but a dark horse in the race is Marian Catholic and they are battle-hardened. The biggest strength we have going into the playoffs is our tough schedule.”

This week the Islanders host Clairemont Tuesday, and then host league-leading La Jolla on Thursday. The following week they finish the series with La Jolla on Monday, travel to Cathedral Catholic Tuesday and host the Dons Thursday.

CHS Softball Continues to Battle

CHS Softball Head Coach Marti Bonelli provides an update on her team’s progress. “Last week we absorbed an 11-1 home loss at the hands of Point Loma. The game was a valuable teaching tool for us.

We again stayed close, trailing only 3-0 through four innings, but in the last four innings, Point Loma struck hard with 14 hits to pile on eight runs. The game highlighted the importance of outfield play, proper positioning, and the depth that we must play in order to record outs on big, strong power hitters. While we did have too many balls over and through our outfield, we showed noticeable improvement with our infield play and our team communication. We are still working on making adjustments during the game.

Offensively, Coronado scored our lone run in the bottom of the fifth inning, after two outs had already been recorded. Centerfielder Brandi Bible stroked a solid double down the left field line and was joined on base by shortstop Briana Feist, who worked the count for a walk. Catcher Rosie Harris then did an excellent job of protecting the plate and lashed an 0-2 fastball back up the middle for a clean single and an RBI. The girls had a tough time with pitch recognition and selection, which is always the case when you face a good hurler, who had command of her pitches.

The team continues to improve with each game, and win or lose, we will walk away with new lessons learned. We look forward to each game as an opportunity and can’t wait for the next pitch. This week we travel to Clairemont Tuesday for a 3 pm game, and then host Cathedral Catholic here Thursday at 3:30 pm.”

Boys Tennis Continues to Battle in Western League Play

CHS Head Tennis Coach Robbin Adair provides the news on his club’s play last week. “This week we lost to St. Augustine 10-8 Tuesday and then lost to University City 12-6 Thursday. Both were very competitive matches.

St. Augustine had beaten us 16-2 at Morley Field in the first round of league play and this time we came within a whisker of beating them. The doubles teams played great. Daniel Grazian and Frankie Harrison went 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, while Chris Mitchell and Evan Wheeler went 5-7, 6-2, and 6-4. Patrick Holman and Jordan Vance went 7-5, 1-6, and 6-3. Over in singles, Krishna Samperio won all three 6-0, 6-2 and 7-6(4), while Robbie Cattell and Jeff Miller lost their three sets.

The match boiled down to the last two sets in doubles. We were tied 8-8 and if we could take both, we would have won 10-8. However, we lost both sets by the same score of 4-6 and went down to defeat.

Thursday we traveled to University City to take on the Centurions for the second time. The first match they played us, they beat us 12-6, but it was just after Easter vacation ended and three of their players were not back from trips yet, including their No. 1 singles player Dane Thomson. This time they would be at full strength.

We played really well, but lost again 12-6. In singles, Krishna dropped only his fifth set of the season, losing 4-6 to Thomson, before beating their No. 2 and 3 players 6-1, and 6-2. Brenton Mashburn defeated their No. 3 player  6-3, who was the same kid he had lost to 1-6 in the first round. Max Mero played No. 3 for us and lost three sets. In doubles, Grazian/Harrison could manage only one set and Mitchell/Wheeler got swept. However, Holman/Vance played great, taking two of three 6-4, 2-6, 6-4. Their 6-4 win over University City’s No. 1 team was the first time we had beaten that doubles team in three years.

Next week we play Cathedral Catholic twice. Monday we travel to their place to make up a match that was originally scheduled for the Thursday after Easter. Tuesday they come to Coronado to play our regularly scheduled match. Wednesday we will seed the Western League individual tournament and Thursday evening we will seed the CIF San Diego Section Team Tournament.”

Instructors Added to City of Coronado Tennis Staff

City of Coronado Tennis Professional Phil Hopkins welcomes two additions to his professional staff. They are Luis Preciado and Ken Heidman. Both professionals hold the top-level certification with the United States Professional Tennis Association – Professional I.

Some of you may remember Luis, as he taught at the Tennis Center and at the City’s Cay’s Tennis courts several years ago. He has been teaching at the Coronado Shores and served as the last teaching professional at the Hotel Del Coronado before the courts were removed. During his years away from Coronado, he taught at Surf and Turf in Del Mar and at the Lomas Santa Fe Country Club in Rancho Santa Fe. He will be giving private lessons and sharing duties in the Junior Tennis Program.

Heidman comes to Coronado after serving for four years as the Director of Tennis and Head Tennis Pro at the Rancho Penasquitos Tennis Center. He was the first pro at that facility and developed a membership that grew from 150 to its current 500 member level in three years. Prior to Rancho Penasquitos, he worked in the junior programs at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club and the Barnes Tennis Center. Ken and Luis will co-direct the Coronado Junior Tennis Program. Both Luis and Ken are actively playing competitive tennis, so all levels of students are welcome to participate.

Joining them this summer will be returning staff instructors Michael Axelson and two of Phil’s three children, Jonathan Hopkins and Elizabeth Hopkins. Sign-ups are now being taken at the Tennis Center for what should be a great summer. Call 619-435-1616 for information.