Nado Natterings Back to Islandersports
A weekly column by David Axelson

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

12 March 2008 Issue No. 10

Islander Softball is off to an explosive start this year, starting with a 27-2 victory over The Rock, followed in short order by a 14-0 win over Chula Vista. The common thread between the two games, including the obvious one of Coronado scoring bunches of runs, was Briana Feist being the winning pitcher in both games. The sophomore hurler yielded a scant five hits in 13 innings while allowing no earned runs.

Against The Rock, Feist was also 3-5 at the plate, with five RBIs. Included in her hit total was a double off of the left field batting cages at Green Field, which is an accomplishment in its own right. This season, Feist will play either third base or shortstop when she isn’t pitching.

Returning team Co-MVP Sandra Cepin also had a big day at the plate, going 4-6 with five runs scored and four RBIs. Cepin’s long ball collection included a home run to right center field. Head Coach Marti Bonelli described Cepin as “a powerful right handed hitter who frequently finds the gaps to either right or left center field. Sandra figures to be a team leader in extra base hits and RBIs this season.”Other big offensive games were turned in by Olivia Nebo (4-5), and Shannon Julius (3-5 with two doubles).

The Rock, which is a new school with a first-year program, was followed on the Islander schedule by Chula Vista High School, which has been around this block a few times before. “It was a close game until the fifth inning,” Bonelli recounted. “Coronado sent 11 batters to the plate and pushed across seven runs. The Spartan pitcher gave up five walks in addition to three hits. The biggest blows came from the freshmen crew of Kayla Englehart and Olivia Nebo. Kayla came through with a two out, bases loaded single, which was immediately followed by a booming triple to right by Nebo.”

Bonelli continued the re-cap of the Chula Vista game. “The sixth inning was a hit-a-thon with six hits and five runs. The biggest hit of the day belonged to Shannon Julius who crushed a ball to deep left, missing a home run over a very deep fence by a few inches. The ball was hit so hard that it bounced off the fence back to a surprised Chula Vista left fielder. It was a shame that a ball his so well was only a double.”

In shutouts, there is usually consistent defensive play, and that was mostly the case against Chula Vista, according to Bonelli. “Their lone scoring threat came on back-to-back Islander errors, which gave the Spartans runners at first and second base, with no one out. A nice defensive play by Brandi Bible yielded a force out at third and then Feist pitched the next two hitters up in the strike zone and was rewarded with a couple of lazy fly balls to end the inning.”

“Both games weren’t close,” Bonelli continued. “But the girls continue to work on their games. The team is dramatically improved from the first few games we had last year, which we think is a result of their experience from last season, their hard work so far this season, and a desire to improve. We will have our hands full this week with four games, but everyone is looking forward to the challenge.”

The four games include a visit to The Bishop’s School Tuesday; Castle Park at home Thursday at 3 pm; and two games in the Hilltop Tournament Saturday, to be played at Bonita Vista High School. The first is at 11 am when Coronado plays Southwest El Centro. That tilt is followed almost immediately by a 1 pm game against Bonita Vista.

Girls Lacrosse Season Opens With Big Win Over Torrey Pines

That explosion that emanated from North County Monday night was generated by the Coronado Girls Lacrosse Team’s high charged offense, as the Islanders dominated their season opener against Torrey Pines by the score of 13-5.

For the past several years, the Girls Lacrosse powerhouses have included La Costa Canyon, Poway, Torrey Pines, La Jolla and Coronado. For the Islanders to dominate one of the big schools in this fashion is, well, big.

“It was a great game,” said Head Coach Jessica Battle, employing understatement in the early going Tuesday morning. “We were passing the ball well. Our offense this season is going to be spectacular. We will have the best attack in the league, hands down.”

The Islander offense is deep and talented, with six players accounting for the team’s 13 goals Monday night. Bria Phillips scored four goals and was credited with two assists; Greer Goebels and Hannah Sebenaler each added three goals and two assists; Melissa Humphrey scored once; as did Coco O’Brien, who also added two assists; and Michaela Guerrera who contributed one goal and three assists.

Battle employed Kirsten Krock and Sandy Shepherd as her D wings, to play in front of goalie Alyssa Littin. Battle discussed her deep defensive unit. “Littin had 13 saves last night and had a great game. Shepherd is super aggressive and very fast. We’re still working out the kinks on defense, being that it was our first game. We have an abundance of defensive players this year. We have a total of seven defensive players, which is kind of unheard of. When we determine who is going to be best utilized where, we’re going to be strong there also.”

The varsity squad, which consists of 18 players, is a mixture of returning veteran seniors, talented upper classmen and also includes four freshmen. Making the move from the Coronado Middle School feeder program to the varsity were the aforementioned Guerrera, and fellow freshmen CJ Fisher, Kaitlyn Couture, and Alex Reidy.

The county-wide outlook is positive, according to Battle. “La Costa Canyon and Poway both lost valuable players, but the schools are so large that they have 30 girls waiting (to play on varsity). Last night Torrey Pines had 15 girls on the bench and we had five. During the season there will be little teams here and there that will pop up and challenge us because they have improved, but La Costa and Poway will be our biggest competition. We have a much better team than last year and we have incredible potential. Our goal is to win the CIF.”

Lacrosse Invades Coronado

If lacrosse is your game, then Coronado is the place to be this week as top flight college and high school lacrosse games will be played at Niedermeyer Field Wednesday through Saturday.

The first contest will be played Wednesday at 7 pm when college lacrosse takes the spotlight, when Drew University of Madison, New Jersey plays Ithaca College from Ithaca, New York.

Friday, the Coronado Girls Varsity Lacrosse team hosts Kincaid High School from Kincaid, Texas at 3:30 pm, which is followed to the field shortly by the Coronado Boys Varsity Lacrosse team, when they kick off their season by hosting De LaSalle High School at 7 pm.

Saturday camp out and get comfortable as several levels of lacrosse will be on display in Coronado. At 10:30 am, the JV Girls Lacrosse team hosts Poway, followed by the Girls Varsity when they host Carondelet at noon. Carondelet is considered to be one of the top teams from Northern California.

The Boys Varsity takes the field at 2:30 pm when the play St. Ignatius. College lacrosse returns to Niedermeyer Field at 4 pm when Drew University takes on Whittier (CA) College.

Baseball Team Returns Strong to Even Season Mark at 2-2

After starting the season with losses in the Bully’s Tournament to La Jolla and Mission Hills, the Islander Baseball Team rebounded (notice the literary foreshadowing, as there is a basketball mention next) nicely with an 8-4 win at Orange Glen and a 6-5 home victory over Otay Ranch Saturday morning in an eight-inning affair.

“The losses were tough,” said Head Coach Sam Ceci. “A couple of breaks in either game and we could have won. They were heartbreaking to lose. We couldn’t get a big hit when we had to and they did.”

Ceci continued to discuss the Orange Glen victory. “Orange Glen was probably not as strong a team as the first two, but they battled. It was 4-4 until the sixth inning. We scored four runs in the last two innings to win. We battled every game. We’d get down and then come back. In the last two cases, we were able to score a little and wound up getting the win.”

Tim Leary had three doubles in the Orange Glen contest while Alex Rowan and Bryan Crabb supplied two hits each. Steve Conrad was the winning pitcher for Coronado, going 2.2 innings of spotless relief for the Islanders.

Coronado’s line score in the Otay Ranch game looked like a stream of binary code 10111011 as the Islanders rode the bat of Keith Englehart to the victory. “He hit the ball that won it for us,” said Ceci. “We had a guy on second base with one out. He hit the ball hard to the outfield and he had a hit before that as well. Mason Mills got a couple of key hits in the game. Both of them had been struggling up to that point. Both had hit the ball but hadn’t gotten much from it.”Also in the Otay Ranch contest, Kyle O’Brien Pokorny contributed a home run to the winning effort.

Tuesday the Islanders play at San Ysidro and thus will have played the Top 3 teams by record in the Bully’s Tournament. In the process, they have also seen much of San Diego County, traveling to games at Mission Hills, La Jolla, and San Ysidro. “We had a pretty tough draw in the tournament,” said Ceci. “We don’t have much of a chance of playing in the championship on Thursday. If we win Tuesday, it will be a pretty good tournament for us. San Ysidro is a veteran team and they are favored in their league.”

The Islanders complete their week with a doubleheader Saturday at Mar Vista, with the games scheduled for 11 am and 1:30pm.

Boys Basketball Honors and Awards

The CHS Boys Basketball program, which encompasses three teams at the varsity, junior varsity and freshman/sophomore levels, held their post season banquet at the Coronado Municipal Golf Course Sunday evening.

First year Varsity Head Coach Ken Caesar, who guided the team to a 13-10 record, announced the following award recipients: Most Valuable Player – Justin Parsons; Defensive Player of the Year – Blake Malkemus; Most Improved – Dallas Taylor; and Team Captain – Matt Fowler.

The Junior Varsity (10-5) awards were presented by Head Coach J.D. Laaperi and went to: Co-Most Valuable Players – Hunter Ralph and Josh McNeal; Most Improved – Alex Bookout; Co-Captains – Colin Pewtress and McNeal.

Frosh/Soph (6-6) honors, presented by Coach Bob Lindfeld, were: Hustle Award – Andrew Ovrom; Most Improved – Jake Nicholson; and MVP – Chris Banks.

Track Season Underway

CHS Head Track Coach George Green checks in with an update. “The track season gets under way early this year with a dual meet versus Madison Thursday and the Bronco Invitational for a few individuals on Saturday.

Then there’s a two week break with a bye next week and spring break the following week. It’s still a bit early to get a feel for strengths and weaknesses of our team as there are quite a few new athletes who haven’t competed yet.

One athlete who has is senior Kyle Brown who had three tries at the long jump at last week’s Tiger relays. In that event Brown stepped over the line (scratched) on all but one of his attempts. His legal jump was 21 feet 8.5 inches which put him among the top jumpers in the San Diego Section, but his final attempt in which his foot was a “toe over” the line was well over 22 feet, maybe even 23 feet. Brown’s been chasing Ralph Mitchell’s 1938 long jump record of 23’ ¾ inch since last season and it appears he has an excellent shot at it this year with such a strong early effort.”