Nado Natterings Back to Islandersports
A weekly column by David Axelson

Nado Natterings
by David Axelson, Chief Executive Officer
The Islander Sports Foundation
 
9 April 2008 Issue No. 14

Success has returned to the Coronado High School Softball program and nothing could drive that point home more than last week’s two victories in Western League play by the Islanders. In the not-too-distant past, Coronado has had trouble posting a single conference win and now the victories seemingly come in bunches.

Last week Coronado started their schedule with an 8-7 road win over La Jolla , which proved to be a back and forth affair featuring four different Islanders with two hits each. In addition, seven different players accounted for the eight Coronado runs. The multi-hit games were turned in by Rosie Harris, Kayla Englehart, Olivia Nebo and Briana Feist.

Coronado took an early 2-0 lead on the strength, literally, of a two-run homer from Englehart, a bomb which cleared a 40-foot screen in left field at La Jolla’s ballpark. In the second inning, a single by Feist drove in an Islander run to make the score 3-0. La Jolla countered with a three run outburst of their own in the second frame, aided by two Coronado errors and a fly ball that was lost in the sun.

In keeping with the three-run inning theme, the Islanders laid a three-spot on the Vikings in the top half of the third inning. Sandra Cepin reached base on an error, a play which was followed by singles from Nora Kaminski, Olivia Nebo, Feist and Harris.

The teams entered the seventh inning tied 6-6. Olivia Nebo led off the inning with a single and was forced at second base on an infield out. Brittany Penn pinch ran, with Harris at the plate with two outs. Islander Head Coach Marti Bonelli picks up the narrative. “Harris came to the plate and quickly found herself down 0-2 in the count. After fouling off a couple of close pitches, and taking a ball, Rosie drove a fastball on a 1-2 count deep into the left-centerfield gap, easily scoring Penn from first base. Harris advanced to third on an error and managed to score when the throw got away from both the third baseman and the shortstop. Rosie had to get out from under the third baseman, who had fallen on top of her in an attempt to catch the errant throw, and scored the eventual winning run.”

La Jolla mounted another comeback in the home half of the seventh, but Coronado and their hurler Feist allowed only one run to win the game 8-7.

“It was a most unusual game,” said Bonelli. “At times we played amazingly well and then, not so much. We still have to work on focus and appreciating the speed of some of the players we oppose. We had outstanding play from Harris playing center field for the first time, as well as from Englehart who was at shortstop, also for her first time. Both players not only played well on defense, but they just smoked the ball when they were hitting. Briana Feist earned the win and allowed only two earned runs.”

Friday’s home game against Mission Bay was a different type of game, with Coronado winning 14-4. The Islanders had 15 hits, with all of the players in the starting lineup scoring at least once. Jessica Adair, Englehart, Cepin and Nebo recorded multi-hit games.

Back to Bonelli for more highlights of the victory. “Cepin collected six RBIs, with two doubles and a home run, but oddly, it’s one of the doubles that we are all still talking about. With the bases loaded in the bottom of the first, Sandra hit a shot to deep center that bounced off of the upper part of the softball storage shed. It was hit so hard, that the center fielder barely had to move to collect the carom. The bases were cleared, but Sandra had to stop at second base. She hit the right centerfield gap in her next at bat and easily rounded the bases for a home run. Then just to make sure we knew she could hit the ball to all fields, she doubled down the right field line in her final plate appearance in the sixth inning.”

However, Cepin wasn’t the only hitting star, as Englehart had four hits, scored three runs and drove in four. “It seemed that each ball Kayla hit was hit harder than the last.”Feist was again credited with the win, yielding only seven hits, while striking out four Buccaneer hitters. The victory improved her record to 6-2.

“Certainly Englehart and Cepin had phenomenal games this week,” Bonelli added. “But the rest of the team is hitting the ball well. Lizzie Nebo, Lauren Zeleniak, Alexis Wright, Penn and Kaminski are all swinging at good pitches and hitting the ball well. All of our players deserve credit for their patience at the plate. I was also impressed by the work and communication going on between freshman catcher Olivia Nebo and sophomore pitcher Briana Feist. I turned the game over to them, letting them call the pitches and locations, and they responded. That is very impressive for such young players.”

This week the Islanders lone game is a Friday afternoon affair at Cathedral Catholic High School . Game time is 3 pm .

Track Team Off and Running As Dual Meet Season Begins

Head Track Coach George Green provides coverage of his teams’ first meet of the season. “In our first team competition after spring break, the Islander Girls Track Team looked strong winning over Christian 76-55.

Distance runners Sallie Privett and Annie Lovering ran together in the 800, 1600, and 3200 meter runs, earning the Top 2 places in each of those events. Adrianna Davies also picked-up a third place finish on the 800 and placed fourth in the 1600. Freshman Cassie Callahan looked good winning both the long jump and high jumps with Neisha Scales placing second in the former and Briana Giorgione finishing second in the latter. Giorgione also picked up five points for winning the pole vault and Scales added 10 more for winning both the 100 and 200 meter dashes in 12.9 seconds and 27.7 seconds respectively. Freshman Rishina Mancillis had a good day with wins in both the 100-meter hurdles, followed by freshman Danielle Swanson in third place, and Mancillis won the 100-meter dash with a nice time of 13.1 seconds.

Showing good flexibility for someone new to track, Swanson also placed fourth in both the shot put and 300-meter hurdles. The second place finisher in the 300 hurdles was Madalyn Danielson who notched one of the best freshman times in the county at 49.9 seconds. That's pretty amazing considering she learned how to jump them the day before. She'll be one to watch in the future.  Natalie Brooks has had a quad pull for a couple of weeks, so she picked up throwing recently and placed second in the discus and third in the shot put. In the 400, Sadie Gimber came off an injury that has all but kept her from training since the conclusion of the soccer season, to place third followed by Grace Laukaitis in fourth place.

Despite valiant efforts by Kyle Brown and Ben Enowitz the boys' team succumbed to Christian by the score of 91 to 60.  As usual Brown won the 100 meters (11.2 seconds), the long jump and triple jump. Enowitz won a tough 1600-meter run, followed by the 3200, and then immediately came back in the 4x400 relay and teamed with Michael Gasparro, Ricardo Oberwager and David Grimes in an exciting, come-from-behind win that saw Grimes post his second 53ish 400-meter run of the day. Earlier Grimes won the open 400 in 53.8, with Gasparro in second place with a time of 54.5. Gasparro, Brown, Oberwager, and Will Bartsch took the 4x100 relay in 46.6 seconds.  Gasparro also won the 200 meters in 23.7 and Bartsch won the pole vault and placed second in the high jump. Matt Villalobos placed third in the long jump and fourth in the 200 in 24.7 seconds.

Two days later at the 5^th  Annual Patrick Henry Elmer Runge Classic (you mean you don't know who Elmer Runge was?) Islander Privett led the featured Thom Hunt mile on the last lap, but was out kicked by OLP's Sammie Silva in the stretch. That's nothing to be ashamed of because Sammie's pretty fast, in addition to being the CIF Division III runner-up at the State Cross Country meet.

Privett's time of 5:13.12 converts to a 1600-meter time of 5:11.30 and places her sixth county-wide among a very tough group of female milers this season. Not satisfied with second place, she came back 90 minutes later in the fast heat of the 800 meters to win going away with a time of 2:23.41. Also posting a ‘Best Mark of the Day’ was Brown, who won the long jump with a leap of 21 feet and 4.75 inches. He came back later to place second in the triple jump with a leap of 43 feet, 4 inches. 

Enowitz had a very hard day at the Christian dual meet and is coming off an injury, but still he did well in the 3200 meters, posting a time of 10:07.9, good for sixth place overall. In the girls' sprints, Scales placed seventh out of the 55 girls running the 100 with a time of 13.16 and sixth out of 46 girls in the 200 with a fine time of 27.32 seconds. In the boys' 200 meters, Gasparro placed 17^th out of 62 runners in 23.77 seconds.  Grimes felt the two 53's he ran on Thursday in the 400 meters and could only manage a 55.65 effort on obviously tight legs.  Giorgione, who's been nursing a quad pull, placed seventh in the pole vault.”

CHS Girls Lax Squad Dominates in Two Victories Last Week

The Islander Girls Lacrosse season is starting to come into a sharper focus, as Coronado defeated Cathedral Catholic 12-5 last Wednesday and then dominated Scripps Ranch 16-4 on Friday. To add a little gusto to the victories, both were road games for the Islanders.

Greer Goebels scored four goals in the Cathedral victory and Hannah Sebenaler scored six times against Scripps Ranch. Kaitlyn Couture added three more scores in the victory over the Falcons. “We won both games pretty considerably,” said Head Coach Jessica Battle. “The nice thing about the team is that almost everybody scores in every game.”

During our conversation over the weekend regarding the two games, it was noted by Your Natterer that on Westsidelacrosse.com, the Islanders are ranked No. 3 on the West Coast. Battle countered that fact with the observation that Laxpower.com, which has Coronado ranked No. 1 in California , No. 1 in the West and No. 17 in the nation. The national ranking is particularly impressive since a total of 1,447 high school teams play girls lacrosse in the U.S. Then Battle laughed and said, “My mom sends me the rankings every day.”

One of the reasons for the Islanders success this season according to Battle is ‘draw control.’ Play starts each half and after goals are scored with a draw, a play that is essentially a standing version of an ice hockey faceoff.

“We won the draw about 90 percent of the time for both of our games last week,” Battle said. “Bria Phillips is the center and has been putting the ball in the right place and Melissa Humphrey and Goebels have been coming up with the ball.” Or to look at it another way, the other team can’t score when they don’t have possession of the ball.

All of this sets up a huge game Monday evening, when Coronado hosts La Costa Canyon at 7 pm . The Mavericks and the Islanders are the lone undefeated teams in San Diego County , both with gaudy records of 7-0. La Costa is actually ranked No. 2 on Westsidelacrosse.com, one slot ahead of Coronado . “We will still have to play Poway and we have some big games through the rest of the season,” Battle said. “But I’m pretty sure LCC is going to be our toughest competition.”

However, the Islanders don’t stop there, as they host Serra High School Wednesday at 7 pm and then host St. Catharine’s High School from England Thursday at 5:30 pm .

Islander Boys Lacrosse Posts Three Wins

Coronado ’s Boys Lacrosse Team played every other day last week, but saved the best for Friday night, when they traveled to Poway and came away with a 9-6 victory. The Islanders started the week with a 15-1 win over Granite Hills at home, followed by a road win at Serra which featured the lopsided score of 17-2.

But the big game was the 9-6 victory at Poway Friday, a game that featured two teams that historically don’t care for each other very much. Both Coronado and Poway have been among the elite Boys Lacrosse programs in San Diego County for years and both teams have long institutional memories which start percolating on the middle school level.

In a somewhat unique start to the proceedings, Coronado jumped out to a 7-0 lead, with Poway closing to 7-2 by halftime.  The scored tightened to 8-5 at the conclusion of the third quarter. The two teams traded goals in the fourth quarter and Coronado prevailed.

“Cory Couture (two goals, two assists) had a very nice game,” said Islander Head Coach Alex Cade. “Goaltender Peter Zeller (11 saves) had a nice game, especially in the fourth quarter when he saved a lot of big shots. Eddie Vita (two goals) had a good game and our defense played a heck of a game, including Ryland Stanley, Daniel Nevitt and Jonathan Little.”

In lacrosse, the term ‘midfielder’ is a bit of a misnomer, as they in fact run and cover the entire field. Cade discussed the ‘middies’ collective contribution during the week. “Our midfielders had an outstanding week. Playing three games in a week is tough for a midfielder, due to all of the territory they cover during a game. Cole McLean, Sean O’Brien, Jackson Cusick, Ian McRae all played well. Jack Christiansen just came back from a knee injury and he got back up to speed pretty quickly.”

Other scorers in the Poway game included Bobby Braun and Cusick with a goal and an assist each; and one goal each from Olivier Schmied, Christiansen and McLean.

The next obvious question might be, ‘Which is the best team in San Diego ?’ Cade, knowing there is a lot of season left, responded in a thoughtful manner. “The top four or five teams are pretty close and skill-wise I would put us up among the best. The five best teams are Santa Fe Christian, La Costa Canyon, Poway , Torrey Pines and Coronado , but the hard part is the order. Who the heck knows right now? We’ve had a pretty good season so far, but none of this means anything until we get to the playoffs. We’ve been to that dance too many times.”

Coronado is now sports a 6-2 record this season.

This week, the Islanders lone game is Friday when Coronado travels to La Jolla . Game time is 5 pm. “We had a tough beginning to our schedule and I knew it would test us,” Cade said. “The rest of our games aren’t cupcakes by any means. We’ll have a good week of practice this week and start to put in some of the systems we will use for the playoffs.”

Boys Golf Posting Super Scores in 2008

Coronado is putting together a fine Boys Golf season this year and managed to put together three good rounds of golf last week and not surprisingly came away with three victories. To review the bidding, in prep golf, six players compete, with the five best scores being combined to create the team’s score. The squad which takes the fewest swings wins.

Monday the Islanders hosted Madison and came away with a 198-242 victory in a match played at the Coronado Municipal Golf Course. Senior Dylan Hakes was the medalist with a 37. Hakes, who will attend the University of Pennsylvania next year, is scoring at 36.5 strokes per round this year. The rankings for the balance of the strong Coronado squad include No. 2 Connor Pompa, No. 3 Alex Valle, No. 4 Robert Phelps, No. 5 Matt Buss and No. 6 Joe McMahon.

Tuesday the squad traveled to Torrey Pines to play Clairemont, where according to Head Coach Dean Cummings, “We beat them pretty badly.” Thursday the same two teams paired up again, this time at Coronado Muni where the Islanders dominated the Chieftains 195-241. “Dylan was either the co-medalist or medalist in all three matches last week,” Cummings added. Connor has been playing really well, averaging a little over 38 strokes a round. Everyone else is averaging fewer than 42 or 43 strokes a round, which is doing pretty darned good.”

This week it’s three more matches for Coronado , as they play La Jolla Tuesday in a non-league match; play Madison Wednesday and then travel to the Cottonwood Country Club Thursday to compete against Christian. The battles for the Central League title will take place in two weeks, when Coronado and Crawford play back-to-back matches.

Islander Baseball Falls to La Jolla

One of the axioms of baseball is ‘good pitching beats good hitting.’ Unfortunately that pithy bit of sports wisdom was borne out again last week when Coronado fell to La Jolla High School 3-1 in the final game of pool play for both teams in the City Conference Tournament.

Viking junior hurler Patrick Christensen, who was an All-Western League performer last year as a sophomore, held Coronado to five hits and the lone Islander run. “He has good stuff, command and presence,” said Islander Head Coach Sam Ceci of Christensen. “He works it until he gets you out. He was 8-2 with a 1.99 ERA last year and he is right there this year as well. The run we scored was on a suicide squeeze by Kyle Pokorny.” Shortstop Mason Mills had the only Islander extra base hit with a triple.

Coronado now has lost to La Jolla twice in non-league play, including a 3-2 setback in the first game of the season. The bad news is that since both Coronado and La Jolla are in the Western League, they’ll face each other twice more.

This week the Islanders finally start play in the Western League and they will face odds-on favorite Cathedral Catholic twice this week. Coronado hosts the Dons Wednesday and then travel to Cathedral Friday, with both games set to start at 3 pm .

“They are absolutely loaded,” said Ceci of the Dons. “They have a .384 team batting average and they have three pitchers with less than a 2.30 ERA. And they have depth. Their JV team beat the Coronado JV in the finals of the junior varsity portion of the tournament.”

The Coronado JV team is now being mentored by Head Coach Matt Fischer and his assistants Chris Barbera and Tom Kelleher. Former JV Head Coach Blaze Smallwood, who like Barbera played at CHS, recently relocated to the Chicago area. “Matt is a student and fan of the game,” said Ceci of Fischer. “He played high school ball in Maryland and has coached Little League, in Juniors and with our AAU team. The JV team won their three pool games, and beat a good University City team in the semi-finals before losing to Cathedral in the finals.”

Although the Islanders face a strong challenge from Cathedral, Ceci thinks the games will be competitive. “Cathedral is for real, but if we are on our ‘A’ game, we can play with them.”

CHS Boys Volleyball Commences Central League Schedule This Week

The CHS Boys Volleyball Team last week had a couple of tough matches, losing to Bonita Vista on the road Tuesday and then losing at home to Sweetwater Thursday. Both matches were lost in three straight games.

“We should have defeated Sweetwater,” said Head Coach Steve Merrill. “But Bonita Vista was one of the better teams we have played this year. Brett Clifford played really well for us at middle blocker and a new addition, outside hitter Luke Bernardy played well. Nolan Woodhouse had some good sets for us.”

So now it’s on to Central League play and Coronado starts the proceedings by hosting Madison on Tuesday and then hosts Clairemont their competition for the conference crown on Thursday. Both games will begin at 3:30 pm .

Boys Tennis Competitive in Western League First Round

Although Head Coach Jim Mashburn said of the CHS Boys Tennis Team, “I’m actually pleased with the way the team is playing,” things were tough for the Islanders last week as they began play in the highly competitive Western League.

The week started Tuesday with a 12-6 loss at Cathedral Catholic, where several Islanders played well to win their sets. On the singles side, Krishna Samperio, Patrick Holman and Brenton Mashburn all won one set each, while the No. 1 doubles combo of Daniel Grazian and Frankie Harrison won two of their three sets. The No. 2 doubles team of  Evan Wheeler and Chase Mashburn won one set to complete the scoring for Coronado .

Wednesday found a similar result when Coronado hosted University City , with the Islanders coming out on the short end of a 14-4 result. Samperio won one set, Grazian/Harrison won two and Wheeler/Chase Mashburn won one set.

Thursday, for their third match in three days, Coronado traveled to Scripps Ranch and fell to the Falcons 14-4. Samperio won two sets, as did Harrison/Grazian.

“We lost, but in all three cases they were respectable matches,” said Mashburn of the week’s play. “I think the next time we play them, we will do a little better.”

This week the three-match week is on tap again. Tuesday La Jolla comes to Coronado ; Wednesday La Jolla Country Day comes to Coronado and Thursday the Islanders travel to Morley Field to play St. Augustine . All three matches begin at 3 pm .

Track Fundraiser Reminder

A final reminder that the La Salsa Mexican Grill, located at 1360 Orange Avenue , will combine with the CHS Track and Cross Country Teams for a fundraising event to be held Thursday, April 10^th from 4-9:30 pm .

The concept is simple. Take a copy of the special fundraising flyer, which can be downloaded from IslanderSportsFoundation.com, with you to La Salsa and 20 per cent of the net sales of your food order will go to the CHS Track and Cross Country Teams. In addition, you can phone in your order ahead of time by calling 435-7778. Eating and donating at the same time is a wonderful concept.