Nado Natterings Back to Islandersports
A weekly column by David Axelson

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

16 April 2008 Issue No. 15

Normally ‘Nado Natterings’ leads off with the team that wins the most games since our last  visit, but this week the CHS Baseball Team, which split two contests with Cathedral Catholic earns the leadoff position. On the surface Coronado, which is a proud member of CIF Division IV, defeating a fellow member of the Western League and a Division III opponent isn’t a huge surprise, but consider the fact that the Dons were ranked No. 2 in San Diego County going into last week’s play.

The Western League has adopted a playing schedule where the same two clubs face each other in consecutive games, usually in the same week. The theory behind this concept was to provide a truer reflection of the depth and quality of the league teams and to ensure that clubs couldn’t save one dominating pitcher for the same team on separate two trips through conference play.

Coronado Head Coach Sam Ceci designated staff pitching ace Bryan Crabb for the home start Wednesday against the Dons and the junior right-hander responded with a nice outing. Crabb pitched five innings of the regulation seven-inning game, yielding only two hits. The excitement was provided by the eight walks Cathedral earned, which Crabb nearly counter-balanced with six strike outs.

Wednesday’s game began with the Dons scoring twice in their half of the first inning, with both runners reaching via walks. By the conclusion of the frame, Crabb had found the plate and struck out Cathedral’s seventh batter in the inning.

Coronado showed resiliency in their half of the first, with Keith Englehart singling, stealing second, going to third on a ground out and then scoring on an RBI single from clean-up hitter Justin Parsons. Cathedral answered with another run in the second to make the score 3-1.

Coronado sent 10 hitters to the plate in their half of the second, scoring six runs to put the game out of reach. Mason Mills led off the proceedings with a single and hustling on the play, took second on an error by the Dons left fielder. Jake McMahon followed with a single, Blake Malkemus walked, and leadoff hitter Kyle Pokorny drove in two Islanders with a double. Englehart was hit by a pitch, just before Parsons drove in his second and third runs of the game with a single. Alex Rowan hitting fifth in the order, drove in two with a single, just before Mills who started the rally ended it by flying out to right field.

For the game, Pokorny, Englehart, Parsons, Rowan and McMahon all had two hits and the Islanders had a total of 12 base knocks on the afternoon.

Defensively, Malkemus (football, basketball and baseball), who like his fellow junior class mate Parsons (water polo, basketball and baseball) is a fine three sport athlete, had the play of the day. In the Cathedral fifth, the Dons second hitter walked with one out. The next hitter hit a sharp single directly at Malkemus who was playing right field. He caught the ball cleanly and came up firing, forcing the Cathedral runner at second base with a laser-like throw. The next batter, the last faced by Crabb in the game, grounded out to end the inning.

Senior pitcher Tim Leary earned the save with a two-inning appearance at the end of the game, facing nine batters, but getting the outs that mattered. Leary’s outing allowed Coronado to prevail 7-4.

“Crabb beat a very good team, without his best stuff,” said Ceci of the junior flame thrower. “We made all the plays and got a few breaks from the umpires. It was a fun win. A couple of plays going the other way could have changed the whole outcome of the game. It was classic in that everything went our way Wednesday and everything went their way Friday.”

With that bit of foreshadowing, you can correctly surmise that Cathedral came back with a vengeance Friday, evening the Western league record for both teams at 1-1 with a 9-1 victory. “They hit the ball pretty good Friday,” said Ceci of the Dons. “We hit the ball reasonably hard, but at people. Both Rowan and Mills did well and hit the ball well. When all is said and done, I’m thrilled with the split. I’m thrilled to death that we don’t have to play them again this year.”

The Islanders take to the field three times this week, playing at Point Loma Monday, hosting the Pointers Wednesday and then hosting University City on Friday. “To stay competitive in the Western League, we have to sweep Point Loma, U.C. and Clairemont,” Ceci said. “We have to hope the other teams (Mission Bay and Cathedral Catholic) split when they play each other. We need to win all three games this week to stay in the hunt.”

Fink Undergoes ‘Tommy John’ Surgery

As the parent of two athletes, and a fan of Coronado athletes in general, one of the things you don’t like to see is a fine athlete undergoing surgery. Unfortunately earlier this season, Coronado senior pitcher Josh Fink sustained a significant arm injury and underwent ‘Tommy John’ surgery last week. The procedure is named after the former Dodger hurler, who had the groundbreaking surgery in 1974 and was able to extend his career in the process. Technically the operation is known as ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (or UCL).

Dr. John Froner performed the surgery last Tuesday on Fink’s right arm, but the unique element is that Fink’s rehab starts two days after surgery. Josh is expected to begin throwing in four months, with the target of pitching at the next level set for spring 2010. Best wishes to Josh on a full and speedy recovery.

Islander Track Report

CHS Head Track Coach George Green provides info on his teams’ efforts from last week. “In our annual dual meet with Clairemont,  the girls’ track team cruised to an 88-41 victory and the boys, despite several good performances,fell to the deeper Chieftains by the score of 79-57.

 Normally Islander sophomore Sallie Privett runs all the distance events at a pedestrian pace for the points, but this week she concentrated the 3200-meter run and left the 800 and 1600 to her teammates. The result was a personal best time of 11:35 which puts her on the county leader board in three events, the 800, 1600, and 3200 meter runs.

Running alone, Sallie came through the first mile in 5:42, and followed with a second mile in 5:53. With competition she’d probably be close to the school record of 11:18.7 that’s been on the board for 22 years. In the other distance events Coronado freshmen Annie Lovering and Michelle Read from Clairemont had quite a duel with Lovering winning in a personal best time of 5:30.9,  about 3 seconds in front of Read. Lovering also won the 800 meters in 2:37.0 followed by Adie Davies in 2:37.7.

The hurdle events also featured two Islander freshmen, with Danielle Swanson taking the 100 high hurdles and Madalyn Danielson winning the 300 lows. In both races Madison Rutherford picked up the second place points. Danielson also won the 400 meters in a tough double followed by Grace Laukaitis in second place. The versatile Swanson also placed third in the pole vault and fourth in the shot put. Laukaitis also added a second place finish in the 200 meters.

The sprints belonged to Neisha Scales. She won the 100 in 13.1, the 200 in 27.7 and threw in a winning leap in the long jump for good measure. Second place finishers in the 100 and long jump were Ali Colora and Briana Giorgione respectively. Giorgione also set a personal mark in the pole vault by winning with a jump of 8’ 6” and tied for first in the high jump with Cassie Callahan. Third place in the triple jump went to Brigid Twomey. Natalie Brooks scored twice in the throws with seconds in both the shot put and discus throw with Bethany Bucklew placing third in the latter event.

In the boys’ meet, Ben Enowitz had his work cut out for him against a pretty good Clairemont distance crew. Ben’s coming off an injury so he wasn’t at 100 per cent.  He’s also been preoccupied lately with trying to decide whether to run for M.I.T. or Harvard next season. He’s been accepted to both schools and both coaches are recruiting him. In both the 1600 and 3200 meter runs he matched strides with Clairemont’s Eamonn McCarey but finished in second place in both events with times of 4:39.4 and 10:34.4. Neither time was Ben’s best, but he’s coming back quickly. 

David Grimes won the 400 meters in 54.7 seconds, then came back to set a personal best time  in the 800 with a time of 2:07.0. Following Grimes in an Islander sweep of the 400 were Michael Gasparro and Sean O’Brien. Gasparro also placed second in the 200 and O’Brien third in the high jump. Things were “looking up” for freshman Will Bartsch who won both the high jump and pole vault. Second place in these events went to Tim Conway (high jump) and Gary Schudel (pole vault).  As usual Kyle Brown won his specialties with a near personal best in the 100 meters of 11 flat (hand timed), 22 feet, 2 inches in the long jump and 44 feet, three and one-half inches in the triple jump. In the throws only Philip Scott kept the Islanders from being skunked with a third place finish in the shot put.

At the Jaguar Invitational two days later Neisha Scales and Adie Davies braved wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour with Scales placing second in her heat of the 100 in 13.02 and fourth in a fast morning heat of the 200 meters. Davies placed third in her heat of the 800 in 2:41.9, nowhere near her best but on this day, but there were no fast times because of the strong wind.”

Things Going Swimmingly at Brian Bent Memorial Aquatics Complex

CHS Head Swim Coach Dave Throop filed a report on the Boys and Girls Swimming Teams, which began with the news that the Brian Bent Memorial Aquatics Center on the campus of Coronado High School will host the City Conference preliminaries and finals May 5-9 and confirmed that the BBMAC will host both divisions of the CIF prelims and finals May 12-17.

Throop continued on to discuss his teams, starting with the Boys squad. “Currently the team is on an impressive streak, having won their last three meets, which were against Bishop’s, Scripps Ranch and La Jolla. The Vikings appear to be able to challenge our team a little in the City and then the CIF meet, but I think with some of the times we posted in our meets so far, we should be fairly successful.

Our 200 medley relay team consisting of Andrew Ireland (backstroke), Francisco Heredia (breaststroke), Rex Butler (butterfly) and Jacob Smith (freestyle) posted one of the faster times in the county so far this season, swimming a 1:45.46. When you take into consideration that our ‘B’ relay of Chris Barnard (back), Jackson Hummeldorf (breast), Adam Ratcliffe (fly) and Norby Karoly (free) posted a time of 1:51.7, which is faster that most team’s ‘A’ relay squad, I think that shows our depth and flexibility.

Ryan Hughes, Tommy Schofer, Alex Johnson, Alex Aponte, Paul Pedrotty, Sam Working and Jake Hunzecker have been working hard and all provide flexibility to our training and competition. We expect big things from them as the season comes to a conclusion.

We’ve had some great individual swims so far. In the 200 free team Captain Sean Cook swam a 1:53.56. Andrew Ireland has been clocked in 1:51.44 and Adam Ratcliffe has turned in a time of 1:52.24. In the 100 butterfly, Ratcliffe has swum a 56.45 and Michael Aguilar has been nipping at his heels with a 58.60. The 100 free has shown to be one of our strengths, with the best times by Butler (49.15) and Karoly (49.58). When you consider Ireland swims in the low 49 second range, along with Smith hovering around the 50 second mark, we have the makings of a pretty decent 4 x 100 relay team. 

The Girls Team continues to train as hard as their counterparts on the Boys Team, showing some strong potential to compete in the City Conference and CIF meets. With Kelly Ronimus, Heather Ireland and Ashley Young in the 200 freestyle all turning in times under 2:03, there are some opportunities to score big.

Team Captain Alana Burgess leads the way in the 100 breaststroke hovering around l:14, with freshman Hannah Green chasing her in the 1:16 range and Selina Schmeck adding to our depth in the event. Maddie Murphy, Hillary Estrada, Michelle Carroll, Laura Luttrell and Kaylee Ginnane provide depth and flexibility in the freestyle events, ranging from the 50 to the 500, while Hillary Hansen, Jenny Rodgers and Bronte Benesh add some depth to the backstroke event, lead by Heather Ireland, with an average of time of just above l:03.

The groups have worked as hard as any that we’ve seen during my tenure here and the attitudes have been good. We’re in the ‘dog-days’ of training and for the most part, things have been about what the coaches have expected, with one exception. This group of guys and girls handle the rigors of training at a higher level than I had thought, and every time we raise the bar on them they respond extremely well. It’s shaping up to be a pretty dynamic, unique opportunity for the season’s conclusion. When you consider that the boys and girls both have chances to conclude their season as team champions in swimming, with all of the competitions held at the brand new BBMAC, it’s exciting.”

Boys Lacrosse Trains Hard, Then Knocks Off La Jolla

Paced by four goals from Olivier Schmied and three more from Bobby Braun, Coronado defeated La Jolla 13-3 Friday night on the road. But the most important part of the week may have been the practice sessions that occurred prior to Friday night’s game.

“It was basically a week of rest, a time to get healthy and a practice week,” said Head Coach Alex Cade. “We had a good, hard week of practice. With last week being light on games, after a very heavy schedule at the beginning, is very valuable. We want to peak and play our best lacrosse during the playoffs. The boys and the coaches didn’t mind the heavy early game schedule. Last week was a good one for us to move towards our goal of the CIF title.”

The prep lacrosse world in San Diego County still revolves around the so-called Big 5, which this year includes La Costa Canyon, Poway, Santa Fe Christian, Torrey Pines and of course Coronado. “It’s a real hodge-podge,” said Cade. “On any given day any of the five teams can beat the others.”To confirm that thought, Santa Fe Christian defeated La Costa Canyon 7-6 last week and then lost to Poway 12-5.

“We have some big games remaining,” said Cade. “We have a tough team Friday when we play St. Margaret’s from Orange County on the road. They run a strange zone offense and they are definitely one of the better teams in Orange County, that’s for sure. Also, Cathedral Catholic will be a tough game April 29^th. They always give us a challenge and they were the last City Conference team to beat us three years ago.”

The Islanders other game this week is Wednesday, when they host Patrick Henry at 7 pm.

Girls Lacrosse Posts 2-1 Week

A week ago Monday, the Coronado Girls Lacrosse Team hosted La Costa Canyon and lost to the Mavericks 9-7, which is the first set back for the Islanders this season. Depending on the poll you put your faith in, either LCC or Coronado entered the game in the No. 1 slot in the region.

“I don’t like to make excuses for my team,” said Islander Head Coach Jessica Battle. “But we really just came up unlucky a lot of times. We had a ton of shots on goal in the second half and several missed by just a couple of inches. It was unfortunate, but what are you going to do? We played them and saw that they are definitely beatable, which is a good thing. I would much rather beat them in a game that counts for something.”

Greer Goebels led the scoring parade for Coronado with three goals. Islander goalie Alyssa Littin was credited with eight saves.

Then it was on to a game Wednesday with Serra High School, which Coronado won handily 17-2. Multiple goal scorers included Hannah Sebenaler with four, Goebels and Bria Phillips with three goals each, and Coco O’Brien with two tallies.

Then it was on to hosting St. Catharine’s from England and the Islanders prevailed 15-6. Sebenaler (4 goals), Melissa Humphrey (2) and Phillips (2) led the scoring for Coronado.

“We played very well against Serra,” Battle said. “The English team, not so much. The girls were exhausted after the buildup for the La Costa game. We’ll be averaging two or three games a week for the rest of the season. We play Poway at the very end of the season and we play La Jolla twice. We play a very good St. Ignatius team Saturday in Coronado at 10 am. They are one of the top teams in Northern California. We lost to them in a tournament last year by one goal. We try to play as many higher level teams as we can.”

The entire game schedule next week is Coronado on the road with Patrick Henry Wednesday at 6 pm; Cathedral Catholic at home Friday at 7 pm; and the aforementioned game with St. Ignatius Saturday at 10 am.

Softball Falls to Cathedral Catholic

With an uneven number of teams in the Western League, it was Coronado’s turn to get a bye in the early-week portion of the schedule, before traveling to Cathedral Catholic for a game Friday. Coronado came out on the short end of the 9-1 final score.

“Our kids fought pretty hard,” said Head Coach Marti Bonelli. “Cathedral hung a six-run inning on us in the second, all with two outs and no one on. The Cathedral kids are good players and it only took them one and two-thirds innings to figure out that they did not have to swing unless it was their perfect pitch. I always appreciate good teams and Cathedral always competes hard, but there was an unfair bias in this game.”

Bonelli went on to discuss the efforts of Islander starting pitcher Briana Feist. “Briana is always around the plate (with her pitches), in fact too much so. Out of a total of 161 pitches, there were less than 10 for called strikes. I had no idea what to tell her, because she did throw them right down the middle of the plate. If the Cathedral player did not swing, it wasn’t a strike. When we batted, everything was a strike. The Cathedral kids only swung at their favorite pitches, but they still only got only nine hits. To their credit, our kids didn’t whine and complain. They were just puzzled like the rest of us.”

Despite the loss, there were some fine performances from the Coronado club. “We had some wonderful at-bats from Alexis Wright,” Bonelli said. “She was 2-3 and played a flawless second base in her first year at the position. She has been playing like a pro. Alexis has great hands, near perfect form on grounders and utilizes her outfield experience to go for popups like no one else on the team. Sandra Cepin also had a nice game, making some very nice scoops on throws at first base. At a critical stretch she saved a run with her defense. She also got a few cheers from us when she snared a line drive headed to right field with a very acrobatic, leaping backhand grab.

Jessica Adair and Kayla Englehart continue to improve on the left side, and each grabbed some very hard one-hoppers. The girls all realize that we need to get more aggressive on defense when we have two outs. We are looking forward to our rematch with Cathedral already.”

This week Coronado hosts Western League games with Clairemont Wednesday and Point Loma on Friday. Both games will be played at Green Field at 3 pm.

Boys Golf Splits Pair of Matches

Last week the CHS Boys Golf Team found themselves in two close matches and they split the pair. Wednesday the Islanders lost to La Jolla at Coronado Municipal Golf Course by the score of 194-200. The other match came Thursday at Cottonwood Country Club, when Coronado clipped Christian 205-206. Islander Dylan Hakes was the medalist with an even par 36.

Coronado plays four matches this week, with the first two of them essentially for the Central League title. Coronado plays Crawford at Rancho Bernardo Monday, followed immediately by a return match with Crawford Tuesday at Coronado Muni.

“We were originally going to play Crawford at Balboa a couple of weeks ago,” said Head Coach Dean Cummings. “We moved the match and Balboa wasn’t available again. Last year we split two matches with Crawford, with both decided by one stroke. The league title came down to the City Conference tournament and Crawford won by two strokes.”

The other matches include St. Augustine Wednesday at River walk and a match Thursday against Madison at Doubletree. The Madison pairing is the final regular season match of the season. The 2008 City Conference tournament will be played April 23-24, with the CIF match play coming April 28^th.

Boys Volleyball Splits Two Matches

The good news regarding the CHS Boys Volleyball Team is that they defeated Madison last Tuesday by the scores of 25-16, 25-14 and 25-18. “We beat Madison pretty handily to open our Central League season,” said Head Coach Steve Merrill. “Will Holder, who is our outside hitter, played the front and back rows really well. He had a good hitting percentage and took some balls in the back row. Nolan Woodhouse had a good game setting and playing through the front row. He has a good down the line spike shot that is hard to read.”

Merrill continued to discuss the Madison game. “As a whole, the team played well against Madison. We ran the quick attack and Brett Clifford put some balls away hitting the one. Michael Davies was large at the net and Connor Martin played left outside hitter. He played well through the front row and put away a couple of over passes.

The bad news is that the Islanders lone loss came at home to Clairemont, by the scores of 25-16, 21-23, 26-24, 26-28 and 15-12 in the fifth set. The Chieftains are Coronado’s primary opposition in the Central League and a loss to them is doubly tough.

The team is becoming more sophisticated in their offensive sets as the season moves along. “We’re starting to run the middle,” Merrill said. “We’re running the ‘X’ and the stack and they’re starting to put it together. It is nice to see them do well in the quick attack.” Merrill continued to say that he is promoting Wade Zolla and Cody O’Connell to the varsity to help out for the balance of the season.

This week Coronado hosts Mission Bay at home Monday, Tuesday they travel to Lincoln, Thursday they host Hoover. All three games will be played at 3:30 pm. “We’ve had good success against Mission Bay,” Merrill noted. “We’re hoping to better our record in the games against Lincoln and Hoover.

Boys Tennis Continues to Grind Away in Tough Western League

You have to give Head Coach Jim Mashburn and his Boys Tennis Team credit for continuing to compete and playing in the tough Western League. Their week started Tuesday with a home match with La Jolla, which is perennially one of the best tennis programs in San Diego County. The Islanders battled, but weren’t able to win a game from the Vikings.

Wednesday Coronado played La Jolla Country Day, losing in a close match 12-6. The winning Islander sets were turned in by the doubles team of Daniel Grazian and Frankie Harrison, who won three sets; the doubles team of Evan Wheeler and Patrick Holman with two victorious sets and No. 1 singles player Krishna Samperio who won one set.

Then it was on to Morley Field Thursday to face St. Augustine, a match which Coronado lost 11-7. The highlight of the match according to Coach Mashburn was the Wheeler/Holman doubles combo who crushed the opposition in three straight sets. Samperio won his three matches and Grazian/Harrison won one of their three sets.

A familiar face has been patrolling the Coronado tennis courts of late, according to Mashburn. “It was nice to see (former CHS boys and girls head tennis coach) Robbin Adair show up at a couple of our matches. The guys are excited to see him when he comes in. Robbin is always a wealth of knowledge and inspiration when I have questions. He’s quite a gentleman.”

This week the Islanders travel to University City Tuesday and host Cathedral Catholic Thursday, with both matches set to start at 3 pm.