Nado Natterings Back to Islandersports
A weekly column by David Axelson

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

10 Sept 2008 Issue No. 34

Football may be the ultimate team game, with 11 players carefully choreographed to commence each play at exactly the same time, each with blocking assignments or very exact responsibilities on each snap of the ball. If everyone on one team executes better than the player lined up on the opposite side of the ball, a very lop-sided score may occur.

So, to categorize Friday night’s season opener for the Coronado High Football Team as “The Mason Mills Show” might be a little simplistic. To win a football game by the margin of 34-0 means that a lot of Islanders were doing something right.

But the guy with the most ‘right stuff’ was definitely senior quarterback Mills. who directly accounted for all five Coronado touchdowns, running for three scores and passing for two others. Mills toted the pigskin for a total of 98 yards on 12 rushing attempts, a total that included touchdown jaunts of 6, 11 and 7 yards. He passed for a total of 195 yards, completing five of eight passes. He found Kodie Englehart for a 51-yard touchdown strike and Blake Malkemus on a 43-yard heave down the Coronado sideline, late in the first quarter.

Mills, like most of his varsity teammates played barely into the third quarter, as Coronado Head Coach Bud Mayfield chose to play virtually every player dressed out for the game, as opposed to running up the score. As the site of this game switches to Laguna Beach next year for the final year of a two-year contract, it was a smart move by the ‘Ol Ball Coach.

Deploying two quarterbacks, with junior signal caller Patrick Toomey playing the rest of the contest, and a total of four running backs, the Islanders amassed 416 yards of total offense from the line of scrimmage, roughly evenly split between the air and the ground.

“We played hard and came out ready to go,” said Mayfield of his team. “Their team wasn’t highly skilled and they tried to surprise us with some things. We had a team effort out of our entire defense.” Leading the way on the defensive side of the ball were Chris DeClercq with four solo tackles, three assists and 2.5 sacks, and Bryan Crabb who chipped in with three solo tackles and seven assisted tackles.

Mayfield elaborated about his club’s use of the spread offense. “Mills had 97 yards rushing out of what is primarily a passing scheme. When you hear ‘spread offense,’ most people think you throw the ball 40 times a game. You can spread the defense and run the ball. No one looks for the quarterback (to run) in the spread offense. You have an extra man that the defense doesn’t account for. Mason had almost 300 yards offense by himself. He had a big night and he wanted to keep going because he was having fun. But we needed to give Toomey some reps.”

Coronado has a bye in the schedule this coming week, which resulted in an unusual schedule for the players and coaches. “We gave everyone the weekend off with the bye coming up,” Mayfield said. “We’ll do films Monday and practice next week as though we were in Hell Week. We will be working on extra things we won’t have time to work on later in the season.”

Next on the schedule is Hamilton of Hemet, a game that has an interesting story behind it. “We cancelled our trip to Canada due to the cost of the airlines,” Mayfield related. “We needed to find a team at the last minute to fill the schedule and we found them. They were in the playoffs last year in their area, but I don’t know a lot about them. They didn’t play this week, but we’ll get film from them this coming week. It’s a one-year deal, and we were in a scheduling bind.”

Coronado’s Niedermeyer Field to Host St. Augustine Home Game

The Islander’s home football field, complete with artificial turf and now new lights, has been a popular site for other San Diego County high school teams to play an occasional home game. This Friday night, St. Augustine will play University City in Coronado. The game will kickoff at 7 pm.

Prep Football Poll Results

Your Natterer is again one of the participating voters in the “North County Times” Sportswriters/Sportscasters Prep Football Poll. A total of 21 sports types from throughout San Diego County, vote on the poll on a weekly basis. Here is the collective Week 1 wisdom from the poll:  1. Oceanside, 2. Helix, 3. Cathedral Catholic, 4. La Costa Canyon, 5. Mira Mesa, 6. Poway,  7. Carlsbad, 8. Mission Hills, 9. Valley Center, and 10. Eastlake.

Cross Country News and Notes

Head Coach George Green checks in with a report on the CHS Boys and Girls Cross Country squads. “Most of the top half of the girls cross country team had great individual results this weekend at two separate invitational meets.

 At Friday’s Wolf Pack Invitational freshman Nicole Davies went against some pretty tough competition in the Girls’ Frosh race that included large contingents from cross country powerhouses such as Torrey Pines, RBV, Cathedral, Poway, RB, West Hills, Valhalla, to name a few of the 30 teams attending. She picked-up the last medal by placing 20^th out of 110 finishers, with a time of 10:55 over the hilly 1.57-mile course. It’s significant to note also that all of the 19 runners in front of her were from higher CIF divisions that we won’t face at the CIF finals.

In the Girls’ sophomore race, winner of last year’s coveted Axey Award (for those of you who listen to The Jim Rome Radio Show, this would be a form of self-glossing) for freshman girls, Annie Lovering, placed fourth with a time of 9:18 followed by Sadie Gimber in 17^th  place, finishing in 10:05.

When you combine races from all grades, Lovering wound up seventh overall, which is an impressive result. The kids who finished in front of here were two athletes each from Torrey Pines, Rancho Buena Vista and Rancho Bernardo.

On Saturday, our trio of junior girls Sallie Privett, Adie Davies, and Selena Schmeck ran in the junior/senior Division II girls’ race, with all three placing (to use a horse racing term) “in the money.” Privett, winner of last year’s aforementioned Axey Award for sophomore girls, won with a time of 9:35 over the 1.65-mile Lindo Lake course (that’s a sub 5:50 per mile pace) followed by Davies in 6^th in 10:06 and Schmeck in 16^th with 10:58.  Schmeck has been a top triathlete for years and with a good running base over the summer, she is now well on her way to realizing her potential as a runner.

Bill Davies (dad of the two Davies girls, Nicole and Adie) was an excellent high school and collegiate runner and has been a big help this season in coaching and coordinating the girls’ team. The coordinating part has been tougher than the actual coaching due to of all the club soccer and Irish Dancing conflicts. But somehow he’s been able to get them all in shape.
In the Boys’ Division II Frosh/Soph race, William Funk placed 30^th in a pack of 100 runners, with a time of 9:43, pretty good considering the competition and his inexperience. If Funk’s race would have been for freshmen only he would have been in the Top 10.

Senior David Grimes was in the hunt for one of the top spots in the Boys’ Junior/Senior competition, when he collided with another runner and went down about halfway through the race. Still, he managed to cross the finish line in 12^th place out of over 100 finishers with a bruise on the leg and a time of 11:31 over the 2.1-mile course.”

CHS Girls Volleyball Opens Season With a Win Over Horizon

Starting slowly, but heating up toward the conclusion of the match, the Islander Girls Volleyball Team defeated Horizon (formerly Horizon Christian) 17-25, 25-18, 25-17 and 25-12 last week in their season opener. According to Head Coach Christina Lahr, standouts in the game included junior hitter Kori Fitzgerald with 11 kills and senior setter Melissa Humphrey with 20 assists. “We threw her into the setting position last year,” said Lahr of Humphrey the three-sport CHS (volleyball, basketball and lacrosse) star. “And she has developed so much. The girls are really relying on her this year. Melissa and Kori are the two captains this year.”

There are four seniors on the current squad, including Humphrey, starting outside hitter Maddie Boomer, Rachel Rodriguez who is new to Coronado having moved from Peru, and middle blocker Rachel Ricker. In total, six players return from last year, with an additional five athletes making the move up from the junior varsity.

“We have quite a bit of experience, but we made a lot of position changes this year. We only have two starters in the same positions they played last year, Lainey Mebust and Boomer. We have a new team and faces in new positions on the court. We did a really good job on the court Thursday (against Horizon). But, we still have some kinks to work out early in games.”

Lahr continued on to discuss the Horizon game in depth. “We looked good, but we looked a little rusty. We were shaky at the start, but we learned who to look towards for our enthusiasm. In the middle of the second game, they started to really enjoy the match. The hitters were getting kills off the sets and they were excited. It was our first non-conference game and it works well because they are in our same division. It was definitely a helpful win. Not only now to get us moving in the right direction, but later when it comes to CIF playoff placement and rankings.”

Lahr is being assisted on the varsity level by Leilani Au Hoon and the coaching tandem agreed on the teaching points learned from their first game. “We need to come out stronger and stay focused until the last point. We have high hopes for the season. We finished second behind Our Lady of Peace last year in the Eastern League. Our big competition this year will be OLP again and Patrick Henry. Those are the two games for everyone to see, as they and Coronado will be in the running for the league title.”

This weekend the Islanders are entered into the Fall Classic Invitational, a 25-team affair that starts with pool play Friday night at the Epic Volleyball Club in Carlsbad. Included in Coronado’s pool are Carlsbad, Valley Center and San Dieguito Academy. The Islanders start at 4:15 against Valley Center.

Next week the Islanders host Grossmont on Thursday, with the JV game starting at 4 pm and the varsity following around 5:30 PM. Eastern League play begins the week of Sept. 22.

Girls Golf Tees Off on Mira Mesa

The CHS Girls Golf Team opened their season with a 273-326 victory (low score wins) over Mira Mesa, in a match played on the Coronado Municipal Golf Course. “It was a good opening match and we played a lot of different players,” said Coach Randy Coutts. “It was a good journey all the way around.”

Individually the team was lead by Jackie Davis with a 43, followed by Bridgett Nielsen with a 55, Hillary Gibbs with a 56, Ashley Mendham with a 57, Leity Buil-MacCarty with a 62 and Brooke Clifford with a 65.

Coming up this week are two matches, a Tuesday affair with San Diego High School and a Thursday event with OLP, with both matches to be played at Coronado Muni. “We’re capable of shooting at the 239 scoring level that OLP shot earlier in the year,” Coutts said. “We still need to find out who can handle the pressure and who gets better as the match goes on.”

CHS Boys Water Polo Preview

The CIF Division II defending champion CHS Boys Water Polo Team had an early game of sorts, playing in the CIF sponsored Coach Draz Classic against Carlsbad several days ago. “We lost at the buzzer to Carlsbad,” said Head Coach Randy Burgess. “They are probably the No. 1 seed in Division I right now. I thought we played very well against them. We played everybody and used the game as a chance to evaluate our kids. We have scrimmages Thursday and Saturday and we start the regular season the following week at Newport Beach.”

Returning players from last season’s title team include goalie Justin Parsons, and field players Andrew Ireland, Rex Butler, Adam Ratcliffe, Tommy Schofer, Brendan Farrell, Alex Johnson, and Jackson Hummeldorf. Johnson, Farrell and Ratcliffe will serve as the team captains.

Despite the comparatively large number of returning players, according to Burgess relatively few played major minutes last year. “Parsons in goal played a lot and Ratcliffe was a starter. We have a young group and they are doing everything the coaches would like to see them do. We are young and not very experienced. We need to pick up as much experience as we can between now and mid-November when we have the playoffs. That is our goal.”

Although young, there is depth of talent. “We have nine or 10 kids who could start,” Burgess said. “I don’t see us having a locked-in starting group. I told the players that we have the same philosophy as last year that each practice is like a job interview. There is no security in this. Parsons is probably the most dominant goalie in either San Diego County division. Beyond that we have probably nine field players who could take the role of being in the starting six. We have 23 kids working out with the varsity. We have a lot of kids at every practice, but they will play JV with the possibility of moving up. We have a hard working group of four sophomores and two freshmen who hopefully will be pushing the older guys a little bit. The starters will come predominantly from the 11^th and 12^th grade group.”

San Diego Chargers Season Opener

Here are a couple of quick thoughts regarding the San Diego Chargers season opening loss to the Carolina Panthers. First, a few weeks ago during the exhibition season, we noted in this space that the starting offense of the Dallas Cowboys cut through the first line Charger defense like a hot knife through butter, or words to that effect. Guess what happened Sunday against Carolina?

After watching the entire game (okay, I was reading back issues of the “Wall Street Journal” with one eye and the game with the other) I can surmise the following: Defensive tackle Jamal Williams, who had off-season knee surgery, hasn’t fully recovered. Outside linebacker Shawne Merriman is playing on essentially one leg and his effectiveness has been severely curtailed. And the vaunted cornerback tandem of Quintin Jammer and Antonio Cromartie is not nearly as good as was recently advertised in “The San Diego Union Tribune” sports pages.

On the offensive side of the ball, starting left tackle Marcus McNeil and center Nick Hardwick are hurt and haven’t been on the playing field lately in the case of McNeil or at all in the case of Hardwick. Those are two huge cogs in the Charger offensive machine that are currently missing.

Carolina came into the game better than advertised and the Chargers are banged up. If Williams can only perform at a 75 percent level this season, like he did in the season opener, just that falloff might be the difference between a long run in the NFL playoffs and a ho-hum season.