Nado Natterings Back to Islandersports
A weekly column by David Axelson

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

3 Dec 2008 Issue No. 46

Coronado High School Football took a historic leap Friday afternoon with their 35-20 CIF Division IV Playoff victory at Santa Fe Christian. According to Head Coach Bud Mayfield, who also dabbles as keeper of the Islander gridiron memory bank, the Islanders appearance in this coming Friday night’s semi-final game at Valley Center, marks the school’s deepest foray into the football playoffs ever.

“To my knowledge, we have never been to the semi-finals in the history of the program, at least not in the last 50 years. I’m only qualifying that because Coronado went to the playoffs in 1949-50. They’ve never had the football playoffs structured the way they are now anyway.”

There are a total of 14 schools which compete in Division IV in the CIF San Diego Section, with eight of those teams qualifying for the post season, the smallest playoff field among the five CIF divisions. Due to the small number of qualifying teams, all of the teams receive first round byes into the quarter-finals. But make no mistake, the victory over the Eagles in their home lair was significant.

Coronado compiled an 8-2 regular season mark, with one of their two loses coming at home to SFC by the score of 30-20. In that game, the Islanders ran only 24 offensive plays from scrimmage, mainly due to the punishing ball control rushing game employed by the Eagles. Two weeks prior to the playoff game rematch, Mayfield said of their quarter-final opponent, “Santa Fe Christian has give up 130 points this season. If we can stop their offense a little bit, it could be a good game for us. It would nice to avenge our loss.” And so they did.

Clad in white jerseys with green numbers and black game pants, the Islanders seemed up and ready for the 1:30 pm game. Winning the coin toss, Coronado opted to defer to the second half and the Eagles received the opening kickoff. The Islander defense stopped the Eagles after six offensive plays and SFC was forced to punt.

On Coronado’s second play from scrimmage, quarterback Mason Mills found Keith Englehart for a 78-yard pass completion, which took the Islanders from their own 14-yard line to the Eagle eight. Milles then found Englehart the Elder again, this time for a seven-yard TD strike and Coronado was on the board.

The bad news from that scoring play was that Mills had all four fingers on his passing hand sprained by an Eagle defensive end, who swatted at the ball and instead connected with Mills. “His fingers are all black and blue right now,”said Mayfield Sunday evening. “It was hard for him to hold on to the ball and throw. He made some short throws that came with a lot of nice, long runs. One was on a screen pass to Chris Page and the pass to Keith Englehart early in the first quarter.”

In fact Mills was 14-17 passing on the day for 292 yards, with two interceptions and two touchdowns, despite having all four passing hand fingers taped after they were injured. Both interceptions came on short touch passes, both of which resembled more of a shot put motion than a pass, but under the circumstances it was a truly game effort for Mills to complete the game.

The eagles rallied to score three minutes later, but the Islander quick-strike offense answered back in five plays, on the aforementioned 73-yard touchdown pass from Mills to Page. Coronado, which would score in each of the four quarters of the game, took a 13-7 lead into the second quarter.

Santa Fe Christian scored quickly again on three plays, to even the score at 13-all, but Coronado unleashed Keith Englehart again, this time on a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. This sudden score and the two-point conversion run in by Keith’s younger brother Kodie Englehart, gave the Islanders a lead they would never relinquish.

Toward the end of the first half, the Islander defense stiffened and held the Eagles scoreless after SFC marched down to the Coronado 12-yard line. An Eagle field goal attempt from 29 yards was errant and the Islanders took a 21-13 lead into halftime.

Deferring after winning the opening coin toss paid off for Coronado as they coupled a 25-yard kickoff return from Keith Englehart with a 72-yard touchdown run from Page on the next play, for another quick scoring strike. Neither team scored for the balance of the third quarter.

The Eagles scored with 7:01 remaining in the game to make the score 28-20, but Page took the ensuing kickoff back for a 38-yard gain, and followed that up with gains of seven and two yards. With a third down and one situation on the Eagles 44, Mills found his favorite receiver Blake Malkemus for a 38-yard gain and the Islanders were in scoring position yet again. Mills ran for two yards and then scored from the four-yard line to raise the final score to 35-20.

For the game, Malkemus added seven catches and a total of 117 yards to his season stats, leaving him just 49 yards short of 1,000 receiving yards for the season. Mills leads the county in touchdown passes with 35, and has thrown for nearly 2,700 yards this season. “If those two guys aren’t All-CIF, something is wrong,” said Mayfield of his senior passing tandem. “They are terrific players and great battery mates. I can’t remember a ball thrown right to Blake that he has dropped. He has 66 catches for the season and there can’t be anybody near that in school history. And Mason is completing 70 percent of his passes.”

Offense is nice to watch and necessary for victory, but at some point the ‘Big Uglies’ in the trenches have to get the job done. “Our defense played a large role, especially getting the ball back for us,” Mayfield said. “They did a heck of job. Defensive end Tyler Suggett, defensive end Jon Little and Brad Hughes had their finest games of the season. Our line really frustrated them. We wanted them to have to pass to beat us and they couldn’t do it.”

In fact Mayfield departed from tradition by awarding five Black Shirts (Game MVP awards), the most ever. “Suggett, Hughes, Little, Page and Malkemus all will be given Black Shirts. It was a big win and a convincing win. Winning by 35-20 is a solid win. I would have liked for Mason to be healthy. I know if he could have thrown deeper, we could have gotten a couple more scores.”

Mayfield noted the presence of the overflow crowd on the Coronado side of the field. “We really appreciated the crowd. Our sideline was more electric than theirs.”

Now it is on to Valley Center, the Division IV No. 1 seed, who is coming off of a 64-6 quarter-final victory over Imperial. They will host Coronado at 7 pm Friday evening. A reminder to those of us driving to the game, a quick visit to Mapquest.com indicates that Valley Center is an hour drive from Coronado, so leave home early.

Mayfield previewed Valley Center’s offense. “Valley Center is not that sophisticated and I don’t mean that in a negative way. They just come at you. They have a very good quarterback and they have a receiver who is going to Oregon on a football scholarship. They have speed on the outside and they throw the ball deep. They have a very capable running back, who broke a touchdown run right down the middle against Oceanside. They have a lot of weapons.”

“We have the playoff bracket on the board in the team room to remind the team of the reward if we win,” Mayfield added. “To have nine wins with a small offensive line, with the same guys playing (both ways) on defense is a great accomplishment. It’s a very unusual team for us, with all of the skill kids, and the explosive plays. We’re not nearly as methodical. We just flipped the offensive approach (from rushing to passing). The coaching staff did a good job of adapting to the talent.”

Islander Girls Cross Country Performs Well at State Meet

CHS Head Cross Country Coach George Green re-caps the Islanders success in the State Cross Country meet over the weekend. “The final event of the Islander Cross Country season took place at Fresno Saturday with the CHS Girls' Cross Country Team achieving their goal of a Top 10 finish.

Out of the hundreds of Division IV high schools in California, the Islander girls emerged as the 9^th best in the state. Sallie Privett led the Islanders by finishing in the 15^th scoring position over the fabled Woodward Park course, with a time of 19:15. Not her best time for the distance by a long shot, but both she and teammate Adie Davies were diagnosed recently with low blood iron (anemia) and are in the process of building it up via supplements.

Next to finish was an ailing Annie Lovering (fighting a cold) in 50th in 20:21 followed by Sadie Gimber (55^th in 20:29), Davies (57^th in 20:33), Nicole Davies (76^th in 20:55) and Selina Schmeck, coming off an injury, in 146^th.  With all these health issues (plus a couple more not mentioned) the girls did well to place so high and the prospects look even better for next year. We lose no varsity runners to graduation and there are a few new prospects that will make our team even stronger. Saturday's meet scored without seniors places the Islanders fourth in Division IV and 33^rd out of all teams, regardless of division.

David Grimes was our only boy to qualify for the state meet by virtue of his All-CIF finish (4th) at the San Diego CIF championships. In his race he got caught-up in the early fast pace and went through the first mile in 5:10. He hung on to finish with a respectable time of 17:19.”

Young Islander Girls Varsity Basketball Team Off to 1-3 Start

Typically basketball games come in bunches at the beginning of the Coronado Girls Basketball season, due to the fact that the program has hosted the Coronado Thanksgiving Girls Basketball Tournament for years. This year’s tourney edition features 10 teams, with all of the clubs in action twice on Friday and twice on Saturday.

Coronado began their tournament and 2008-09 season with a 36-22 loss to San Dieguito. Senior center Angela Strohbeck was the Islander leading scorer in the game with nine points. In fact, Strohbeck would lead the Islanders in scoring in each of the four tournament contests Freshman CoCo Abrantes was the Islanders second leading scorer against San Dieguito with five points.

Friday’s second game found Coronado hosting Holtville and the Islanders won their lone game of the tournament by the score of 35-15 against the Vikings. The Islanders, who have four freshmen on the current varsity roster and started three of the youngsters including Peri Curtis, Cory DeMarco and Abrantes in most of the games. Strohbeck had another big game for Coronado against Holtville with 14 points and 11 rebounds, to go with six steals.

DeMarco, who is the club’s starting point guard didn’t score, but contributed four assists, seven steals and two rebounds, while playing a solid floor game. Curtis scored nine points and tied Strohbeck with a team-high 11 rebounds. Abrantes, the third freshman in the playing mix had a solid game with four points and three rebounds. Junior Maggie Harris contributed four points, four rebounds, and five steals.

Saturday’s morning contest found the Islanders on the short end of a 44-20 score to Hilltop, with Strohbeck again in double figures in scoring with 11.

The Saturday nightcap found Coronado facing a veteran group from the Academy of Our Lady of Peace, and the Islanders fell 49-30. Strohbeck accounted for 13 points and 12 rebounds, with Curtis again chipping in with seven rebounds. The other star from Coronado’s perspective was Harris, who hit four three-point bombs, all in the second half, to finish with 12 points.

“We left the weekend with some positive things,” said Head Coach Toler Goodwin. “Angela Strohbeck had a terrific weekend. I just wish we could have gotten her the ball more. She is a little inexperienced at getting open and demanding the ball. She was the most dominant rebounder in the tournament on anybody’s team. She got a lot of compliments from everybody. You could tell she had an understanding of what her role is and we will get better as the girls around her get better with their roles.”

Goodwin talked about the play of freshmen DeMarco and Curtis. “The next best weekend belonged to Cory. She’s a freshman who doesn’t have a massive amount of basketball experience, but she took the right attitude into the tournament and went out and learned. Curtis played positions from post to point guard, when we rested Cory. She can play a lot of different positions. As a freshman, learning to play at that game speed, I have no complaints. I thought it was a great learning experience.”

To make matters a little more complicated for Curtis, her older sister Nikki Curtis, who played basketball for four seasons at the Naval Academy, is one of the program’s assistant coaches this year. Curtis joins third-year Varsity Assistant Tricia Lamb (a player at Washington St. and Cal St. Fullerton) and CHS grad Vanessa Stahley (CHS ’02) on the staff.

“Vanessa will be helping with the varsity and coaching the JV,” Goodwin said. “She has worked at San Diego State as a practice player and helped out in their program. She knows what we want and has been involved in youth coaching. She’s working toward her teaching credential. All of the coaches have great attitudes. It’s important that we have a consistent message all the way through the staff.”

This week the Islanders slow the game pace down a bit. They host El Cajon Valley at 6:30 pm Thursday and then complete the Thanksgiving Tournament with a home game against University City Saturday at 2:30 pm.

Islander Boys Basketball Loses Season Opener

Call it ‘opening night jitters,’ or perhaps ‘not enough time with the whole starting unit together’, but the Islander Boys Varsity Basketball Team lost their season opener Saturday night to Granite Hills by the score of 65-48. The game was part of the Eagle-Vaquero Tournament and was played at Granite Hills.

“We played as expected for the first game,” said Head Coach Ken Caesar. “We had a lot of nerves and there were a lot of mistakes by young guys. Our leading scorer was freshman Danny Hebert with 11 points.”

Other leading scorers included sophomore point guard Justin Hebner with nine points, and Josh McNeal, Krishna Samperio and Justin Parsons with seven points each.

Caesar did see some positive elements from the game, but plans to point out some of the club’s shortcomings in an early-week game tape session. “If we defend and rebound, we can play with anybody. We can beat these teams. We can definitely beat these teams. Granite Hills couldn’t shoot the ball. They just wanted it more than we did. The reason we play in these tournaments is so we can play against the bigger schools. These are big kids who play in a good league. They (the Eagles0 were shooting line drive jumpers that they knew weren’t going in. They said, ‘We’ll just go run and get it’.”

Making up for one game last week, the Boys Varsity plays Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday this week. Monday the team is home against Mt. Miguel (7:30 pm tipoff); Tuesday Coronado plays at El Capitan (7:30 pm); Wednesday the team returns home to face Valhalla (7:30 pm) and Friday Coronado hosts Olympian High School (7 pm).

CHS Cheerleaders Recognized

Congratulations to the CHS Varsity Cheerleading squad for their efforts this year at the Islander football games. The team also has a competition component and competes and regional and national events during the school year. The 2008-09 Cheer Captains are Bridget Garbers, Monica Chapa and Kaitlyn Mehrwerth.

The Cheer squad includes: Aubrey Mills, Becca Sizemoore, Allie Wright, Emily Stansell, Radha Solai, Chelsea Arthur, Britta Nevitt, Kelliana Vertiz, Allison Dowell, Blaire Jennings, Riley Blum, Tana Radermacher, Ashleigh Lloyd, Jessica Lewis, Kelsey Thackston, Annie Popp, Annie San Giovanni, and Astrid Baldauf.

Congratulations also to Faculty Advisor Nicole Belong for her role in coordinating the squad.

CHS Alumni Baseball Game Dec. 27

Islander Head Baseball Coach Sam Ceci recently announced that the CHS Alumni Baseball Game will be held Saturday, December 27^th at 11 am. “It’s an opportunity for us to show off the improvements we have made to the field and our new scoreboard,” said Ceci.

The event format, which is pretty loose and designed for fun, starts with batting practice at 10 am. In theory the alumni play the current CHS varsity roster, although that can change without warning. “It’s really casual and we have a good time,” Ceci added. Afterwards hot dogs and hamburgers are served to the participants.

To participate, please contact Coach Ceci at 435-0854. Donations to the program are of course gratefully accepted.