Sustaining the success from their 2009 season, which found the Coronado High School Boys Lacrosse Team securing the CIF San Diego Section title, posting an overall record of 20-2, and winning their last 15 straight games, is going to be a tough assignment. In addition, the 2009 squad by acclamation was the best prep team in the state of California.

The 2010 version of the squad, again under the direction of Head Coach Alex Cade, comparatively speaking is off to a tough start. Two weeks ago the Islanders opened their season with an 8-5 loss at La Costa Canyon, which is currently 5-0 and ranked No. 1 in the state by westsidelax.com.

Saturday evening the Wildcats from St. Ignatius College Prep came to Coronado to play the Islanders. The previous evening, St. Ignatius also fell victim to La Costa Canyon by the score of 7-1. The Wildcats and the Islanders entered the game with a record of 3-3 in the past six years of competition against each other and this was another close game.

Coronado scored first on an Eddie Vita goal from a Jacob Lujan assist. However, St. Ignatius wasn’t rattled by that development. The Wildcats proceeded to score the next four consecutive goals to take a 4-1 lead, just a minute into the second quarter. Vita scored just over a minute later, again on a feed from Lujan. Vita completed his hat trick at the 3:46 mark of the second quarter. Unfortunately, the Wildcats found the back of the Islanders net twice, and the score was now 6-3 in favor of St. Ignatius.

Vita, who is one of six seniors to the team, opened the second half with a ferocious hit on one of the Wildcats and was rewarded with a penalty for his efforts. The hit did seem to create momentum for the Islanders as they scored twice in the third frame to close the score to 6-5. Prep All-American Kodie Englehart scored at the 7:16 mark. Five minutes later the Islander defense killed off a two-man advantage situation held by the Wildcats. Vita scored with 23 seconds remaining in the quarter on an assist from Kyle Runyon.

Englehart scored 90 seconds into the fourth quarter on a beautiful series of fakes and a successful shot to even the score at 6-all. At this point Coronado had scored four consecutive times and seemingly it was either team’s game. St. Ignatius then scored twice in under three minutes to take an 8-6 lead. Vita’s fifth goal of the evening, scored after he successfully rebounded his own shot, made the score 8-7, but the Wildcats scored the clincher with 2:07 left in the game and went on to earn the 9-7 victory.

Coronado has only played twice in 10 days, so to discount the season, especially in the early going would be a mistake. In fact westsidelax.com still has Coronado ranked No. 7 in the state and is the only team in their Top 20 ranking a victory. St. Ignatius is currently ranked No. 6. The improvement in the Islanders offensive execution from the first to the second half alone should provide reason for optimism among the team’s followers.

The 2010 Islanders have six seniors, including Englehart and Vita, along with goalie Peter Zeller, midfielder Kevin Siefert, and defenders Austin Branch and Jake Lee.

Of the 30 members of the varsity roster, 17 are members of the junior class including starting defenders Dane Farguson and Billy Schmidt, midfielders Andrew Woolf, Sergio Flores and Lujan. Among the juniors who contributed in Saturday night’s game were Runyon, Kurt Beske, and Curtis Nixon.

Underclassmen who figure to contribute are sophomore George Bailey and freshman starting long stick midfielder Jake Shepherd. Five sophomores and two freshmen comprise the balance of the varsity roster.

Befitting their stature as an elite program, the Islander schedule doesn’t get easier in the near term. Thursday they travel to Poway, ranked No. 15 in the state and owners of a 4-0 record. Following that game Coronado takes off for their annual East Coast swing, when they play McDonough, Landon and Gonzaga, April 3rd, 5th and 9th respectively. The Islanders next home contest is Wednesday, April 21st when they host Patrick Henry.

CHS Track and Field Team Off to a Fine Start

CHS Head Track and Field Coach George Green provides an overview of his team’s prospects for the 2010 season.  “Saturday we qualified five athletes into San Diego's largest meet, the Mt. Carmel Invitational. This event has become one of the state's top meets with entries from all over California, as well as several other states. 

Senior Sallie Privett placed fifth in a fast 800-meter event and Adie Davies survived a crazy-fast 3,200 meters. Maddy Danielson won her heat of the 300-meter hurdles in 48.05 to collect her second gold medal in as many weeks. Briana Giorgione placed seventh in her flight of the pole vault with a jump of 9 feet, 2 inches and Will Bartsch vaulted 12 feet, 8 inches. 

Two members of this group have recently been accepted to UC schools with Privett planning to attend U.C. Davis and Giorgione attending Cal Berkeley next fall.

Two weeks ago, the entire track team got their collective feet against Christian High School last week with split results (girls won, boys lost). This meet was a bit early in the season for us, especially for the girls, because of the soccer playoffs. Many of our key athletes haven’t had time to prepare.

Now we have a gap until after spring break with our second dual meet not until April 15th, which will be at home against Crawford. This will give us some much needed time to work on our events because, once back, there’ll be meets every week through the CIF finals May 29th.

There were a couple of notable marks in the Christian meet. Privett uncorked a pretty good early season 800-meter run in around 2:20 flat, which puts her in the top five or six runners county-wide at this point in time. Bartsch pole-vaulted 12 feet, 6 inches and just missed 13 feet in his first outing of the season.

The Islanders also participated in an Invitational meet, the Runge Classic, which was attended by a small group of Islanders and held at Patrick Henry. In that meet Privett won one of the featured events, the Thom Hunt Mile, with Adie Davies placing sixth. Maddy Danielson blew away the field in the 300-meter hurdles field. She improved her time by nearly 1.5 seconds with a time of 47.92 which places her well-up on the San Diego rankings for that event. In the girls 3,200 meters, Meg Sweeney pulled away in the last 100 meters to win the open event at that distance. Not a bad showing for the four girls who competed.

This year’s roster has around 50 athletes and contains a few more girls than boys. Top returnees for the girl’s mid-distance and distance running squad are Privett, Adie Davies, Nicole Davies, Sadie Gimber (last year’s Division II, 400-meter champ), and Annie Lovering (CIF Division IV Cross Country champ). New members are freshman Ashley Engleman and a junior class transfer from Ohio Meg Sweeney. The aforementioned group comprised one of the top Division IV Cross County teams in the state last fall.

Our top returning female sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers are Danielson, Cassie Callahan (hurdles and horizontal jumps), Lauren Bower (sprints and short hurdles), Olivia Lillegraven (hurdles and horizontal jumps), Danielle Swanson (hurdles), Giorgione (pole vault, high jump, sprints) and Bethany Buklew (throws).

The boys returning are Bartsch (pole vault) and Aryan Shay (distance running). However there are a number of new members who appear to have some talent in various events. As the season progress these names will become legendary, hopefully.

We have some great coaches associated with the team this season. Kerry Elders our 7-foot plus former high jumper, returns as high jump and hurdles coach. Another returner is Karla Martinez, who was one of Mexico’s best horizontal jumpers in her day. She will again be our long and triple jump coach. Sprints, relays and hurdles are coached by Bob Hicksman, a veteran athlete/coach with impressive credentials.

Bo Retsch, a former head coach for decades at Monterey High School is coaching our throwers. The girls’ distance team is really lucky to have professional athlete and U.S. Olympian Alice Schmidt (Google her when you get a chance) volunteering. Schmidt trains at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista in the morning, but lives in Coronado so her afternoons are free. Sometimes you just get lucky. Also helping with the distance runners is CHS teacher/former runner Anne-Lise Rendina. To top it off our current school record holder in the 110 high hurdles Bob Mansueto is helping out with the hurdlers. The pole vaulters are stuck with me.”

Girls Lacrosse Ranked No. 4 in State

Saturday morning’s game between San Diego County girls’ lacrosse powerhouses Rancho Bernardo and Coronado had two interesting prequels, according to CHS Head Coach Jessica Battle. “We scrimmaged RB twice before this season and lost to them both times. In the first five minutes Saturday, we were a little flustered and nervous. Then we settled down and it was smooth sailing. We didn’t have our complete team when we scrimmaged them before, because some of the girls were playing soccer. RB was a little shocked at the outcome of that game as well.”

The ‘smooth sailing’ to which Coach Battle referred was a 12-4 Coronado victory and take Your Natterer’s word for it, the game wasn’t that close. The Islanders opened the scoring on a goal from Anna Turpit. Then Coco O’Brien scored on an assist from Turpit, which was followed in short order by a goal from Nikki Krueger, all less than six minutes into the contest.  

Rancho Bernardo scored a goal with 18:24 remaining in the half. Then the scoring flood gates opened for Coronado and washed away any hope the Broncos had to win the game. The Islanders scored six times in the following 15 minutes. Three of the six goals were scored by O’Brien, one by Turpit and one tally each came from Michaela Guerrera and Alex Reidy. Make that a 9-1 score at halftime in favor of Coronado. For all practical purposes, the JV game which followed could have been started at that point.

However, the rules say you have to play the second half as well. Give the Broncos credit, they played Coronado even in the second half, but the major damage had already been done at that point. For the record, Reidy scored again in the second half, and O’Brien scored her fifth and sixth goals of the game to complete the Islanders attack.

The showy part of the game is the offense, and rightfully so Battle called her offensive attack ‘incredible.’ But it was the defense that Battle was particularly proud of last week. “Really, the biggest thing is that we have been playing a kind of full-court press on defense. We have been creating a ton of turnovers, which is going to be our focus this year. We have been working on double teams, with two or three girls chasing the ball, which is frustrating to the other team. Everyone gets it this year and they are working together well.”

Another relevant factor is that first-year goalie Meganne Weissenfels was credited with 13 saves in the RB game and seems to have settled into her position well. “Cory De Marco had a fantastic game playing low D,” Battle added. “Guerrera is playing well and Turpit played great games Friday and Saturday. We have an All-Star filled team. Everyone is pulling their weight and it was a collective effort.”

The win over the Broncos Saturday morning, came roughly 14 hours after Coronado finished off Patrick Henry 16-5, primarily on the strength of six goals from Turpit. “Our turning point in the season may have been Friday and Saturday,” said Battle. “We played really, really well. We looked like a brand new team. We’ve figured out the starting group and I’m looking forward to a great season from here on out.”

Adding their 14-3 victory over La Jolla earlier in the week, the Islanders are now 5-0 and are ranked No.4 in the state by westsidelax.com. However, this week important challenges are on the horizon. Tuesday Coronado plays at No. 14 ranked Poway and Thursday night at home the Islanders host No. 10 Torrey Pines. Both games start at 7 pm.

Boys Volleyball Splits Two Central League Games

Consistent passing appears to be the name of the game for the CHS Boys Volleyball Team. As in, when they pass well they win, and when they don’t they lose in three straight to Clairemont, like they did last week 25-16, 25-23 and 25-17. “We played some good defense, but couldn’t pass,” said Islander Head Coach Steve Merrill of the game against the Chieftains. “We would get ahead and chunk out five of the next six points on passes. But, with every loss, you learn a little bit about the team.”

Thursday Coronado returned home to host Madison. The Islanders passed well and perhaps not surprisingly won by the scores of 25-21, 25-18 and 25-13. “We picked it up and played the way we needed to play, especially in the third game,” said Merrill. “In the first game, we shanked five passes and we were down 5-2. We were back in our old groove of not being able to pass. Then we started keeping the ball in play.”

The team received contributions from several players in the Madison victory, who were delineated by Merrill. “David Rodriguez had some good hits out of the back row. Kevin Clay came in and blocked a couple of balls for us. Jaime Gonzalez played left back and passed well, with a couple of digs. Chris Maskevich was blocking large at the net and hitting well. Nick De Marco played good back row defense. And Sean MacKenzie played well, played more aggressively and started taking some swings.”

This week the Islanders have one lone game, as they travel to Bishop’s Wednesday for a non-league game. The following week when Coronado is on spring break, the Islanders have two games scheduled, playing at Crawford Tuesday, April 6 and Thursday, April 8 Coronado is scheduled to host University City at 3 pm.

CHS Softball Tops OLP in Central League Opener

The CHS Girls Softball Team faced one of the Central League favorites in the Academy of Our Lady of Peace and came away with a 7-3 victory. Islander hurler Briana Feist gave up just three hits and struck out seven to earn the victory.

According to Head Coach Tony Isabella, the offensive star of the day was catcher Olivia Nebo, who had two singles and a triple in four at bats. Nebo also had two RBIs and threw out two runners trying to steal on defense.

Other Islanders with multi-hit games included Anik Ribera, who was 2-4 with a single, a double and two RBIs. Jessica Adair was 2-4 at the plate with an RBI. The Islanders had a total of 10 hits in the contest. Kayla Englehart and Rachel Bible also had RBIs in the game.

“It was a very good game,” said Isabella of the win over OLP. “We knew we were going to face a tough opponent and we came to play. OLP is one of the better teams in the league and along with Madison, they were favored to win the league. Briana’s pitching kept OLP at bay. She mixed her pitches very well. We had some good plays from Englehart at short and from Adair at third.”

The Islanders are now 3-2 overall and 1-0 in the Central League. This week, due to the fact that the rest of the schools in the Central League are on spring break, the varsity is not scheduled to play. Next week when the Islanders are off from school, they have two Central League games scheduled.

Islander Boys Golf Finds Scoring Touch

Last week we quoted CHS Head Boys Golf Coach Randy Coutts as saying that the best three players on the team hadn’t all shot well on the same day. It took a couple of attempts last week, but the Islanders lowered their team score to just above 200, reflecting a dramatic improvement.

Monday Coronado hosted Bonita Vista at Coronado Municipal and the Islanders had a collective letdown of sorts, losing by the score of 197-234, which was the highest round of the year for Coronado.

The next day, Coronado hosted St. Augustine, which has one of the best teams in San Diego County and the Islanders lost 195-202. If you are keeping track, Coronado dropped 32 strokes on the same course, in one day, with roughly the same lineup. Freshman Jordan Oval shot a 38 and Nick Milburn shot a 39. Coronado now has five players who have shot under 40 on the squad.

“After Monday (the one-sided loss to Bonita) we had a turning point in our season,” said Coutts. “After the match we had a meeting and kind of looked at each other. They all knew they could shoot better. There is a lot of upside to all of these kids. With a couple of wins they have a much better attitude. Hopefully they will continue to improve.”

The third match of the week was a 202-208 win over Clairemont. The match medalist was Alex Valle who shot a 39. All of the players who scored (six team members compete, with the best five rounds counted toward the team score) were under 42.

The final match of the week was essentially a forfeit win over Lincoln, but the Islanders team score was a fine 206 at Bonita Golf Club. Valle shot a 37 and Jake Schwartz also carded a 37.

The Islanders are now 6-4 overall and this week they play Westview High School twice. Tuesday they play at Coronado and Thursday they play at Rancho Bernardo Country Club. “We tried to get on that course so that we can be ready to play Crawford there the following week,” said Coutts.

Coronado Little League Goes International Thursday

A quick reminder that Thursday, Coronado Little League will host a party of 14, 12-year-old players, three coaches and two chaperones from Lithuania, who will be coming to Coronado April 1 as part of a swing through California. The squad from Lithuania will play the Tigers of the Coronado Majors League and game time is 4:30 pm.

According to CLL Vice President Kelly Weissenfels, “All of the managers, who were interested in playing, put their names in a hat and we picked the team that way. We’re only a few games into the season and the Tigers are doing well, so it should be a competitive game.”

During the game, El Tapatio Restaurant will be selling two tacos for $3 as a fundraiser to defray expenses for hosting the Lithuanian team. “We want to encourage everyone to come, watch and have some tacos,” said Weissenfels. Sounds like an excellent source for Thursday’s dinner and a baseball game to boot.

After the San Diego portion of the game schedule concludes with the game against Coronado, the Lithuanian travel party will go to Sea World and then on to L.A. for a series of games and presumably a trip to Disneyland.

Central League Changed for Football

At the CIF Board of Managers meeting held recently, the group passed a proposal from the City Conference to re-league football again, starting with the 2010 season. The Central League now being comprised of Clairemont, Coronado, Morse, Kearny, University City, Crawford and San Diego. In short, U.C. returns to the Central League and Madison moves over to the Western League. Coronado will now have to be content to face their arch-rivals from Madison in the CIF Division IV playoffs, instead of during the regular season.