For the second time in their history and the first time since 2002, the Coronado High School Sailing Team has won the Pacific Coast Championships.  As a result the Islanders are the California State Champions. The PCC’s were hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club last weekend and the event was sailed in San Francisco Bay.

The skipper of the ‘A’ boat was Hans Henken and his crew consisted of Kaitlin Dunphey and Karisa Chapa. The ‘B’ boat captain was Esteban Forrer and his crew was Alexa Cavalieri and Philip Lozier. Their competition consisted of the Top 20 teams in California and PCCs were the first regatta victory of the season for Coronado.

Sailing in California is so strong that the Top 5 teams in the state qualify for the National Championship that will be held May 9-10 in Greenwich, Connecticut. Coronado will be joined by California schools Point Loma, Newport Harbor, Cathedral Catholic and Branson High School at the Nationals.

“There was a three knot current and it was windy,” said CHSST Head Coach Jon Rogers. “The conditions could change in an hour and were very tricky.”

Forrer and his crew won six of the 10 races they sailed.  Henken and associates won three races, including their last two, to give Coronado a 13-point lead heading into the final race.

From the sport that brought you the on-going legal fest that was the America’s Cup, you would be disappointed if the scoring at the interscholastic level was simple. Well, don’t be. The first five sailing events of the year are the Sea Otter, the Anteater, the Rose Bowl, the Cardinal and the Gaucho Regattas. Teams are allowed to count their best result in three of those five events, which count for a combined 30 per cent of the annual overall standings. The PCC’s, which Coronado won, account for the remaining 70 percent of the points.

Coronado entered the final event of sailing’s regular season in fifth place and finished in second, one point behind Point Loma. The Pointers won the overall standings race, but Coronado won the biggest California-based event of the year.

In both 2001 and 2002, Coronado won the Mallory Cup emblematic of the national championship in interscholastic sailing. But only in 2002 did Coronado, with skippers Mike Anderson-Mitterling and Brian Haines, win the PCCs. Their 2010 result is the strongest finish for Coronado since that championship season.

Next week we’ll have the results of the Silver PCC’s, which were sailed at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro over the weekend. The final standings had not been determined at press time.

Islander Track and Field News

Your Natterer was in attendance at the Coronado vs. Crawford track meet last week. Track meets are fun to witness, but sometimes as with great literature, you need the Cliff Notes version to understand what you just saw. Head Track and Field Coach George Green provides us with a tutorial on his favorite subject. “We had our second dual meet of the season last Thursday, this time hosting Crawford at our track.

Knowing that the Colts are in a rebuilding phase, rather than trying to run-up the points, we used it more as a workout with several of our best athletes running only one or two events. Still, the final scores were a bit lopsided with the boys winning 84-26 and the girls 91-16.  But that’s to be expected when the other team brings only six girls and eight boys to fill 16 track events, 14 of which have three scoring places (first, second, and third). 

So, rather than list all of the details of this ‘workout’ I'll go over a few of the best performances. Two of the new girl athletes in our program, freshman Samantha Kirk and sophomore Alexandra Evans, come to us from the girls’ basketball team. Both have the athletic tools to do very well in this sport.  Kirk had a nice double sprint outing by winning both the 100 and 200 meter dashes in 13.5 seconds and 27.3 seconds respectively.

Evans won both the shot put and discus throws and is coming off an ankle injury.  She will start competing in both the pole vault and runs while Kirk is still learning the triple jump and long jump events.

Sophomore Lauren Bower was right behind Kirk in both sprints and also placed second in the long jump. Bower was only two inches behind Cassie Callahan's mark of 14 feet, 3 inches. Callahan also finished second in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 49.9 behind Maddy Danielson (48.8). Danielson has finished first in the 300 hurdles in every race she's run so far this year and that includes three invitational events.  Danielle Swanson won the 100 hurdles with Danielson, Olivia Lilligraven, and Callahan in close pursuit.

Of course we won all the girls distance events with Adie Davies running the 1,600 meters in 5:40, and finishing second behind Sallie Privett's 5:27. Davies won the 3,200 meters in 12:16.  Freshman Ashley Engleman took the 800-meter run with a time of 2:43. Annie Lovering and Meg Sweeney ran together and placed third and fourth in the 1,600 in 5:43 followed by Stephanie Hamilton (5:53) and Christia DeScisciolo. 

Last season's CIF Division II 400-meter champ Sadie Gimber won her event in 61.8 with freshman Elise Umansky only a couple of seconds back in 63.5.  With Gimber, Privett, Danielson, Lovering, Callahan, and now Kirk and Umansky to choose among, we could have a really good 4x400 relay team this season.

For the boys, Andrew Smith, Adan Santin and John Scales finished 1-2-3 in the 100 meters with Smith clocking 11.57. Freshman Jack Gold was fourth in that race followed by Bobby Mansueto in fifth. Smith also ran in the ‘low 23's’ while winning the 200 meters with Santin and Scales in third and fourth.

In the long jump it was Smith in first, Scales second and Santin in fourth.  Gold also placed second in the pole vault with an effort of 9 feet (an event he's just learning), finishing behind Will Bartsch who vaulted 11-6 before he had to leave. The versatile Gold also placed second in the 800 meters with a time of 2:19 behind winner Ayran Shay who ran a nice time of 2:06.6. 

Also showing a bit of versatility was sophomore Will Funk who ran with Shay in the 1,600 to a 5:10 finish, then came back to place second in the 300 hurdles behind winner Nate Ferraco and finished third in the pole vault. Ferraco also won the 110 hurdles followed by Stephen Mansueto in second.

In the throws Jorge Rodriguez won the discus followed by Stavros Markakis in third and Freddy Smith in fifth.  Markakis then came back in the shot put to place second, with Smith finishing third and Rodriguez in fifth. What's significant about this result was that it was Markakis' first meet. He wasn't even on the track team until a few days before the meet, when his dad stopped by and asked if he could do both track and freshman baseball (he also plays basketball).  Since it was okay with the baseball coach and Markakis threw the 10 pound shot 40 feet in middle school, it was okay with me as well! 

What impressed me most about this meet was the performance of our underclassmen. The county Frosh/Soph championships are coming up May 1 and I think Kirk, Bower, Umansky, Engleman, Lilligraven, Nicole Davies, Evans, Scales, Funk, Rodriguez, Markakis and Gold will do the home team proud.”

Islander Girls Lax Wins Three Last Week

Last week Coronado’s Girls Lacrosse Team played three games, winning all three. Perhaps the most intriguing game of the group was a contest against St. Catherine’s High School from Surrey, England, an institution located within an hour of London. It marked the second time in the last two years that the teams had met, with the home-standing Islanders winning both contests handily. This year’s score was 15-3.

A little internet research finds that a year of tuition, room and board at St. Catherine’s will set you back 20,520 pounds sterling, or roughly $31,200 at the current exchange rate. Presumably international lacrosse trips are in addition to that fee.

One of the pages on the St. Catherine’s website is entitled ‘A Word from the Head’ which in this case means school Headmistress Mrs. Phillips. To quote George Bernard Shaw, “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.”

But I digress.

Coronado started the week with a 12-4 victory over City Conference foe Serra Tuesday at home. Thursday, led by five goals from Coco O’Brien, the Islanders defeated St. Catherine’s. Friday the Islanders traveled to Scripps Ranch for another conference tilt, and emerged with an 8-7 victory over an improving Falcons squad.

“I wasn’t completely pleased with the way we played,” said Head Coach Jessica Battle of her team. “The score shouldn’t have been that close. Our low defense played really well, including Cory DeMarco, Brianne Clifford and Breanna Silk. Meganne Weissenfels had a phenomenal second half in goal. And attack Lauren Maack did very well. Anna Turpit had our last goal to make it 8-7 with a couple of minutes left. Michaela Guerrera had a couple of goals, as did Coco. Alex Reidy added a goal.”

With an overall record of 10-2, the best may be yet to come for the Islanders, as Battle explains. “I haven’t had my starting lineup intact for the whole year. We haven’t had the continuity we need. We have had a ton of injuries, college visits and stuff just comes up. It’s frustrating to say the least. On the other hand, other teams that think they have seen Coronado at their best will be in for a big surprise.”

This week Coronado travels to Patrick Henry Tuesday and then hosts Cathedral Catholic Thursday at 7 pm.

CHS Boys Golf Goes 2-2 Last Week

Coronado High’s busiest squad last week was the Boys Golf Team as they played four matches over four consecutive days. The first match found Coronado avenging an earlier loss to Christian, this time winning by the score of 217-237. “We played in the rain in East County,” said Islander Head Coach Randy Coutts. “We had two rain storms, each about 10-15 minutes long. Our kids hung in there. Everybody shot in the 40’s. Brian Turley and Jake Schwartz both shot a 43 and Nick Milburn had a 44.”

Tuesday the team was home at Coronado Muni and lost to Patrick Henry 208-226. The bright spot of the day belonged to Coronado’s Alex Valle, who shot a 37 to earn medalist honors. “Alex beat Brian Meth, who is one of the best players in the county,” Coutts said.

Match No. 3 was a 219-229 loss to Otay Ranch, with Valle’s round of 39 again good for medalist honors. The final match of the week was a 216-297 victory over Madison at Doubletree, with Schwartz being the medalist by virtue of his carding a 38.

This week is an important one for Coronado. They have a return match with Madison Monday before playing Crawford Tuesday and Thursday, for what amounts to the league championship. “Hopefully we got our bad scores out of the way last week,” Coutts opined. “We’re going to need two or three kids shooting in the 30’s to beat Crawford. They have been shooting in the 205-210 range as a team.”

Boys Volleyball Goes 3-1 in Last Two Weeks

The CHS Boys Volleyball Team fell victim to both the Central League game scheduler and to a home gym floor refinishing project since our last visit. Coronado was the lone league team with their spring break falling when it did, meaning they had to play during spring break.

In addition, maintenance on the CHS gym floor kicked the team over to the Coronado Recreation Center. “I’d like to give a shout out to the city,” said Islander Head Coach Steve Merrill. “We worked with the city and they hooked us up with three days of practice time.”

Probably the most interesting game since our last report was last week’s loss to Hoover High School. It seems the Cardinals have a player who competes on the Mexican National Volleyball Team. “He is their whole team and he is really good,” said Merrill, no stranger to high level volleyball competition himself. “He hits the ball straight down and hard. We played them well. We were scrappy and kept the ball in play.”

Coronado and Hoover split the first four games, before Coronado lost 15-11 in the fifth set. “David Rodriguez played well and Kevin Clay was blocking big in the middle,” said Merrill of his team. “Trevor Marcone played well both in the back and along the front row. He was big at the net. We’ve moved into a 5-1 (offensive formation) with Jake Nicholson setting. We moved Rodriguez to the outside left. Wade Zolla is backing up Jake on free balls. Chris Maskevich has been dominating in the middle for us.”

Tuesday Coronado travels to Christian and Thursday the Islanders host Clairemont 3:30 pm. “Coronado will be at their best against Clairemont at that point,” Merrill said.

CHS Softball Wins Twice

Last week the Islander Girls Softball Team earned to Central League wins, with the first being a 10-2 victory over Kearny. Briana Feist earned the victory on the mound and also supplied a single, a double, a triple, a sacrifice fly and an RBI at the plate.

Anik Ribera continued her hot hitting, going 2-4 with an RBI. Kayla Englehart was 1-3 with two RBIs. Olivia Nebo also chipped in two RBIs. “We played a very solid game,” said Head Coach Tony Isabella. “We only had one error on defense.”

The week’s second contest was a one-sided affair where Coronado defeated Crawford 32-1. And that is not a typo.

“I hate beating up on other teams,” said Isabella, who like most prep head coaches in baseball and softball, is in the third base coaching box when his team is hitting. “I did everything I could to keep the score down. I held up girls up from scoring. I just couldn’t stop it. You can’t hold girls up too much, or it will throw the girls off their game completely. Let’s just say it was a team win.”

The Islanders are now 7-3 overall with a Central League record of 4-1. This week Coronado hosts Lincoln on Tuesday. Thursday they travel to San Diego High School, with both games scheduled to start at 3 pm.

CHS Baseball Splits Pair with La Jolla High School

Western League play began last week and a somewhat unusual occurrence happened, with the Islander Baseball Team and the La Jolla High School squad winning on each others’ home field. The week started on the road with Coronado earning a 4-2 victory behind six strong innings from Jake Meloche.

The left-handed sophomore yielded just four hits, walked one and struck out five. Junior Toby Talampas earned the save and faced just three Viking hitters in the seventh inning.

“Meloche was very efficient,” said Head Coach Sam Ceci. “Jake battles and we made some plays for him. It was nice to get the first win and we thought we should have gotten the second one.”

Offensively, Zack Wheeler was 3-4, with two RBIs and a run scored. Kyle Teachout and Hunter Ralph were credited with the other two Islander RBIs. The firm of Teachout, Talampas and Toomey (Andrew) accounted for the remaining runs scored.

Friday the Islanders were at home and were felled by Viking rallies in the sixth and eighth innings. Senior Steve Preciado started the game for the Islanders and pitched well for 4.2 innings before the Vikings loaded the bases in the fifth.

Sophomore hurler Austin Denson came in to relieve Preciado and yielded a long fly to left field, where in a shift of player positions, Tyler Hill-Hansen had just entered the game. The game was played in bright sunshine with a strong wind and the ball was hit hard to left. Hill-Hansen then made a running, twisting and diving catch to temporarily preserve the shutout.

“That was a great catch,” said Ceci. “It was real dramatic. Tyler didn’t give you the impression that when he was drifting under it, that he was going to be able to catch it. We dodged a major bullet right there.”

The Islanders scored three runs in the first inning on a single from Wheeler and a walk to Teachout ahead of Patrick Toomey reaching first on a Viking error. Ralph drove in two runs with a single and Meloche drove in Ralph with a double.

In the Islander fourth, Ryan Shepherd was hit by a pitch, Denson singled, Andrew Toomey walked, and Wheeler drove Shepherd in with a single. Unfortunately Coronado only had three hits in the final three innings and couldn’t score.

With two outs in the fifth, the Vikings started a four-run rally and sent 10 hitters to the plate. The score was tied 4-4 going into extra innings, but the Vikings pushed across three runs in the eighth to earn the win and to split the season series. Overall Coronado is 6-9 and 1-1 in the Western League.

Ceci, who is a baseball lifer, learned early in his career that if you stay close, then the other team will find a way to lose. “This year, we are the ‘other’ team,” said Ceci. “We’re not used to the pressure and we’re paying a dear price for it. Also, we haven’t had a whole lot of breaks. I like the kids and they practice hard. For the most part, they do a nice job.”

This week the Islanders play three times. Monday they host University City and then return the game Wednesday. Friday Coronado hosts Madison. All three games begin at 3 pm.

CHS Boys Tennis Competes with Point Loma and Cathedral

Last week the Islander Boys Tennis Team took to the courts twice and lost both matches. The first was a close 11-7 loss to Point Loma. Coronado was lead by the No. 1 doubles pair of Kyle Koshland/Luke Hoffman, who won their three sets 6-4, 6-4 and 6-2. The No. 2 pair of Brad Matheus/Grey Halpin and the No. 3 tandem of Chip Fisher/Shaun Koshland both won one game.  The top two Islander singles players Sean Lee and Greg Lyon won one set each.

The second match was a 12-6 loss to Cathedral Catholic. According to Islander Head Coach Leslie Koshland, the best match of the afternoon against the Dons was a 6-3 singles victory by Lee over the No. 2 Cathedral singles player. Lyon earned a singles win and Cort Dalton won two sets at No. 3 singles. The No. 1 doubles duo for Coronado Koshland/Hoffman won one set to account for the final score.

“The Cathedral doubles teams are strong at the net,” said Coach Koshland. “They put balls away.” This week the Islanders host St. Augustine Tuesday. Thursday Coronado travels to Scripps Ranch.

Honors and Awards

The CIF Division III Champion Coronado Girls Soccer Team held their post-season banquet last week and there were awards aplenty. Head Coach Kiko Medina presented the following honors: Best Teammate – Ariel Ochoa; ISF Award – Stephanie Pietkiewicz; Most Inspirational – Danielle Gillberg; Most Improved – Olivia Lillegraven; Coach’s Awards – Cassie Callahan and Pietkiewicz; Best Defensive Player – Brianne Clifford; Best Offensive Player – Mallory Mitchell; and Team MVP – Stephanie Hamilton.

Mitchell was named Western League Player of the Year, with Callahan, Pietkiewicz and Cory DeMarco being named to the All-Western League First Team. Hamilton and Clifford earned Second Team honors.

CIF Division III honors went to Callahan as Player of the Year, while Mitchell, Pietkiewicz and Hamilton were named to the First Team. All-CIF (all schools in San Diego County) honors went to Callahan as Player of the Year, Mitchell was named First Team All-CIF and DeMarco was named to the All-CIF Second Team. Medina was named CIF Coach of the Year.

The Junior Varsity awards, which had been previously announced, went to Team MVP – Nicole Davies; Best Offensive Player – Katie Shepherd; Best Defensive Player – Gabi Pietkiewicz; Most Improved – Ashley Engleman; and Coach’s Award – Mary Grace Braun.

Coronado Pop Warner Football and Cheer Sign-Ups

Clearly the sun never sets on the sport of football. Following that line of thought, Bob Weissenfels passed along information recently regarding registration for Pop Warner Football and Cheer for the coming fall season.

The sign-ups will be held in the Coronado Community Center Abalone Room from 8:30 am to 1 pm on Saturday, May 1; Saturday, June 12 and Saturday, July 10.

Registration fees are $170 per athlete, with the charge being $125 for each additional child from the same family. Also, Parent Night will be held July 22 at Spreckels Park from 5:30-6:30 pm. For additional information, please contact Weissenfels at rdweisse@aol.com.