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Nado Natterings |
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weekly column by David Axelson |
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13 October 2010 Issue #41
One of the more unusual prep football games in recent years found Coronado traveling to Kearny for an afternoon game Friday, where the Islanders handled the Komets 41-14. The visiting stands at Kearny are quite small and short, which forced the Coronado crowd to fan out and stand along the sidelines to watch the game.
The result brought to mind an open casting call for “A Chorus Line,” with people milling around all over the place. I kept waiting for someone from the crowd to belt out “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three,” but the opportunity passed.
And then there was the game itself. Kearny in the person of speedster Charles Tucker ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown. Coronado countered with Jeff Bona, who ran Kearny’s return kickoff back 85 yards for a touchdown. The Islanders missed the extra point, however both teams combined to score 13 points in a total of 32 seconds. Then neither team scored for the next quarter and a half.
Midway through the second quarter, the Islanders put together an 11-play drive that covered 77 yards for the lead they would never relinquish. Coronado quarterback Austin Denson passed enough to keep Kearny honest defensively and Jeff Bona punched the ball into the end zone from the 1-yard line for the score.
Later Andrew Toomey recovered a Komet fumble on the Kearny 38-yard line with 3:10 left in the half. The Islanders managed the clock well and scored on a 3-yard pass from Denson to Bona, with six seconds left before intermission. Coronado held a 20-7 lead at the half.
The second half began with Coronado receiving the kickoff and three plays later Denson scored on a 57-yard scamper, that Head Coach Bud Mayfield particularly enjoyed. “Jose Sanchez, Glenn Smith, Austin Copp and John Nettleton did a great job blocking on the play. Denson ran through the hole untouched. Everybody did what they were supposed to do.” The fifth member of the line, center Jack Mikesell, had a fine blocking day as well.
In the fourth quarter, the Islanders struck twice. The first touchdown came on a 15-yard pass from Denson to Jordan Jacobs. The second came just over a minute later when Bobby Brandenburg blocked a Komet punt attempt, which was recovered by Ryan Halvorson in the end zone for the Islanders final score of the afternoon.
The scoring re-cap above may have implied that it was a zippy game that moved along quickly, but the final quarter dragged along interminably. Kearny’s ‘offense’ consisted of an endless number of quarterback scrambles that the Islanders eventually stopped. If the football game was instead a 4 x 100 meter track relay race Kearny, would have won handily with their superior team speed. But the Islanders never let Kearny get untracked, no pun intended.
Mayfield named Brandenburg (surely there’s a Brandenburg Gate, stalwart defensive reference that could be inserted here) the Black Shirt or game MVP winner for his efforts. Those included six solo tackles, four assisted tackles, a sack, a quarterback hurry, a caused fumble, a recovered fumble and a blocked punt. Basically Brandenburg had a check mark in every defensive statistic area. “He’s a very good player,” Mayfield said. “He did a great job filling in for Copp on defense.”
On offense, Coronado ran 19 pass plays and 36 running plays for a total of 315 net yards. Denson threw passes to five different receivers including Jacobs, Bona, Mike Byrne, Robert Bell and Toomey. Jacobs was the leading receiver with five catches for 77 yards. Denson also ran 19 times for 95 yards, with Toomey gaining 80 yards on 11 touches.
Mayfield summarized the effort, which left Coronado 3-2 overall and 2-0 in the Central League. “Our kids did a good job. It was an endurance bout and we were the last ones standing. It’s a testament to our conditioning and fortitude.”
Next Friday night Coronado returns home to host Bishop Carroll High School from Calgary, Canada. The break in the schedule is due to an odd number of teams (seven) in the Central League, which causes the member institutions to play a non-league game in the middle of the conference schedule.
“We’ve played them a total of four times,” Mayfield noted of the international rivalry with Bishop Carroll. “Three times there and this is their second trip here. They love the experience and love coming to Coronado. I’ll try to play most of our kids.”
Kickoff Friday night is scheduled for 7:30 pm.
North County Times Prep Football Poll
This week’s “North County Times Prep Football Poll” remained the same in the top seven slots, but there was some turbulence in the final three spots. The poll: No. 1 Vista, 2. Eastlake, 3. Helix, 4. Torrey Pines, 5. Valley Center, 6. Oceanside, 7. Steele Canyon, 8. La Costa Canyon, 9. Ramona and 10. Rancho Bernardo. Other schools receiving votes include in order: Grossmont, Mission Hills, St. Augustine, Olympian, Mount Miguel, Carlsbad, and Madison.
Islander Boys Water Polo Has OT Thriller with Cathedral Catholic
We noted last week that the Islander Boy Water Polo Team is playing a tough schedule this season, a designation which includes virtually everyone in the Western League. Wednesday the defending CIF Division II Champs from Cathedral Catholic came to the BBMAC and the teams had to resolve the issue in overtime, with Coronado prevailing 10-9.
“It was an entertaining game,” said Coronado Head Coach Randy Burgess. “Neither team played exceptionally well. We both were in early to mid-season form. We were down 5-3 at the half and we played them even in the third quarter. We outscored Cathedral 3-1 in the fourth quarter to send it into overtime. We played two, three-minute periods and we got down 9-8 but came back to win 10-9.”
Burgess noted that Coronado’s scoring was spread among five players. Garrett Smerdon scored three goals, while two goals each were scored by Patrick Geer, Eitan Peled and Tommy Grall, with Garrett Eyer adding one tally. Garrett Sabesky went the distance in goal for Coronado, and was credited with 16 saves, three steals and an assist.
The ‘tough schedule’ component continued over the weekend as Coronado competed in the S&R Invitational, hosted by Irvine High School. The 16-team event is one of the two toughest regular season tournaments of the year, the other being the NorCal or Finis Invitational the last weekend in October, which is played in San Jose.
Coronado drew Long Beach Wilson for their first game in Irvine and lost 13-3. The Islander scoring summary was fairly simple to recap, a hat trick from Geer. “We got off to a rough start in the tournament and we played rather poorly against Wilson,” said Burgess. “They are very good. The key to our tournament was coming back and winning the next two games. Friday night we beat San Clemente 8-7 and we had six different players score. Nick Wiley played quite a bit and had three steals in a winning cause.”
The next morning Coronado got to play the host school in their home pool and Burgess was pleased with the outcome. “It was the most exciting game of the tournament and we showed some character.” Geer scored five goals, while Van Burgess contributed a fine all-around game with four steals, two assists and a goal. Sabesky had 17 saves and four steals in goal.
Coronado’s tournament finale was against Harvard Westlake and despite three goals and two assists from Dylan Peterson, the Islanders fell 14-6. Braydon Hummeldorf played the whole game and had seven saves and two steals.
The 3-2 week places Coronado’s overall record at 6-7, 1-1 in the Western League. Although this week’s schedule is back to just two games, they are both against quality opponents. Wednesday the Islanders travel to La Jolla for a 3 pm varsity game. Friday afternoon at 3 pm they host the top-rated team in Northern California, St. Francis of Mountain View at the Brian Bent Memorial Aquatics Complex.
CHS Boys and Girls Cross Country Teams Drop Perfect Scores on Lincoln
In the sport of cross country, when your top five runners finish before a runner from the other team, the score is 15-50 and the Islanders did that twice last Wednesday against the Hornets of Lincoln High School. Meg Sweeney, Nicole Davies and Annie Lovering finished in a three-way tie in what amounted to a workout for the girls’ side. On the boys’ side, Islander Aryan Shay was the top runner in that race.
This week things get a little more serious when Coronado troops off to Morley Field to face Christian Tuesday. This Saturday several team members will compete in the Southern California Invitational in Vista.
CHS Girls Tennis Takes Two in Western League
Last week the Islander Girls Tennis Team won two matches handily, defeating University City 15-3 and the Academy of Our Lady of Peace 13-5. According to Head Coach Rob LeBuhn, Coronado’s record is now 8-5, which is a dramatic improvement over the not-too-distant past.
In the University City match, the entire Coronado roster won at least one match. At No. 1 singles, Jackie Hites won three matches, with Elena Wang winning twice and Mary Mulvey winning once.
On the doubles side, Alex Rawlings/Brooke Gensler, Nikki Kruger/Brittany Kullberg and Abigail Andreasen/Heidi Jonson each won all three of their sets.
“Our match with OLP was the first of the second round through the Western League,” said LeBuhn. “We were rained out of our first match with Scripps Ranch, so we haven’t completed the first round. We had a very positive week last week. But this week we play La Jolla Tuesday at home and Cathedral Catholic on the road Thursday. Wins and losses aside, this team has a great time together.”
CHS Girls Golf Splits Results in Tri-Match
Last week found the Islander Girls Golf Team participating in a tri-match with Madison and Cathedral Catholic at Coronado Muni. Coronado shot a 242, which was good enough to beat Madison, but fell short of Cathedral. Cara Barker (42), Erin Dupree (47) and Liza Logan (48) all broke 50 for the Islanders.
According to Head Coach Hanna Cohan, the team’s match Monday scheduled to be played at Balboa against Pt. Loma was rained out. This week the Islanders have three matches scheduled. Tuesday they play OLP at Riverwalk, Wednesday they compete against University City at Coronado Muni, and Thursday they are back at Riverwalk for a match with Cathedral Catholic.
Chargers Let Another Winnable Road Game Get Away
If I were writing this portion of the column for theonion.com, the headline would be, “Charger Head Coach Norv Turner Saves Running Back Ryan Matthews for Big Homecoming Dance.”
Let’s go to the stat sheet, shall we? Matthews had nine carries for 59 yards. Sunday’s starting running back Mike Tolbert has 12 carries for 11 yards. Darren Sproles had two carries for one yard. If Matthews has all 23 of those rushing attempts, it’s my belief that San Diego wins the game and extends their winning streak against Oakland.
As an aside, on the Chargers website, the depth chart has Matthews as the first string running back, Sproles on the second team and Tolbert on the third. Perhaps a Chargers staffer could print that out and staple it to Norv’s play chart for next week.
Charger quarterback Philip Rivers had an above average game, with a quarterback rating of 114.3. Receiver Malcom Floyd had the game of his career with eight catches and 213 yards. Playoff-worthy teams have to establish some ground attack to keep the offense honest and the Chargers are struggling with that element of their game.
The Charger special teams play continues to be atrocious. Here’s a football fun fact. Mike Scifres has been San Diego’s full time punter since the 2003 season and from 2003-09 inclusive, Scifres had one punt blocked. This year alone he has had three punts blocked, with two of those coming Sunday. On both blocks, the Raider defender went through the identical gap in the Charger special teams to disrupt the kick. That’s horrible coaching and worse player execution.
Another play that didn’t get much scrutiny from the game broadcasters was the lost fumble late in the game that Charger tight end Randy McMichael (No. 81) reached down to pick up, instead of falling on top of the ball, which would have enabled the Chargers to retain possession. It was a lazy play and any Pop Warner coach worth his whistle would have verbally singed McMichael on the sidelines afterwards. The Raider defender beat McMichael to the ball and earned a critical takeaway.
But the bottom line is the giveaway/takeaway numbers in the Oakland game. The Chargers fumbled three times and lost all three. The Raiders fumbled three times and recovered all three. Neither team intercepted a pass. Playoff caliber defensive units create turnovers that assist their offense in scoring easy touchdowns. No such help was forthcoming Sunday.
This marks the fourth consecutive season the Chargers have started with a 2-3 record, which may supply fans with a ray of hope. But the bad news is that the three road losses in 2010 are to teams (Chiefs, Seahawks, and Raiders) which did not make the playoffs in 2009. The Chargers, starting this week in St. Louis, need to start winning, because the opposition starts getting much tougher when they return home to face the New England Patriots Oct. 24 and the Tennessee Titans Oct. 31.