Nado Natterings
A weekly column by David Axelson Back to Index

27 October 2010 Issue #43

Friday’s Islander Football game played at Clairemont High School and won by Coronado 42-7, was one of the stranger contests of the current gridiron season on a couple of fronts. Neither team scored in either the first or fourth quarter. In addition, the Chieftains posted the first touchdown of the game. As you can tell from the final score, the Islanders proceeded to run off 42 unanswered points and by virtue of their victory, climbed to the top of the Central League standings with a 3-0 record. Coronado now owns an overall mark of 5-2.

Clairemont scored with 9:47 remaining in the second quarter, after intercepting an Islander pass on Coronado’s 16-yard line. Five plays later the Chieftains scored on a short pass completion to take a 7-0 lead.

Coronado countered 14 seconds later as senior Jeff Bona scored on an 89-yard kickoff return. Until that point, the Islanders had looked flat, a concept not lost on Islander Head Coach Bud Mayfield. “I thought we were dead out there until Bona put some life into us. Our defense came to play and there is more than one way to win the game. The kids were resourceful. However, at this point in the season, I would have preferred for the offense to be rolling a little more. The timing on offense, which is so crucial, wasn’t there.”

After not scoring for 15 minutes of game clock time, the Islanders would then find the end zone a total of five times in 8 minutes and 27 seconds.

The next Coronado touchdown came on a play that I have never seen before. After the Islander kickoff, a one-yard Chieftain run and an incomplete pass were sandwiched between illegal procedure penalties. As a result, Clairemont now had the ball on their two yard line. Facing a third and 15 situation, the Chieftain quarterback dropped back to pass and promptly threw the ball into the outstretched arms of Jordan Jacobs, who was standing in the middle of the end zone when he caught the ball. It’s the only zero yardage, pick-six return for a touchdown that Mayfield, the 18-year veteran game referee or I have ever seen.

Six minutes later, an Islander drive highlighted by two pass completions from quarterback Austin Denson to tight end Ryan Halvorson, resulted in Andrew Toomey scoring on a two-yard run. Three plays later linebacker Bobby Brandenburg intercepted a tipped Chieftain pass and scored on a 20-yard return. Seventeen seconds later Freddie Smith recovered a fumble and Denson found Bona for a 24-yard touchdown pass. The halftime score was 35-7 in favor of Coronado.

In the second half, both teams traded possessions and drives before Denson found Halvorson, who made a catch and run covering 76 yards for the game’s final touchdown.

Mayfield’s Black Shirt Award winners reflected the dominance of the Islander defense, as linebackers Toomey and Halvorson and defensive lineman Jose Sanchez were named game MVPs. Clairemont had 16 pass plays that were either intercepted or fell incomplete. “Our defense put pressure on him later in the game,” said Mayfield of the Chieftain quarterback. “Our defense had a lot to do with the incompletions.”

Toomey had three solo tackles and seven assists; Sanchez had six solo tackles and two assisted tackles to go with one and one-half sacks; while John Nettleton joined Jacobs and Brandenburg in picking off Clairemont passes. Despite their dominance on the scoreboard, Coronado only had 239 net yards of offense, with 178 yards coming on 21 pass plays and 61 yards coming on 27 running plays.

With three Central League games remaining on the schedule, Coronado holds a one game lead over Kearny (3-1), Morse (2-1) and University City (2-1). San Diego (1-2) and Clairemont (1-3) are pretty much out of the race. Crawford (0-4) has opted to forfeit the balance of their varsity games due to a lack of scholastically eligible and healthy players.

Crawford forfeiting the balance of their games doesn’t do Coronado any favors. Due to the holes in the schedule created by Crawford, each of the three opponents remaining on the Islander schedule, Morse, San Diego and University City, now have two full weeks to prepare for their games with the Islanders.

Asked to preview the Morse game, Mayfield described the Tigers when they have the ball as running, “An offense of the week. We’ve looked at a lot of film and they run something different almost every week. They don’t do the same things over and over. They have great athleticism, they are huge and they have speed. They are waiting for a kid to make a great play instead of having a synchronized offense built around an individual.”

Regarding the league race, Mayfield knows the next three games will be important. “Unless we can go undefeated, the league champion will have one loss. The league race is really a dog fight. This is the strongest Central League in five years.” Coronado will host Morse Friday night with the kickoff scheduled for 7:30 pm.

North County Times Prep Football Poll

Here is this week’s edition of the “North County Times Prep Football Poll,” which is voted upon by 21 sportswriters and broadcasters from throughout San Diego County. No. 1 Vista, No. 2. Eastlake, No. 3.Helix, No. 4 Torrey Pines, No. 5 Valley Center, No. 6. Oceanside, No. 7. Steele Canyon, No. 8. La Costa Canyon, No. 9. (Tie) Mount Miguel and St. Augustine.

Other schools receiving votes included: Mission Hills, Rancho Bernardo, Poway, Olympian, Mira Mesa, Grossmont and Cathedral Catholic.

CHS Boys Water Polo Continues to Show Improvement

This week Islander Boys Water Polo Head Coach Randy Burgess filed a report on his squad, which posted a 2-1 record last week. “For this water polo season I reflect on Charles Spurgeon, England's best-known preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century, who said, “By perseverance the snail reached the ark.” The progress of the boys' water polo team has exceeded a snail's pace, but it is progress nevertheless.

By comparative scores with two early season opponents, Coronado's squad has indeed started to solidify. Wednesday's league match with Bishop's at home was a great match, but a one goal loss for the Islanders, 8-7. This was much more competitive than an earlier 20-6 pounding Coronado took while at Bishop's at the end of September.

Similarly, Coronado played host to Long Beach Wilson on Saturday after losing to the Bruins 13-3 in Irvine just a week earlier. The outcome favored the Islanders 8-7 in this recent match. In between, on Thursday, Coronado also hosted Orange County’s Santa Margarita, starting off tentatively, but finishing very strong to win 11-5.

In the Bishop's match Patrick Geer lead all scorers with his best showing of the year, finishing with four goals. Van Burgess, Tommy Grall and Nick Wiley had one goal apiece. Garrett Sabesky played the entire game, finishing with a strong 10 saves.

Santa Margarita and Coronado met in a pre-season scrimmage, but the Islanders
dominated the real game on Friday afternoon, going on a five-goal second quarter run to take a 7-3 halftime lead. The Islanders never let up as they outscored Santa Margarita 4-2 in the second half. Braydon Hummeldorf went the full game in goal, recording 10 saves on the day. Garrett Smerdon led Coronado with three goals, Dylan Peterson, Geer and Burgess tallying two each. Eitan Peled and Wiley each had a goal as well.

Enter Long Beach Wilson Saturday evening. Always a tough opponent, the Bruins and Islanders both played strong defensive games literally matching one another through the first half goal for goal (2-2). Coronado took a one goal lead in the third and both schools played evenly in the final quarter.

The Islanders survived an onslaught of point blank shots in the final Wilson possession of the game and Coronado was literally saved by the final buzzer, winning 8-7. Sabesky went the full 28 minutes having 14 saves and four steals. Offensively, Geer and Burgess tallied two goals each while Peterson, Peled, Smerdon and Wiley had one apiece. Smerdon had the game winner on a very creative assist from Wiley with less than a minute to play.

Coronado travels to Cathedral Catholic Wednesday for a Western League game, then head to Northern California for a game Thursday with Campolindo High School. Then we start play in the Finis Memorial Cup with two games Friday and Saturday. Coronado returns home to play La Jolla the following Wednesday, November 3, 5pm. That game will be highlighted by great water polo and will serve as a fundraiser for the Lance Armstrong / Live STRONG Foundation.”

Cross Country Report

We knew the Islander Boys Cross Country Team would have their hands full against Clairemont last Tuesday, but we didn't know much more than that, as there was little to go on save for a couple of dual meets they'd had with much weaker teams. To top it off, the meet was run in a downpour that caused many runners to slip and fall because of the wet grass and mud along the route. 

As expected, Clairemont's Matt Willette and Coronado's Aryan Shay went right to the front to duke it out for bragging rights to the top spot. These two, along with Madison's Connor Torre are the top three runners in the league this season.

Just after the first mile on the course, there's a hairpin turn around a tree at the bottom of a steep, grassy (now wet, steep and grassy) downhill stretch that, in the race just before ours, Torre fell on. To try to avoid more falls the coaches warned runners as they approached that turn to be careful.

Willette and Shay, however, were in race mode and Shay went down giving Willette a pretty good lead. However, it was a three-mile race and Shay quickly made up the difference. By the two-mile point he was well in the lead and won going away with a time of 16:44 to Willette's 17:13.

Team-wise Clairemont proved to be very close to us, as a series of close match-ups ensued. Ryan Keeney placed third in 17:39 followed by a Clairemont runner in 17:43. Will Funk placed fifth in 17:52 followed by a Clairemont runner in 18:03. Nicholas Beall placed seventh in 18:27 followed by a Clairemont runner in 18:33. Drew Findley placed ninth in 18:34 followed by a Clairemont runner in 18:41 to complete the scoring with Coronado coming out on top by the score of 25-30. The next five finishers were from Coronado with Jason Vance, Paul Rodriguez, Jack Gold, Casey Engelman and Carlos Montes finishing within one minute of one-another.

By far the top two girls' teams in the league are Coronado and Clairemont so, instead of risking injury and to prepare for meets on Friday, we didn't contest the girls' race. The league championship will be determined by the team that wins the Central League finals, regardless which team won Tuesday.

On Saturday about half of the team competed at the Mt. SAC (Mt. San Antonio College) Invite in Walnut Ca.  All races were three miles in length and run in perfect conditions; cool, overcast and a little wet. Engelman had his best race ever. After going out a bit too fast for the first mile (5:30), he finished 14th out of 155 competitors in his freshman race with a time of 18:53. In that same race Chris Leary placed 30th in 19:34 followed by Josh Blore in 72nd in 21:12. 

We had three runners entered in the boys' sophomore race but decided to put Gold and Montes in the varsity race instead, because of nagging injuries to two other runners previously entered. Weston Breay did run the race, but because of computer problems his results are not available.

In our heat of the Boys combined Division IV and Division V races, we placed sixth with Shay finishing 15th out of 160 runners with a time of 16:55. Keeney was next in 31st with a time of 17:29 followed by Funk (44th), Findley (61st), Gold (80th), and Montes (99th). 

We had a girls' team in the so-called "JV National Championships for Divisions III, IV and V" that placed 12th overall and fifth in Division IV with Sierra Smith leading the way in 48th place. She was followed in order by Martha Byrne (51st), Taylor Ramos (53rd), Maddy Danielson (70th) and Vanessa Tortolero (77th).

 In the girls' varsity sweepstakes race, three of our top runners either had to drop-out or had other issues and we placed only 12th. This is not what we had hoped for as we're one of the top ranked teams in the state. Hopefully the girls will be back at full strength by the time the state meet rolls around. Annie Lovering was our top finisher in 24th place followed by Ashley Engelman (53rd), Elise Umansky (54th), Mollie Privett (56th) and an ailing Meg Sweeney (72nd).”

CHS Girls Tennis Ends Regular Season 9-9

Hoping for a 10-win season, CHS Girls Tennis Head Coach Rob LeBuhn and his team had to settle for the next best option, finishing 9-9 and earning the program’s first .500 record in many years. Tuesday Coronado defeated University 14-4 as the Islander doubles teams were a perfect 9-0 in their sets.

Winners included the doubles pairs of Alex Rawlings/Brooke Gensler, Nikki Kruger/Brittany Kullberg, and Heidi Jonson/Leila Zbinden. On the singles side Jackie Hites and Mary Mulvey won two sets each and Elena Wang won one.

Due to weather problems, Coronado and Scripps Ranch wound up playing each other in consecutive weeks, and the Falcons swept both matches, including an 11-7 affair last week. “This match was close and a much better match than the week before,” said LeBuhn.

This week the Western League Tournament will be held starting Tuesday at Morley Field. A total of 15 Islanders will participate. The highest seeded player from Coronado is Hites, who spent the season playing No. 1 singles for the Islanders. She drew the No. 8 seed in singles.

The week after that, Coronado is expected to qualify for the CIF Team Tournament at the Division III level.

Girls Golf Splits Pair of Matches Last Week

Rainy conditions wreaked havoc on the CHS Girls Golf schedule last week, with some of the rainouts postponing matches that had already been postponed once before. The team did get two matches in, including a 252-286 win over Scripps Ranch and later in the week the Islanders lost to Point Loma 258-288.

Head Coach Hanna Cohan is still trying to get matches in for the team and this week they have a tri-match Monday among Coronado, Point Loma and La Jolla at Coronado Muni. Tuesday the Islanders will compete against OLP and Scripps Ranch at Sea ‘N Air in another tri-match.

Coronado enters the week with an overall record of 10-5 and 5-4 in the Western League.

Friday the City Conference Tournament will be played at Cottonwood and Cohan thinks Cara Barker, Liza Logan, Erin Dupree and Kayla Englehart should qualify for the event. Other entrants could include Andrea Perez and Emily Bodkin. The following week the CIF Team and Individual Tournaments will be held at Woods Valley Monday and Admiral Baker Wednesday.

Islander Lacrosse Teams to Compete at Division I Level in 2010-11

Coronado Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Felix, who sits on the CIF Board of Managers for the San Diego Section, wrote last week that Coronado will be permitted to continue to compete in Division I in the sport of lacrosse this season.

Through last season, there was only one division each for boys and girls lacrosse in the county. All teams (42 teams on the boys side and 38 teams for the girls) competed in one division with 16 teams making the playoffs. For 2010-11, the CIF decided to split lacrosse into two divisions, with 12 teams making the playoffs in each division. The theory was to allow more teams to make the playoffs.

However, Coronado High School, due to its relatively small enrollment (1,109), would have been relegated to Division II, where neither the boys nor the girls team would have had any real competition. The school decided to appeal and asked to play up a division. However, currently the only sport in the San Diego Section where a school can ‘play up’ is football.

Last week the county lacrosse coaches voted to keep the old one division format in place for another year. By the end of the current school year, the CIF San Diego Section will likely have passed legislation that will allow other sports to move up a division for competitive reasons.

All of which is a circuitous way of saying, we’re back to where we were for the past several years.

Chargers Lone Playoff Hope is to Win AFC West Title

The trouble with writing about the 2010 San Diego Chargers (2-5) is that their reasons for losing games are in constant flux. One week (okay several weeks) it was their special teams unit which was giving up touchdowns at an alarming rate.

This week a couple of offensive players displayed their lack of knowledge of the NFL rule book. One athlete didn’t recognize and cover a backwards pass thrown in his direction. Another Bolt playing his first pro game after a college career at Florida State, caught his first pass, went down untouched and while going for style points, spun the ball on the ground so that the New England could gratefully take possession. The Patriots transformed the turnover into a subsequent touchdown.

The Chargers defense played well, but for a period of time in the third quarter, Patriot quarterback Tom Brady picked the San Diego defense apart and ran the score to 23-6 in favor or New England. A furious Charger rally got the final score to 23-20.

The old NFL aphorism regarding giveaways/takeaways determining the outcome of games doesn’t usually re-surface until the playoffs, but let’s point out that San Diego turned the ball over four times on three lost fumbles and a pass interception and that New England did not have a turnover. The flip side to this coin is that the Charger defense is not creating any takeaways to provide their own offense with decent field position.

Occasionally you can have a team so physically talented that they cover up their mental gaffes with pure athletic ability. But as we discussed last week, the talent level on the Chargers is not what it once was. Executing a big running play when it really matters or completing the long downfield pass for an easy touchdown, isn’t currently in the Chargers offensive inventory.

As we close Natterings this week, let’s look at the curious case of Antonio Gates vs. the Patriots. If I were to purchase a Charger jersey, it would be emblazoned with ‘85’ on the back because I love the way Gates plays the game and goes about his business. Gates sustained a foot/toe injury in last week’s loss in St. Louis, and took a pain killing injection immediately before the New England game so that he could play.  

Gates did not catch a pass in the first 60 Charger offensive plays, acting as an offensive decoy. In the last 10 plays he caught four passes for 50 yards and a touchdown. Why do you have an All-Pro tight end, playing on a bad foot, act as a decoy? If he is playing, why don’t you throw the ball to your All-Pro tight end, who is also your best receiver? Do you suppose the Charger collective brain cramps, some of which are described above, aren’t confined to the players, but have spilled over to the coaching staff? Just asking.

With the balance of power in the NFL currently residing in the AFC, the Chargers have no chance to win a wild card playoff slot and will have to rally to pass the Kansas City Chiefs (4-2) for the AFC West title to make the post season. However, the Chiefs are playing with a purpose and at this point, the Chargers look like they are playing out the string.  

The Steelers, Ravens, Titans, Jets, Colts and Patriots will likely account for the other division titles and the wild card playoff spots. So bottom line if you are a Bolts fan is to hope for a Chiefs collapse coupled with the Chargers beginning to play like the season matters to them.