An invitation from Head Boys Golf Coach Randy Coutts to watch Islander senior Andrew Lister play in the Finals of the City Conference Match Play Tournament at Torrey Pines South came Friday morning and for several reasons, I’m glad I went. Playing almost mistake-free golf, Lister won the event. Plus it gave me an opportunity to cruise around the entire scenic course in a golf cart with Coutts.

A total of 92 golfers teed it up May 3rd to begin the City Conference Championships, in what would become a seven-day event. CHS junior Brian Turley and Lister both qualified for Match Play, which takes the best 32 scores from the original 92 players. Lister was seeded second and Turley seventh.

Turley won his First Round match 3 and 1 (ahead by three holes with one hole remaining to play) before losing 1-up to a player from Patrick Henry the following day. Lister won both of his first two rounds by scores of 9 and 7, which is roughly equivalent to winning a baseball game by the score of 15-1.

Things got a little tighter for Lister in the Quarter-Finals as he won 3 and 1. In the Semi-Finals he was victorious, winning 5-4. Basically Lister dominated the opposition for four straight days in match play heading into Friday’s Finals. Lister’s opponent in the Finals was Ben Doyle from La Jolla High School.

Although Doyle would win only two holes during the match, he has a great future in the game. He had the shot of the day on the par five, 540-yard, 13th hole when he hit his second shot to within eight feet of the pin. It was the last hole Doyle would win Friday.

The match was Lister’s from the outset as he won the first, third and fourth holes and halved the second hole to take a lead he never surrendered. Doyle won the fifth hole, while Lister won the seventh. They halved holes eight, nine and 10 and Lister won the 11th to go up four holes with seven to play. The pressure now was on the freshman from La Jolla and Lister continued to hit the ball down the middle of the fairway and make the putts he needed to sink. The players halved holes 14, 15 and 16. By that time Doyle had run out of golf course and Lister had the 3-and-1 victory and the City Conference title.

Lister, who is the defending Virginia state champion, will take his talents to College Station, Texas in the fall where he will play for Texas A&M University. The Aggies are currently ranked No. 6 in the NCAA Men’s Golf standings and Lister is looking forward to Division I golf. “I’m looking forward to Texas A&M a lot. I hope to play my freshman year. They have a really good team. I saw them play at a tournament in Palm Springs. I should be around a lot of good players and I hope I can get better.”

Lister talked about the City Conference Finals and looked ahead another week to the CIF Finals. “I was making pars and that was good enough. To get ready for the CIFs, I’m going to work on my short game a lot. I’m hitting the ball pretty well. I need to get up and down more and make more putts.”

Lister said the depth of golf talent is better in San Diego than Virginia. He and his Islander teammates will see a wide array of talent next week when the CIF San Diego Section Tournament is played at the Coronado Municipal Golf Course May 24 and 26,

CHS Girls Lacrosse Cruises Through Competition

Let’s play ‘Pick Your Poll.’ WestSidelax.com has the CHS Girls Lacrosse Team (18-1) rated No. 2 in the state, one rung below St. Ignatius Prep. LaxPower.com has CHS rated No. 1 in the state ahead of No. 2 Torrey Pines and No. 3 St. Ignatius. Take your pick, but either way, Head Coach Jessica Battle and her team are having a great campaign.

Last week the Islanders finished their regular season with a 19-6 win over Serra High School and in the process clinched the City Conference championship. This result was achieved without the services of starters Kaitlyn Couture, Niki Kruger and Alex Reidy. Goalie Meganne Weissenfels had 13 saves to record the victory.

On the offensive end of the field, Lauren Maack, Michaela Guerrera, Brianne Clifford, Mary Grace Braun, Anna Coumes, Mollie Privett, Caroline Carlson and Erica Keamy all scored goals in profusion. Martha Byrne dominated the draw controls, winning 14 out of 20. Coronado won 34 groundballs, which is the lacrosse equivalent of offensive rebounds in basketball. They are effort plays which almost always make a huge difference in the outcome of a game.

Saturday it was off to the Division II Playoffs, where to no one’s surprise Coronado was the No. 1 seed and drew Santana in the Quarter-Finals. We’ll pass for now on how stupid the CIF Lacrosse playoff concept is for 2011 and report that the final score was Coronado 23, Lauren Maack 8 and Santana 6. To prove she could dish it out as well as score, the speedy senior Maack also had three assists. The usual suspects listed above scored along with Reidy, who added two goals and dominated the draw control slot for the Islanders. Weissenfels had seven saves.

The Islanders Division II Semi-Final playoff game is Thursday evening at 7 pm against Canyon Crest (12-6). Quietly coming out of the other half of the bracket of Cathedral Catholic (11-8) a team that Coronado defeated 16-3 in City Conference play, but Weissenfels had to save 15 shots on goal for the Islanders to win the game. “I forgot about Cathedral being in Division II,” said Battle. “I have to talk to the girls about them.”

The good news is that the Islanders won’t have to face the Dons until the Finals, which will be held Saturday, May 21st at 11 am at Westview High School. Battle expects her squad to be at full strength for the final two playoff games this week.

Islander Boys Lacrosse Pulls No. 1 Seed in Division II

The Islander Boys Lacrosse Team had an uneven week, which began with a home loss to La Costa Canyon by the score of 13-8. The game was played at a very high level and Coronado was within one goal late into the fourth quarter. At that point the Islanders had to gamble on defense and the Mavericks took advantage and pulled away late. Kyle Runyon scored six goals in the losing cause.

Saturday, buoyed somewhat with the No. 1 seed in Division II, Coronado hosted St. Augustine and emerged with a 17-1 victory. The win places Coronado into the Semi-Finals against San Marcos and the two teams play Wednesday at Coronado at 7 pm. The Boys Division II Finals will be held Saturday, May 21st at 3 pm at Westview High School.

CHS Boys Volleyball Wins First Round Match, Then Falls to St. Augustine

Thursday evening, as the CHS Boys Volleyball Team (11-10) was warming up for their First Round match vs. Mater Dei (5-24), Islander senior setter and Central League MVP Jake Nicholson sprained his ankle and was carried off the court to the training room. “I looked back and everybody was crowding around Jake,” said Head Coach Shawn Patchell. “Then they carried him off. That was pretty exciting to see the league MVP go down. You never know what nerves are going to do, but our guys were poised.”

The final score was 25-14, 25-22 and 25-18. The starting lineup included Nicholson, who after getting his ankle tightly taped persevered and played most of the match. He was joined by Andrew Orozco, Jason Fielder, John Nettleton, Josh Abrantes and Tyler Webb. Nate Hoffman played libero and did a fine job defensively.

The second set was a back and forth affair, with Jaime Gonzalez-Luna a big contributor with five points including two aces in the early going. Coronado held a 22-15 lead before the Crusaders ran off seven straight points to tie the game at 22-22. A Crusader service error followed, which seemingly was a long time coming for the Coronado faithful.  Two serves from Fielder closed out the second set.

Mid-way through the third set with Coronado leading 12-6, neither team could put a long scoring run together. Coronado began chipping away a couple of points at a time and Johnny Fisher served an ace to end the match.

The victory earned the Islanders a Quarter-Finals slot against No. 2 seed St. Augustine on the road and Coronado fell 25-17, 25-15 and 25-10. Patchell took the game in stride and had a philosophical approach to the loss. “The most important part was getting experience for the juniors and the sophomores, so we have something to build on for next year. They guys bought in this season and they got better. That’s all you can ask for. To have a chance to win league and take second, plus making the second round of the CIFs, makes for a good season.”

Islander Boys Tennis Ends CIF Div. III Run in Semi-Finals

Coronado’s Boys Tennis Team enjoyed a good run through the CIF Division III Playoffs, starting with a win over Christian by the score of 15-3. Greg Lyon was 2-2 in his singles sets, Sean Lee was 3-3, Cort Dalton was 2-3 and Jake Finley was 1-1.

In doubles play, Kyle Koshland/Luke Hoffman was 3-3, Brad Matheus/Weston Breay was 2-2, Shaun Koshland/Grey Halpin won one of two sets and the pairing of Michael Whalen/Drew Maracle was 1-1.

The victory over Christian was followed the next day by a 12-6 win over Bishop’s. “Then we got to La Jolla,” said Head Coach Leslie Koshland. “They played their strong lineup against us and won 17-1. I feel really glad we made it to where we did.”

This week the Islanders compete in the Western League individual tournament and the entire varsity roster is entered. The lineup is much like that listed above, except Maracle will play singles, while Dalton/Whalen and Finley/Luke McCue will form doubles teams. Lyon enters the competition seeded No. 5 on the singles side. Kyle Koshland/Luke Hoffman is seeded No. 8 on the doubles bracket.

Boys and Girls swimming Overview:

Islander Head Swim Coach Dave Throop discusses last week’s City Conference meet and looks ahead to the CIF Prelims and Finals this week. “Entering the City Conference Meet, our goal was to race each individual heat and that philosophy would lead to our secondary goals of best times, team placement and scoring.  

The Girls side of the team is young and for the most, this was their first real opportunity to contribute at this level and they swam well and raced well.  It would have been a great way to conclude the Conference segment of our season with their best times, but sometimes that can be difficult to do when a team is as young as we are.  

Cathy White in the 100 back, Katy Gauvin in the 500 free, and Gabie Darlak in the 100 breast all swam their best times of the season in the City Conference Finals after already having performed well in the prelims.  Seniors Shelby Couture, Heidi Jonson, Morgan Karney and Kendall Martin all swam well in one of their last high school opportunities with their final opportunity hopefully being the CIF meet this week.  We may not have many individual qualifiers in the CIF meet for the Women's team, but with the exception of those seniors, we're young, we're learning and we have established a foundation for future years to build upon.  

The Boy’s side of the squad saw some tremendous swims and some incredible time drops.  Most of the guys swam their best times in the prelims and on a colder finals afternoon raced well, but perhaps their times didn't reflect their efforts.  For those individuals who came into the Finals meet and swam faster than their prelims times, it was a nice way to finish the week.  

Garret Sabesky in the 200 individual medley, dropped close to three seconds from his prelim time, with Nick Wiley improving his time to a 2:13.20 and Braydon Hummeldorf swimming his fastest 200 IM times for the year in the prelims and finals.  Israel Dedina dropped an additional three seconds in the 500 freestyle from his previous drop of six seconds in the prelims.  Van Burgess raced two good 200 freestyles in the prelims and finals and is still learning a difficult race. He also placed second in the 100 free, where he was joined by teammates Patrick Geer, Putnam Browne and Tommy Grall.

Josh Williams swam a nice 100 butterfly to pace the team of John Hill, Garrett Eyer and Patrick Mayles while Blaze LaRoe was our lone swimmer in the backstroke and swam his two best times of the year in the finals and prelims.  

The strength of the team this year was our depth in the 100 breaststroke and unfortunately we could only enter four of our six athletes who swim the event during the season. Sabesky won the event having trailed for approximately 80 yards of the race, while Hummeldorf was third, Browne finished fourth and Drew Findley was fifth.  The Boys team finished second to Conference Champion La Jolla.

What I enjoyed the most was watching the athletes race and race well. We hope to see some additional improvements into the CIF prelims on Wednesday and hope to carry that over into Saturday's CIF Championship Finals.  

CHS Water Polo Alumni Update

Coach Throop also provided a quick CHS Water Polo Alumni update. “Ashley Young and the Golden Bears of UC Berkeley finished second to champion Stanford in the NCAA Tournament over the weekend. Katie Estrada (CHS '07), Hannah Sebenaler (CHS '08), and Kelly Ronimus (CHS '10) and their Bruin teammates at UCLA finished third, beating rival USC 6-5. Hillary Estrada (CHS '10) and her Anteaters of Cal Irvine placed fifth. In Men's Water Polo news, Tommy Corcoran (CHS ’04) helped Team USA beat Canada two times in recent FINA World League play.  Tommy scored a pair of goals in the two games.”

Islander Track and Field Report

CHS Head Track Coach George Green provides a report on his teams’ efforts. “The Central League Track and Field Championships took place last week with events held at Lincoln on Monday and Tuesday, and at Mira Mesa Friday.

The Finals on Friday were held in conjunction with the Western and Eastern League Championships. The top two finishers from each League, in each event, advance to the CIF prelims Saturday at Mt. Carmel. We also scored the finals against Lincoln to determine the Central League Girls Team Championship. Both the Hornets and the Islanders came into the finals with 5-0 records, but Coronado came out on top by the score of 69-57 to claim the Girls Central League Title for this season. 

This year's Central League Individual Champions are Nicole Davies who won the 1,600-meter run in 5:18.34, Aryan Shay who won the 800-meter run in 2:00.15, and Abigail Callahan who won the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 3 inches. Davies also advanced in the 800-meter run with a second place finish. 

Advancing to the CIF prelims were Meg Sweeney in the both the 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs; Maddy Danielson in the 300-meter hurdles; Madeline Hopson in both the long jump and triple jump;  Sierra Smith in the high jump; Lauren Bartsch in the girls pole vault; and Will Bartsch in the boys pole vault. Our 4x400 meter relay team advanced and consists of (including our alternate) Sadie Gimber, Elise Umansky, Cassie Callahan, Danielson, and Davies. They finished second to Lincoln with a time of 4:15.28.

A few other athletes are first and second alternates and stand a good chance of making the finals if other athletes scratch from their events. This group includes Ale Bruyere in the 100 and 200-meter dashes, Abigail Callahan in the long jump and Brittany Hallawell in the high jump.

Not advancing but finishing-up their season strong were Logan Lister in the shot put and discus throw; Adrienne Reyes, Danielle Simmons, Emma Renly and Maria Swidin in the hurdles; Kendall Cromartie, Samantha Kirk, and Katie Brooks in the 100 and 200-meter sprints; Chad Faul in the 300-meter hurdles; Ashley Engelman in the 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs; Cristina DeScisciolo and Michael Cerdinio in the 3,200 meters; Will Funk and Chris Leary in the 1,600 meters; Ryan Keeney in the 400; Lauren Bower in the long jump; Jack Gold and Carlos Montes in the pole vault; Freddy Smith and Garrett Kodama in the discus; Stephanie Hamilton and Yvonne Wood in the triple jump; and Shawn Gingery in the 100 meters.”

CHS Sailing Team Takes Second at Nationals

Head CHS Sailing Coach Rob Hallawell provides the good news emanating from the Coronado High School Sailing Team. “The 2011 High School National Sailing Championships were held in Austin, Texas over the Mother’s Day weekend. 

As one of five Pacific coast qualifiers, the Coronado Islanders had high hopes to improve on their sixth place finish last year.  Thirty-eight races against 20 schools from all over the U.S. and the Virgin Islands stood in their way.

At the completion of the first day of sailing on Saturday, the Islanders were distraught and exhausted, sitting in fourth place with what seemed like an insurmountable deficit behind the lead teams.  But things turned around for Coronado Sunday.

Senior Hans Henken and Junior Esteban Forrer were the skippers for the two Coronado boats.  Hans, sailing with Senior Kaitlin Dunphey and Junior Katie Dowling, struggled at the start of each race but with speed and sharp tactics seemed to will himself to the front of the “A” fleet.  Esteban on the other hand, sailing with Sophomore Greg Coumes and Freshman Paris Henken, was able to get a quick lead of the start of most of his races, but was frustrated by the strong, shifty winds.  He ended up third in the “B” division.

After Saturday, the Antilles School, from St. Thomas, stood comfortably in front.  Long time Coronado rival Point Loma was in second followed by a group that included Severn, from Annapolis, Maryland, then Coronado and the other California schools.  Adjustments the team made on Saturday night helped account for Sunday‘s success. Everyone was focused and even our substitutes Jenny Melnick and Chuckie Eaton, still believed we had a chance.  The Islanders steadily dropped the teams around them and gained on Antilles and Point Loma. “We had done our homework,” said Henken.  “We knew the plan.  We just needed to go out and execute and let the other teams make mistakes.” 

“After the twenty-one races on Saturday, we were 70 points behind,” said Forrer.  “We tried not to watch the scoreboard, but we knew we were getting close.  We were by far the best team on Sunday.  With two races to go we were behind by 12 points, and we had been gaining about four points per race.”  Despite a strong closing finish by Coronado, Antilles held on to win Gold, the Islanders won Silver and Point Loma finished a close third.

The team was disappointed with second place, but I’m proud of them.  Not with just the eight sailors who went to Nationals, but everyone who competed including Patrick Powell, Ryan Nies, Sterling Henken, Drew Schaub, Stanley Davis and my daughter, Brittany Hallawell. We wouldn’t have made it to Nationals without their hard work and contributions throughout the season.  I also want to thank the Coronado Yacht Club, the parents of all these kids and the entire Coronado community.  We do a lot of fundraising and there were many individuals and businesses who stepped up to help us out.  On behalf of all the sailors, thank you.”

Islander Softball Splits Central League Pair

Coronado ran into the softball buzz saw that is operated by Madison High School last week, and the Islanders came out on the short end of a 12-4 score. “After three innings it was 6-4,”said Coronado Head Coach Tony Isabella. “Then they opened it up and scored six runs in the sixth inning. The girls played very well. I’m very proud of the girls.”

Coronado’s hitting stars included Lauren Curtis who was 3-4, Kayla Englehart was 2-4 with two runs scored and the big bopper was Nicole Aguilar who was 3-4 with three doubles. “She is absolutely crushing the ball,” said Isabella of Aguilar. Alanna Pompa, who pitched much of the game, was 2-4 at the plate.

Thursday things returned to normal for Coronado (12-6 overall, 10-3 in the Central League) as they defeated San Diego High School 6-1. “We jumped ahead with three runs in the first inning and it was downhill for the Cavers thereafter,” Isabella noted. “We had very good defensive play and the girls were running well and were aggressive on the bases.”

Englehart and Aguilar combined for five hits in eight at bats and scored a total of five runs. Hollyn Toomey was 2-4. Lakota Abdalla-Kane struck out five Caver batters, gave up four hits and earned the victory.

The Islander regular season concludes Monday. Tuesday the playoff brackets come out and Wednesday Coronado will have a play-in game for the CIF Division IV playoffs. “We’ll probably get a No. 8 or 9 seed,” Isabella said. “The second round game will be Friday.”

Islander Baseball Splits Pair with Mission Bay

Last week was a week of outstanding pitching performances for the Islanders. Tuesday they defeated Mission Bay 3-0 on a complete game, four-hitter by Jake Meloche. Austin Denson had two hits, Kyle Teachout contributed a two-run double and Tyler Brownell, Marcos Cepin and Denson each scored once.

Jake had good command and went the whole way,” said Head Coach Sam Ceci. “He pitched out of a little trouble. It was scoreless going into the sixth inning. We faced their No. 1 pitcher, who was a lefty, with a good curve ball.”

Thursday the Islanders lost to Mission Bay 1-0 in the game played at Mission Bay. Luke Gillingham was once again a tough-luck loser, as the only Buccaneer run was unearned. For the season, Gillingham (4-4) has a superb 1.72 earned run average. Meloche (3-5) is a touch better at 1.65. “The second one was doable,” Ceci said of the game at Mission Bay. “It wasn’t meant to happen.”

This week the Islanders face Cathedral Catholic, regarded as one of the strongest teams in the section, irrespective of division. Fortunately they compete in Division III. Ceci predicts that the Islanders (12-15, 4-6 in the Western League) will be seeded somewhere in the No. 3 to No. 5 range in Division IV, depending on the results of the final week of play. The baseball playoff brackets will be released Saturday with the playoffs starting either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on Coronado’s seed.