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Nado Natterings |
A weekly column by David Axelson |
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Nado Natterings
by David Axelson, Chief Executive Officer
The Islander Sports Foundation
25 April 2007 Issue #16
Avis Car Rental mounted a ground-breaking advertising campaign in 1962 with the tag line, “We’re No. 2, We try harder.” The same slogan, originally aimed at long-time Avis rival Hertz and updated 45 years later, would appear to be relevant for both the Coronado High School Girls Lacrosse Team and the CHS Boys Lacrosse Team.
The Girls squad, now sporting a nifty 10-1 record on the season, pursued an interesting scheduling path en route to their No. 2 regional ranking from Laxpower.com. They had no games scheduled for the entire week after spring break, but they countered that lull with three games last week. Their first contest in the busy week was a 14-12 loss to No. 1 ranked La Costa Canyon.
When asked if the layoff hurt the Islanders’ performance against the Mavericks, Coronado Head Coach Jessica Battle replied, “Against La Costa Canyon, I don’t think so. They are extremely fast and they have a ton of depth. Player for player, we are much better. We gave up three goals in 90 seconds and if we hadn’t done that, we would have won. We’re ready to move on.”
Bria Phillips led Coronado’s scoring attack with four goals,
followed by Hannah Sebenaler with three, Greer Goebels and Melissa Humphrey with two each and Kelsey Branch with one
tally. Goalie Alyssa Littin was
credited with 13 saves.
Four days after the loss,
“We really didn’t play well in
either of those games,” said
Although ranked ahead of No. 3
Poway and behind No. 1 La Costa Canyon,
Lurking within striking range is
No. 4 ranked
Boys Lacrosse Bests Two Section Opponents
Maintaining their hold on the No. 2 ranking in the CIF San Diego Section, the Boys Lacrosse Team took to the road last week and defeated Bishops 10-6 and Cathedral Catholic 10-6.
This week the Islanders play at
St. Margaret’s Monday, they travel to Scripps Ranch Tuesday at
CHS Softball Shows Continued Improvement With
Western League Split
Fueled by five Islanders with
multi-hit games,
Islander Head Coach Marti Bonelli picks up the narrative
from there. “The Islanders struck quickly in the first inning by stringing
together five singles in a row for three runs. The second inning saw
Our last two runs came on a
two-out rally in the fourth. Harris hit a solid single to left, Mebust followed
with a near-perfect bunt, which caught the
Defensive highlights included two
fine running catches by centerfielder Brandi Bible. In addition, Bible ended
the game and a
Thursday Coronado lost to
The pitching loss was absorbed by Feist, but she continues to improve and develop her pitches. Bible continued her fine defensive play with yet another outfield assist, throwing out a runner at the plate after catching a fly ball.
The Islanders had opportunities in every inning but one, so the game never seemed out of reach or out of hand. The fifth inning saw the Islanders break through. After back-to-back walks to Shannon Julius and Lauren Zeleniak, Feist bunted them to second and third. Then Alexis Wright went deep, driving in two runs with a double. Mebust and Cepin both hit shots that were turned into outs on fine plays by the UC defense.
The hardest hit ball of the day was struck by Zeleniak in the bottom of the second. She hit a drive at least 30 feet over the left fielder’s head that was absolutely crushed. Unfortunately the Centurion’s leftfielder is their fastest player and she held Zeke to a stand-up triple.
This next week we have a bye on
Tuesday, but on Thursday we host Point Loma. Pt. Loma pounded us the last
time we played, so this time around we are going to be working hard all week
to show them a better game and an improved team. We are starting to incorporate
more aggressive base running and a better understanding of team offense. I
think we are in for a whole lot of fun in the next few weeks.”
CHS Track and Field Contingent Posts Win over Crawford
Head Track Coach George Green relates the story behind
At the starting line, however,
there were no Crawford runners. Turner
Stanley, Aaron White, and Dean
Galliano finished
This was the second week in a row I’ve noticed the CHS football coaching staff in the stands, but I don’t think they were there for the 3200-meter run. The speed match-up of the day featured Islander running back Kyle Brown and the Colts’ Aaron Simpson. With two worthy opponents, and a brisk tail-wind, the Boys 100-meter dash figured to be fast and it was. Brown won in 11.0 (hand-timed), with Simpson crossing the finish line in 11.3. Hand times are rounded up to the next 10th of a second, but I had the winning time at around 10.92, which corresponded to what the official timers recorded. The time came as no surprise as Brown was clocking flying 30’s in training last week in 3 seconds flat.
The order of finish was reversed in the 200-meters, with both runners finishing in around 23.5 seconds. Brown had just long-jumped 22-9 and his back was bothering him a bit. In the triple jump, Kyle teamed with Kenny Twomey (who also won the 300-meter hurdles) and Tim Conway to take all nine available points. Again, no Crawford jumpers entered the event.
The other major factor
responsible for the win was our dominance in the distance events. In addition
to our sweeping the 3200 meters, Ben
Enowitz, White, and Michael Davies went 1-2-3 in the 1600-meter run
for nine points and the 800 was won by David
Grimes, followed by Enowitz, for
eight more points. Grimes also won the 400, followed by
With top San Diego Section athletes like Sarah Player, Danielle Eckert and Sallie Privett, along with a strong supporting cast, the Girls meet figured to be no contest. So, we put Player, Eckert, Neisha Scales and Danielle Gillberg in the 4 x 100 event at the expense of some of their individual events. They responded with a fine time of 51.9 in the relay, about a second off of our school record. This is pretty fast considering they have had no baton passing practice as a group this season.
Player was feeling tension in one of her abductor muscles in training and felt it again during this race, so we took her out of her events to be on the safe side. It’s better to yield a few points than to risk a season-ending injury.
Even with Player out, the Colts
squad was no match with
Gillberg won both the 100 and 300 hurdles and placed second in the high jump for an additional 12 points. Scales added 11 points with wins in the 100, 200 and third place in the long jump. Briana Giorgione scored nine points by winning the high jump, placing second in the pole vault and third the 100 meters. Adrianna Davies added four points with a second place finish in the 1600 and a third in the 400. Brigid Twomey’s first place in the 3200 and Madison Rutherford’s third in the 300 hurdles rounded out the Islanders’ scoring.
Player was scheduled to compete
in the invitational events at the Mission Hills Grizzly Relays Saturday, but
we decided to let her mend over the weekend. Eckert did enter the pole vault
and won the event with a vault of 10 feet, 6 inches. Privett placed third
in the 800 in 2:25, followed by Davies in seventh place in 2:35.
Islander Baseball Stands at 17-4, 3-2
Last week in this space, CHS Baseball Head Coach Sam Ceci opined that if his team won two out of their three games this week, the Islanders would still be in the thick of the Western League race.
Well, they did and they are.
Tuesday
Johnson aided his own cause by
posting the only two-hit day for the Islander offense, including an RBI single.
Danny Cepin and Conrad scored the
two runs for
Thursday the same two teams
tangled in the Western League’s new home-and-home format. This time the teams
squared off in
Keith Englehart, Jake McMahon, Steven Karamoto and Chas Marks scored
Saturday the Islanders hosted the
squad that Ceci considers to be the conference’s best,
“They are as solid as can be,” said Ceci of the UC nine. “They make hard plays routinely. Beacom was giving our kids fits and he is a good hitter as well. We got a hit in the first inning and one in the seventh. UC has the best talent in the Western League. We were kind of hoping that with nine days off before they played us that they were going to be a little flat. If we can split with them, it will keep us right on track and in the thick of things. We’ve got to muster some offense.”
The rest of the Western League was basically knocking each other off in their games played last week. “A record of 8-4 might win the league this year,” said Ceci. “We would have to go 5-2 the rest of the way to accomplish that. Our work is cut out for us.”
This week
CHS Boys Tennis Earns Mira Mesa Victory in Four Matches Last Week
Islander Boys Tennis Head Coach Robbin Adair recaps a busy week of four matches for his team last week. “We had a tough week, but we played well.
Monday we lost a tight one to Grossmont North League Champs El Capitan. We lost a tie breaker at the end of the match which gave them the 10-8 victory. We still could have won the game count if only we cold have pulled off that last win. In singles Krishna Samperio went 3-6, 6-0, 6-0, while Andrew Stump and Brenton Mashburn each were swept. In doubles, Daniel Grazian and Frankie Harrison took all three by the scores of 6-2, 6-2, and 6-0. Chris Mitchell and Evan Wheeler took two out of three and Patrick Holman and Jordan Vance took one set.
Tuesday we traveled to
Wednesday we played Mira Mesa for the second time. We had scrimmaged them and lost 10-7 early in the season. This time we played great and beat them 15-3. Samperio swept 6-2, 6-0, and 6-0; Stump swept 6-4, 6-2, 6-4; and Jeff Miller took two of three 6-3, 4-6 and 7-6(8). In doubles Grazian/Harrison swept 6-2, 6-3 and 6-3; while Mitchell/Wheeler and Holman/Vance each won two of their three sets.
Finally, Thursday we traveled to Scripps Ranch and got beat 15-3, closing the gap a little after having lost 17-1 in the first round. In singles Samperio swept 6-2, 6-3, and 6-2, to account for all of our set victories.
This week we host