Coronado Sports

A few sports subjects and thoughts from my over-flowing clipping folder… The Golden State Warriors, with their starting All-NBA backcourt of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on the injured list, are currently 8-25 and tied for the second-worst record in the NBA. They are playing better of late but remain in solid position for a high draft lottery pick in the spring of 2020. Look for a resurgence of the once-dominant Warriors next year. Even center Willie Cauley-Stein, despised by Sacramento Kings fans for good reason for the past couple of seasons, has been contributing to the Warriors… Gymnast Simone Biles being named the 2019 AP Female Athlete of the Year came as no surprise at Nado Natterings World Headquarters. The winner of 25 World Championship medals, four Olympic Gold medals and one Olympic Bronze medal, has two floor exercise elements, one balance beam dismount and one vault move named in her honor. She literally does things in her field no one else in the world can do… The NFL Team which used to play in San Diego, which also made a huge logistic and financial miscalculation moving to Los Angeles, finished at the bottom of the AFC West Division with a record of 5-11. Gee, that’s too bad… Congratulations to CIF Commissioner Jerry Schniepp for his coming retirement from one of the toughest jobs in prep sports, which is running the governing body for the 127 high schools in the San Diego Section. I met Schniepp several years ago when the Islander Baseball Program expanded into the Middle School level and was invited to play with the Sweetwater School District, where Schniepp ran the district’s sports programs. A year or two after Schniepp changed the CIF Playoff system from being enrollment-based to a format that encouraged competitive balance, I got called on the carpet for writing critically of the system, particularly as it applied to the sport of water polo. Overall, it was a positive session and we remained friends. Schniepp, 56, had the courage to try to change a playoff system that wasn’t working well to one that became better… Speaking of sports governing bodies, the NCAA under the direction of CEO Mark Emmert, made a sudden 180 degree reverse pivot on their stance of not allowing college athletes to benefit financially from their names, images, and likenesses while still competing at that level. Emmert threatened to expel all the universities in California from the NCAA when legislation to benefit college athletes was passed by the California Legislature. That was followed almost immediately by similar bills in several other states. Once the annual salary for Clemson Head Football Coach Dabo Sweeny hit $9.3 million and Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban inked an eight-year deal worth at least $74 million, the cries of financial poverty from the major football powerhouses became laughable. If Emmert hadn’t come around to face the financial facts of life as they now exist, the Power Five Football Conferences would likely have pulled up stakes and created their own governing body, taking their basketball programs with them… One of the more memorable local events that occurred over the past year was the Celebration of Life ceremony held to honor the late Duncan ‘Sandy’ Ferguson on Nov. 16. Known universally as ‘Sandy’ if it was a formal occasion or just ‘Ferg’ most other times, the 72-year-old Ferguson made numerous outstanding contributions to Coronado High School while serving at various times as a history teacher, Athletic Director for both CHS and CMS, Coach, and later in his career, ASB Advisor. Ferg died from the complications of Alzheimer’s too young and deserved a longer retirement than he was able to have. He is greatly missed … A recent column by Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune noted that 13 college football teams with losing records in the 2019 season, will participate in FBS Bowl Games, which total 40 this year… One item in the same column by Rosenthal I disagreed with was, “Stop referring to former coaches who are now TV analysts as ‘Coach.’ It’s a job, not an elected office or cabinet position.” When I use the term, which I often do, it is meant as a sign of respect, especially at the prep and middle school levels. If you’ve ever tried to get a horde of kids organized on a field or a court and have them work toward a common goal, you’d realize the title is well-earned… Interesting note from Major League Baseball that the new collective bargaining agreement with the MLB Umpires Association has agreed to cooperate with the development and testing of an automated ball-strike system. I thought the computer umpiring concept was a minimum of five years away from coming to fruition… Here’s hoping everyone had a Merry Christmas, or the holiday celebration of your choice, and that a Happy and Prosperous New Year will follow.

Riding the crest of a six-game winning streak, the Islander Boys Basketball Team (8-5 overall record) rolled into the Mt. Carmel gymnasium Saturday night to face the Serra Conquistadors in the Semi-Final game of the 16-team Mt. Carmel Tournament. Like any good story, there was a sub-plot to this encounter as the two teams played each other Dec. 4 in Coronado, with the Islanders winning 75-67. In that contest, Islander point guard Wayne McKinney led the way with 33 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, two steals and a blocked shot. Shooting guard Mike Cunningham contributed 19 points and four assists. McKinney’s first game against Serra was foreshadowing of the game played 24 nights later.

Serra, which is competing at the Division II level this season, is a well-coached club which can get up and down the floor quickly. They also have guards who are effective long-range shooters. Perhaps as importantly, they seemed intent on reversing the result from earlier in the season.

The Islanders got off to a slow start, despite Head Coach JD Laaperi juggling his lineup during the first quarter to find a combination that worked. The Islanders fell behind 15-8 in the first quarter, had a couple of mini-rallies in the second quarter to get the score to 27-21 in favor of Serra with 1:06 left in the half. However prior to the conclusion of the half, the Conquistadores pushed the lead out to 32-23. In the first half, McKinney accounted for 14 of Coronado’s 23 points and eight of their 15 rebounds. Serra frequently sent a weak-side defender to double team McKinney, an effort that met with little success, as the junior simply evaded them.

The Islander Girls Basketball Team just completed a run where they played 10 games in 12 days and headed into the Christmas Break with an overall record of 12-4. Last week they played Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, all of it on the road against good competition.

It was a roller coaster week for the Islander Girls Soccer Team, as they began their competition week Tuesday with a home game against San Diego, the defending CIF Division III Champions. Head Coach Mike Costaglio said, “Our goals came from Ella Worthy and Amelia Hawley and Nadia Quijano (who was the Islander Football Team’s placekicker for much of the 2019 season) had both assists. Sydney Neibert had the whole game in goal as Shelby Linde was

It comes as no surprise that Islander Girls Golf Team members senior Crista Izuzquiza and junior Mary Damian earned All-CIF recognition for 2019. Izuzquiza, consistently one of the top three golfers in the San Diego Section this season, and the runner-up in the Southern California Regional, was named to the All-CIF First Team. Damian was recognized with All-CIF Second Team Honors. Izuzquiza and Damian played for Islander Head Golf Coach Stuart Gordon.

Islander Girls Soccer Head Coach Mike Costaglio provides a report on his team’s play last week, with started in the University City Tournament. “Monday, we lost to University City 1-0 and this was not a good match for us. It was a Monday game and we weren’t ready to play. Offensively we looked like we had never played together. We worked hard, maybe too hard. The one element that our Girls can always count on is they work hard. We gave up a penalty goal early in the game on a hand ball in the penalty box, which was the only goal of the game. We play University City twice in league this year and we are looking forward to those opportunities to generate different results.

Join the Coronado Youth Softball for the spring season of girls fast pitch softball. This spring there are five age divisions, including T-Ball (6U), 8U 10U, 12U, and 14U.

After starting their season with a record of 0-1-1, albeit against strong competition, the Islander Boys Soccer Team broke into the win column last week via a 2-1 win over Eastlake and a 4-0 victory over Scripps Ranch. “We had a good week,” said Islander Head Coach Aaron Brooks. “Against Eastlake, Connor Buckley and Fernando Jimenez scored our goals and I was really impressed with the team’s ability to work together. Eastlake is a school of 3,100 kids and they have some really tall players. My guys handled them really well and we scored on two set pieces. It was a great performance, but it wasn’t pretty. At one point we had three goalies on the field at the same time. Their goal was scored on a penalty kick.”

The Eastlake victory was on the road and the Scripps Ranch game was a home contest for Coronado.

Last week the Islander Girls Soccer Team played twice, a schedule that included a 3-1 home loss to La Costa Canyon and a 2-0 home win over Escondido. Monday the Islanders lost a tough 1-0 road game to University City.

The Islander Boys and Girls Cross Country Programs, under the direction of Head Coach George Green had their post-season awards banquet at the Winn Room of the Coronado Public Library last week. The Awards went to: Team MVP Girls-Abigail Hundley; Team Co-MVPs Boys-Cole Mullins and Landon Mullins; Four-Year Senior Awards went to Cole Mullins and Casey Harris; Girls Co-Captains-Hundley and Sofia Van Arsdale; Boys Captain-Cole Mullins; and special recognition went to Assistant Coaches John Downey and Erin Downey.

The Islander Boys Basketball Team coached by JD Laaperi is also playing a challenging schedule of games at the outset of their season. Currently they have a record of 2-3, including losses to Poway and Mt. Carmel two weeks ago. Last week the Islanders played all three of their games at home starting with a loss to Orange Glen, followed by victories over Serra and Mar Vista.

Taking last week’s games in order, the Islanders lost to Orange Glen 55-52. Laaperi said of the contest, “It was a case of us playing chase all night long. They went up 10 in the first quarter, and we cut it to four. In the second quarter they got out to a 12-point lead and we cut it to five. In the third quarter they were up eight or 10 points, and we started the fourth quarter down eight points again. With two minutes to go, it was a one possession game. We gave ourselves chances all night long. The ongoing narrative is we couldn’t get the basket to tie it up and then get us over the hump. Offensively, we struggled mightily, and Wayne McKinney scored only 11 points. Orange Glen sent an extra defender against him, and the finishes at the basket he had Wednesday and Friday nights weren’t there Monday. And we weren’t hitting our three-pointers. Defensively we did a better job. Orange Glen put up 70 points against Carlsbad and hit 16 threes. If we played them 10 times, I think we would split the series down the middle.”

Typically at the outset of the season, we run a preview piece for each team and as a rule we usually start with the seniors on the team. For the 2019-20 Islander Boys Soccer Team that turned out to be a more challenging assignment than usual as 13 of the 23 squad members are seniors. To complete this line of thought, there are also six juniors, three sophomores and a freshman on the roster compiled by Head Coach Aaron Brooks.

The seniors include: Jack Irvine, Ramon Inchaurrandieta, Diego Mendoza, Rene Rodriguez, Anthony Dick, Fernando Jimenez, Ryan Smith, Corey Bible, Connor Irvine, Pablo Zaragoza, Santi Camus, Esteban Toscano and Bernardo Waisbrod. The Junior class is represented by Enrique Leon, Eli Hallal, Miguel De Pablo Galvez, Max Lopez, Nathan Sanchez, and Josh Littrell. Sophomores include Connor Buckley, Garrett Sauter and Jack Hunt. The Freshmen include just Owen Monahan.

Playing four basketball games in 46 hours can be a challenge. The Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Islander Girls Basketball Team, under the direction of Head Coach Toler Goodwin, played four games, all against solid competition and emerged with a 2-2 record. When combined with an early-season victory over Canyon Crest Academy, Coronado is now 3-2 on the season.

The first game of the tournament was a 39-36 win over Chula Vista, which saw the Islanders with a lead at the conclusion of every quarter. But the Spartans wouldn’t go away and with 4:38 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Spartans took the lead, which they held for the next 90 seconds. At that point in the game, Lauren White scored on a driving layup, Courtney Williams had a steal, White converted a free throw, she grabbed a defensive bound on the other end of the floor, which was followed shortly by a defensive rebound from Janie Ruttert, who then converted two free throws. The victory was sealed by a Gianna Spatafore defensive rebound.

Ruttert was the statistical leader for the Islanders with 14 points, eight rebounds, two assists, one steal and one block. Williams accounted for 11 points, two rebounds and a steal; Lauren White had seven points, seven rebounds and three assists; while Spatafore scored four points but led Coronado with 10 rebounds to go with two assists and two steals; Allison White had a point and four rebounds; and Ella Ackerly had a basket and four rebounds.

The Islander Girls Soccer Team under the direction of Head Coach Mike Costaglio is off to a fast start to the season, even after some initial challenges posed by the calendar and the club soccer season. “We lost a few possible play dates between Thanksgiving and Christmas because Thanksgiving was so early. We only had one practice session before our first game against Hilltop and one more before the game versus Olympian. We had tryouts the week before the first game and we lost a practice date for rain and another for uniform distribution. We went into both games relying on what we did last year and primarily on our players from last year. Both teams we played were in the same boat. Also we have players coming off their club soccer season, so it’s not like they hadn’t played for two months. We have 20 players on the roster, but only 14 were available. Some had injuries from the club season. Anna Valades will be out for most of the month of December and she contributed a lot last year. And we didn’t have Daisy Cuthbert, who was out with a sprained ankle.”

Costaglio has toughened up his schedule this season. As an example Tuesday, Coronado was scheduled to host La Costa Canyon, a Division I team at 5:30 p.m. And Thursday Escondido comes to town for another 5:30 p.m. game. Other non-conference games this season will be played against La Jolla, Francis Parker, Mission Bay and Point Loma.

It turns out it was a big cross country season for the Hundley Family, as Abigail’s older sister Madden Hundley (CHS ’19) helped the Westmont College Women’s Cross Country Team to a second place finish in the Golden State Athletic Conference championship in Orange. Hundley finished in sixth place individually in the GSAC event, covering the five-kilometer course in 19:09.9.

Last week we noted, admittedly via a small sample size of one exhibition game played against University City, that the Islander Girls Basketball Team is going to be pretty good this year. Coronado opened their regular season schedule Saturday evening at Canyon Crest Academy and came away with a 48-19 victory. The score and location of the game could reflect one of two things. Either Coronado, as believed, is going to win a lot of games this season. Or it’s going to be a long year for the Ravens, as they compete in the Avocado West League, which is loaded. A third option is a theory often articulated by Michael Wilbon of ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption,” which is both things can be true.

The Islander Boys Basketball season got off to an unusual start, as it was reported in a couple of media outlets the team lost a game to Olympian High School last week. It was unusual in the respect the teams weren’t scheduled to play and didn’t. Instead the Islanders, under the direction of Head Coach JD Laaperi practiced for their two games this week, both on the road.

Junior Wayne McKinney is a transfer from Lake Oswego High School in the Portland area, a high school program whose alumni include NBA player Kevin Love. If this part of the story sounds similar to the opening to the Girls Basketball Section above, there’s a reason for that as Islander Boys Basketball Head Coach JD Laaperi explains. “Wayne and Janie Ruttert played on the same club basketball team as eighth graders. Her family got to know Wayne and he started living with them. The family just became his legal guardian and they moved to Coronado this summer.”

Islander Girls Tennis Head Coach Rob Moore provided a rundown on the two Islander singles players and four doubles teams who qualified for the CIF Finals last week. “Sinaia Haskal qualified as an at-large entry in singles and had a tough draw in the opening round, playing the No. 1 singles player from Torrey Pines. She battled but lost 6-0. Elsa Ostermarker began her tournament playing the No. 1 player from Point Loma and Elsa emerged with a win in a third set tiebreaker 10-7. Then she crushed a girl from Valley Center 6-0, 6-1. Then she lost to the No. 3 seed, a girl who wound up in the Singles Finals 6-0 and 6-0.”

Moore continued his rundown of the doubles. “Kate Perley/Samantha Russell were a 17-20 seed and in the First Round the beat a team from Santana 6-4, 6-0. Then in the Second Round they defeated a team

Two weekends ago, the Islander Football Team defeated No. 7 seed Mt. Miguel 29-27 on the road, which meant the No. 10 seeded Islanders would face No. 2 seeded Serra on the road in the second round. Unfortunately there were no upset wins in the Quarter-Finals and the Islanders lost 45-0. The Conquistadors scored twice early, gained the momentum, advanced to the Semi-Finals where they will host the No. 6 seed La Jolla Country Day. The other Semi-Final will feature No. 1 Santana vs. No. 4 Orange Glen.

When the fall sports season started, this column noted that Islander senior Crista Izuzquiza was among a small handful of the best golfers in San Diego County. As the season progressed, she was in the top three by stroke average and played almost her entire season shooting under par. We can now expand upon Crista’s ranking in the golf world, as she finished in a tie for first at the end of 18 holes in the CIF SoCal Regional Golf Championships played last week at the Brookside Gold Club in Pasadena. The only damper on the outing was that she lost the outright title to Jasmine Leovao from El Camino High School in a one-hole playoff.

George Green, Islander Cross Country Head Coach provides the details of the last regular season event for his teams, which was held last week. “Typically the last CHS fall sport standing is Cross Country. This season will be no different, with the Western League Finals Thursday, the CIF San Diego Section Finals Nov. 23 and the California State Meet Nov. 30.

“Last Thursday we had our final Western League cluster meet at Morley Field. All varsity races were at a distance of 3.11 miles over the City Conference Cross Country Course. This was also the last meet of the season for our JV teams.

It doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but the top two players on the Islander Girls Golf Team, senior Crista Izuzquiza and junior Mary Damian both advanced to the CIF SoCal Regional Golf Championships. At the CIF San Diego Section Finals, Izuzquiza shot 76-76=152, while Damian shot 77-75=152 at the Admiral Baker Golf Course.

Friday night the No. 10 seeded Islander Football Team pulled off a minor upset, when they traveled to No. 7 seed Mt. Miguel for a Division IV First Round Playoff game. Coronado won the game 29-27, with a defensive stand late in the game, which prevented Mt. Miguel from tying the game on a two-point conversion attempt, which could have sent the game into overtime.

The first quarter of the game was scoreless, with Coronado leading off the scoring on a 12-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Brady Roulier to Tyler Buckley. Then the Trojans got down to business with a 44-yard touchdown pass, followed later by a six-yard touchdown run and 10-yard scoring scamper. When the smoke cleared, Mt. Miguel held a 21-7 lead.

Islander combo tailback/inside linebacker Devin Schulte helped Coronado regain momentum at the close of the half, as he scored on a 63-yard run to get it to a one-score game. Schulte gained 146 yards on 16 carries on the night and scored two touchdowns. More on Schulte’s defensive efforts will follow.

Coronado took the lead in the third quarter on a safety credited to James Witthoft, and the second touchdown from Schulte, this one on a 22-yard run from scrimmage. Quarterback Ash Bibbes came on in relief of Roulier, when the latter was injured. Bibbes scored on a 23-yard run to make the score 29-21. Mt. Miguel rallied and scored a touchdown late, but as noted above the Islander defense stiffened to stop the two-point conversion to win the game.