Coronado Sports

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.

It was a rough conclusion to the team portion of the No. 4 seeded Islander Girls Tennis season, as they fell in the CIF Open Division Quarter-Finals to No. 5 seeded Bishop’s 14-4. A last minute injury to one of the Islander singles players forced Head Coach Rob Moore into a lineup change, which impacted the doubles lineup.

Injuries have been mounting over the last few games for the Islander Football Team (6-4 overall record), reaching a total of 11 players not available to play in last week’s regular season finale against the Hoover Cardinals (0-10). In one of those sports anomalies you see every so often, Hoover scored the first touchdown of the game and Coronado ran off the next 45 points, all in three quarters of play. The fourth quarter was played with a running clock, which created the desired effect of no additional scoring from either team.

Islander Head Coach Kurt Hines said of the contest, “We played well after the first quarter. We allowed a 17-play drive to start the game, they never should have had. We mixed things up in the second quarter. They were big and had some guys, but they weren’t terribly well-disciplined. Once we got out of our slump, I was happy with what we were doing. We got all four of our quarterbacks in the game. I mentioned at practice Saturday morning that John Shoemaker, who is a senior quarterback, is one of the most selfless players I have coached in 20 years. His role is he starts on the point after touchdown (Shoemaker is the holder on the kick attempts) and the kick return special teams. He had a chance to play and so did John Carlson, a freshman, who got some reps. We had 11 key guys out and I’m praying we have them back for the CIF Division IV Playoffs.”

George Green, the Islander Boys and Girls Cross Country Head Coach discusses the results turned in by his CHS runners had last week. “Last Saturday the Boys and Girls Cross Country Teams ran in the 72nd Annual Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational in Walnut California. Mt. SAC is the acronym for Mt. San Antonio College. The event is the largest cross country race in the world with divisions for high school, middle school, and community colleges.

“The biggest part of the event is the high school meet, which runs all day Friday and Saturday. This year there were 91 races, all at a distance of three miles, over the legendary course that hasn’t changed significantly in 72 years. Friday, CIF Divisions III, IV and V competed, with Divisions I and II running Saturday.

Players are wanted. Join in our eight-week, non-competitive basketball experience from Dec. 2 to Feb. 8 at 4:30 p.m.

Over half the teams have played exactly half of their 16 games through the first eight weeks of the NFL season. Plenty of football is still left to be played and all teams are yet to be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs; however, there’s no realistic chance the Bengals and Dolphins make it to January. Few could have predicted the 49ers hot 7-0 start, while many saw the Patriots going 8-0. Fans often try their best to predict the NFL, but rarely, if ever, are they correct. I will attempt to break that mold, as here are my boldest predictions for the remainder of the 2019 NFL season.

Last week Islander Girls Tennis Head Coach Rob Moore said his wish was for his four doubles teams in the Western League Tournament to all reach the semi-finals, so he wouldn’t have to coach. He was kidding, after all he was at the tournament anyway, but he got his wish. To pull off the feat, Moore thinks it’s a first for the Western League, the Islander doubles team of Samantha Russell/Kate Perley, which was seeded No. 5, had to pull off an upset by defeating the La Jolla doubles team of Puri/Westwood, who were seeded No. 4.

Moore said of the match, “Russell/Perley had to come from behind, 5-6 in the 8-game pro-set format to avenge a 6-4 loss against La Jolla the week before. They absolutely dominated the last three games of that pro-set and it was obvious the La Jolla team just looked beat down in the heat. That set up the all-Coronado doubles Semi-Final.”

Last week was a tough one for the Islander Boys Water Polo Team. It started with a 12-6 loss to Bishop’s at home. Three days later the team flew to the Bay Area to play The Menlo School Thursday night. Coronado lost the game to a team coached by former Islander alumnus, All-American Goalie and Stanford University grad Jack Bowen. The final score was 17-13.

Competition in the four-team Western League in the sport of water polo is always tough, with four of the strongest teams in the CIF San Diego Section playing each other twice during the conference season. Conference wins among Coronado, Cathedral Catholic, La Jolla and The Bishop’s School are always particularly sweet.

Last week the Islanders had two conference match-ups, which featured Cathedral

Islander Girls Volleyball Head Coach Adeile Ahmu provides a report on her team’s week of competition. “Last week our victory against Christian was an overall team effort. Playing the Patriots in the second round of Eastern League play, we came out with a win with the set scores of 19-25, 25-22, 25-21, and 26-24.

Last week wasn’t a great one from a team standpoint, as the Islander Girls Golf Team lost their three matches, but there were some very good individual performances. The first match was against the Academy of Our Lady of Peace and the Islanders lost 210-234 in a match played at Riverwalk. The three best scores of the match were a 42 turned in by Samantha Lorr, and rounds of 45 turned in by both Mariella Avanni and Natalia Avanni.

Islander Cross Country Head Coach George Green supplies news regarding his two teams. “The Boys’ and Girls’ Cross Country Teams, after a few early season invites and two weeks with no meets to concentrate on training, had their first league meet of the season last Thursday.

The event was a cluster meet with the Western League schools at Morley Field. The Varsity Girls team finished in third place with 70 points behind Cathedral Catholic with 23 points and Scripps Ranch with 63 points. A seven-point finish behind a Division I school with 44 girls on its roster is not too shabby. La Jolla, University City and Serra were the other teams in the race.

Last week the Islander Girls Tennis Team continued to cut a wide swath through the Western League, defeating Patrick Henry 13-5 and they followed that up with a 15-3 win over the Academy of Our Lady of Peace. The two victories allowed Coronado to remain undefeated in the Western League, with one regular season match left this season, which is at La Jolla High School Tuesday afternoon.

The Islander Football Team rebounded nicely Friday night at home after a loss to Serra last week. Coronado dominated the Clairemont Chieftains 52-7. Included in the one-sided Central League victory were several notable plays, including a 97-yard touchdown jaunt by Tyler Buckley around left end. Buckley outran the entire Chieftain secondary, who collectively never laid a finger on the senior Co-Captain. Buckley also scored on a 10-yard touchdown run for the first score in the game and for the evening, gained 118 yards on just four rushing attempts.

For a game as one-sided as this one became, it was close early. The score at the end of the first quarter was 8-0, courtesy of Buckley and a two-point conversion run by running back Devin Schulte. The Islanders scored twice in the second quarter, with the first tally coming on a six-yard touchdown run by Ash Bibbes, followed three minutes later by 28-yard scoring run by Schulte.

After the initial two-point conversion, the game quickly became the Nadia Quijano Show, as the senior placekicker was called upon to convert the first of six consecutive extra point attempts, without a miss. Quijano, who not surprisingly is a member of the Islander Girls Soccer Team, blasted all six kicks through the uprights, with the Chieftains applying defensive pressure on several of the attempts. Over two decades of covering Islander Football games, I have probably seen a dozen male placekickers who didn’t have the ability Quijano has.

Islander Girls Volleyball Head Coach Adeile Ahmu checks in with a quick report on her team. “We had another tough week, losing to University City and OLP last week. Although the Lady Islanders struggle to find their groove again, they continue to practice and work hard for a comeback this week.

Several solid performances on the court by the Islander Girls Tennis Team yielded two more victories last week, including a 14-4 win over Cathedral Catholic and a 16-2 victory over the second best team in the Western League, Scripps Ranch. The Islanders are now 11-1 overall and 7-0 in the Western League. Head Coach Rob Moore said of his team’s victory over Cathedral, “We won eight of our nine doubles sets and we went 6-3 in singles.”

As we noted last week, the 16-team SoCal Water Polo Invitational is one of the elite prep water polo events in the country and the Islander Water Polo Team (7-9 overall record, 0-1 in the Western League) drew a series of tough teams in the four games they played in the event. The first game, which was played against Corona Del Mar Friday at 12 noon, found the Islanders on the short end of the 17-7 final score. Islander Head Coach Sean Castillo said, “It was close in the first half, and then it started opening up on us. Teddy Oliver had eight saves and four steals. Our top scorers were Matthew Wastila with three goals, and Calvin Peckham with two.”

Later that day the Islanders faced The Menlo School, which is coached by Islander Alumnus Jack Bowen. Coronado lost 10-8, with Peckham scoring three times, Wastila and Peter Olson scored twice, and Carlos Morales scored one goal. Oliver had the same stat line he had against CDM with eight saves and four steals.

Islander Head Football Coach Kurt Hines said before the season began that Serra was the team to beat in the Central League. After losing to the Conquistadores on the road Friday night by the score of 35-7, Hines said, “They are without a doubt the best team we will see in the regular season. Serra played fast, physical football. Our guys didn’t quit, we just didn’t execute well. we weren’t playing with a good pad level. Our ends and linebackers were taking bad angles to the ball carrier. Serra is too fast to do that.”

At the outset of the Islander Girls Tennis season, Your Natterer was speaking with Head Coach Rob Moore, and toward the end of our conversation, I asked how his team was going to be this year. What Moore said next was surprising, which was the Islanders, who are the defending Western League Champions, were picked to finish last in the conference. Moore has his whole team back with the exception of No. 1 singles player Summer Vu. In recent years, the strength of the team has been their depth in doubles, which when combined with solid play in singles, makes for a very competitive team.

Well, fast forward about a month and a half, and last week Coronado defeated the Academy of Our Lady of Peace 15-3 and followed that up with a 14-4 win over La Jolla. That marked the end of the first half of conference play, with the Islanders posting a perfect 5-0 record in the first round. The Islanders currently are 9-1 overall.