Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• Willy Puga resigned this week after a great four-year tenure as football coach at Garden Grove. He left because of frustration with what he sees as insufficient funding of the school’s football program at the district level. Districts can’t be faulted for making academic programs a funding priority over sports, but athletics keep many at-risk kids in school and are vital to having a positive campus atmosphere.
• Football can be overemphasized. But the wise principal and district administrator understand this: Football sets the tone for school spirit for the duration of the school year.
• When in your adult years attending a gathering where somebody asks you what high school you attended, the reaction to your answer never is, “Oh, you had an awesome debate team” or “your marching band had that accomplished trombone player.” No, the ensuing conversation is going to be about the school sports teams, especially and perhaps solely about football.
• Garden Grove played in three CIF-Southern Section championship games in Puga’s four seasons, maintaining momentum started by Coach Ron Vander Sluis and accelerated by Puga’s immediate predecessor, Joe Hay. Garden Grove’s talent base will continue to make the Argonauts a top team in the Garden Grove League. But the playoff success might not be sustainable.
• Puga will pursue an offensive coordinator position for the coming fall. That was his position on Hay’s staff at Garden Grove.
• Raul Lara, who coached Long Beach Poly football to five CIF-SS championships in 13 seasons, is now the football coach at Warren of Downey. Lara left Poly after the 2013 season. Warren was 0-20 the past two years.
• Mater Dei’s boys basketball team finished No. 1 in the Register media poll’s Orange County rankings for the 25th year in a row. Saddleback was No. 1 in the final poll of the 1988-89 season before Mater Dei began its current run.
• Mater Dei’s girls basketball team, ranked No. 1 in California, plays its first playoff game in the Open Division on Wednesday, 14 days since its final game of the regular season. Mater Dei coach Kevin Kiernan, isn’t that a ridiculously long time between games? “If I ever complained about anything, people would just laugh at me,” said Kiernan, who is 179-11 in six years at Mater Dei.
• The Open Divisions in boys and girls basketball are not private school-heavy groupings. In the boys 16-team Open Division, nine teams are private schools and seven are public schools. In the girls 12-team Open Division, six teams are private schools and six are public schools.
• The Open Division teams were selected by a boys committee and a girls committee. Committee members are coaches, past and present, administrators and a few media members. Yours truly is not on either committee.
• There will be CIF State swimming and diving championships beginning with the 2014-15 school year. The CIF State office will announce location of the state swimming championships in April or May. All 10 of the CIF State’s sections – Southern Section, Central Section, San Diego Section, etc. – approved the state swimming championships proposal at a recent meeting of the CIF State Federated Council.
• Bethel Baptist’s boys basketball team withdrew from the Division 6 playoffs for lack of players. Bethel’s scheduled first-round opponent, Joshua Springs of Yucca Valley, advances to the second round via bye.
• Often, the first round of the basketball playoffs includes lopsided scores. Some of Wednesday’s first-round results: (Division 4A) Windward of Los Angeles 100, California Military Institute of Perris 51; (5A) Renaissance Academy of La Canada 88, Lucerne Valley 17; (5A) Orangewood Academy 81, Waverly of Pasadena 18.
• When two teams in the CIF-SS playoffs meet after the first round, the team with the fewest number of playoff home games at that point of the playoffs is the home team. If the teams have played the same number of playoff home games a coin flip identifies the home team. In 4AA boys basketball, Laguna Beach and Whittier Christian won home games in the first round so a coin flip won by Laguna Beach makes the Breakers the home team in today’s game.
• Four men with longstanding impact on county basketball will be honored by the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association during the CIF-SS championships at Honda Center on March 8: coaches Dick Katz (boys and girls basketball at La Quinta, Westminster and elsewhere) and Jeff Watts (boys and girls basketball at Century, Segerstrom and elsewhere) and official Speedy Castillo will be named to the SCIBCA Hall of Fame. Former Katella coach Tom Danley will receive the Ray Plutko Award, the organization’s highest honor.
• Servite and JSerra play a Trinity League baseball game Thursday, March 20 at Angel Stadium. Tentative starting time is 3:15 p.m.
• Many of the Orange County boys basketball student cheering sections disagreed with our ranking of top 10 groups in the OC Varsity section Saturday. Santa Margarita’s “Eagles Nest” thought being No. 6 was too low. The “Nest” proved during Wednesday’s playoff win over San Juan Hills that it has a valid point.
• Follow me at twitter.com/stevefryer for breaking high school news and updates of boys basketball playoffs on game nights.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
