Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• What a nice girl, giving other kids a chance. Bethan Knights of Northwood will not run Friday in the 1,600 meters at the CIF-SS Masters Meet so she can focus on the 3,200. Knights set CIF-SS Division 3 records while winning the 1,600 and 3,200 at last week’s CIF-SS championships.
• Knights broke her county record in the 3,200 last week with a mark of 9:58.42. Maybe Friday, or maybe at the state meet in Clovis next week, Knights will beat the national high school record of 9:48.59 set by Kim Mortensen of Thousand Oaks at the 1996 Masters Meet.
• The top nine athletes with the best marks in last week’s CIF-SS championships, regardless of division, advanced to the Masters Meet in most events. The top 12 performances at the CIF-SS meet advanced to Masters in the 800, 1,600, 3,200 and field events.
• From the Masters Meet to CIF State Championships: The top six finishers in each event qualify for the state meet.
• It took a mighty resetting of an old record for somebody to beat Villa Park’s Garrett Corcoran in the Division 2 1,600 at the CIF-SS Finals. Mayfair of Lakewood’s Ellis Newton went 4:05.71 to win it and break the previous best mark of 4:08.34 set by Terry Williams of Lompoc in 1973. (Williams’ time converted from the hand-timed mile of ’73.) Corcoran beat Williams’ time, too, by finishing second at 4:07.05.
• Woodbridge’s Gabe Warner had a good day at the CIF-SS Finals. He won the Division 2 400, finished second to Mater Dei star Curtis Godin in the 200, anchored the Warriors’ win in the 1,600 relay and was part of their 400 relay team that finished second.
• All 53 of Orange Lutheran’s points in winning the Division 3 boys track and field championship were from field events.
• Often bemoaned is the disappearing multi-sport athlete. The multi-sport athlete is not extinct just yet. Neil Pau’u of Servite was selected to play in Orange County all-star games in three sports – basketball, football and volleyball.
• Mater Dei’s team that won the CIF-SS Division 2 track and field championship had a few football players on it. Malik McMorris, who contributed 20 points in the discus and shot put to the Monarchs’ total of 65, and pole vaulter Riley Turner, who chipped in eight points, played on the Monarchs football team this past fall. So did three members of the 400 relay team, Justin Allen, AJ Collins and Noah Delgadillo.
• JSerra’s Dante Pettis, All-County in football in 2013, won the Division 3 long jump championship at 24-7. That’s the best wind-legal measurement in county history.
• The Orange County volleyball all-star games are June 6 at Newport Harbor High. The girls match is at 6 p.m. The boys match is at 7:30 p.m.
• The Saddleback Valley Unified School District’s new policy that bars an athletic director from being a varsity team head coach cost county basketball one of its better coaches. Troy Roelen, forced to choose, resigned as boys coach at Mission Viejo where he will continue as athletic director. Roelen is a great coach and a great character-counts guy.
• University football coach and athletic director Mark Cunningham knew the Pacific Coast League’s appeal had a snowball’s chance in Haiti. He used the league’s appeal – it’s objection to being moved from the Southern to the Southwest division for the football playoffs – to unveil a plan. Cunningham suggests that the creation of football playoff divisions should be based solely upon Internet website power rankings of CIF-SS football teams.
• “I took every school and every league,” Cunningham said, “and looked at calpreps.com’s power rankings and meshed those all together, then placed them into their leagues and took the average power ranking of the teams in the league. I then ranked the leagues.”
• Cunningham did away with the nonsensical quasi-geographical names for divisions and went back to the old numerical style of Division 1, Division 2, etc., down to Division 13. His conclusion is that the Pacific Coast League belongs in Division 7 for football with the Empire, North Hills, Pioneer and San Gabriel leagues. With its appeal denied Wednesday, the PCL will be in the Southwest Division with the Crestview, Empire, Freeway and Sea View leagues.
• League membership in the Century Conference for the 2014 football season is Esperanza, Foothill, Villa Park and Yorba Linda in the Crestview League; Brea Olinda, Canyon, El Dorado and El Modena in the North Hills League.
• League membership in the Coast View Athletic Association for the 2014 football season is Dana Hills, El Toro, Mission Viejo, San Juan Hills and Tesoro in the South Coast League; Aliso Niguel, Capistrano Valley, Laguna Hills, San Clemente and Trabuco Hills in the Sea View League.
• The county all-star softball games are Tuesday at Deanna Manning Stadium at Bill Barber Park in Irvine. The Belles (players from Orange, Orange Coast, Pacific Coast and Trinity leagues) play the Blue Sox (Freeway, Garden Grove, South Coast) at 4:15 p.m.; the Comets (Empire, Golden West, Sea View) play the Peaches (Century, Sunset) at 6:45 p.m. Hall of Fame awards will be presented between games to Kaitlin Cochran and Lauren Lappin, two of the county’s all-time great players at Rosary and Loara, respectively, and former Canyon coach Lance Eddy, who organizes the Carew Classic. Doug Meyers will also be honored.
• Friday is the final day baseball coaches can submit nominations for All-CIF. The nomination form is on page 18 of the CIF-SS Baseball Playoff Bulletin at cifss.org.
• With six Orange County teams among the eight teams in the quarterfinals, the CIF-SS Division 1 baseball semifinals Tuesday at Blair Field in Long Beach are guaranteed to have at least one county team in both games. Division 1 semifinals are at 4 and 7 p.m. Parking is challenging around Blair Field, so head over there now.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
