Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• One could assume that if any programs would sweat out abiding by the proposed 18-hours-a-week limitation on student-athletes’ sports participation it would be the elite football programs in the college-like Trinity League. But the proposal got unanimous support from Trinity League schools.
• Said Monty McDermott, athletic director at St. John Bosco, which was a CIF state champion in football this past season: “From a St. John Bosco football perspective, we feel like we already fit under the 18 hours limit. It’s counter-productive to go over that. … Private schools have kids commuting, kids involved in a lot of other things and so many academic challenges.”
• The CIF-Southern Section Council, the section’s rules-making body, voted Wednesday to support the statewide proposal that would create the 18-hours-a-week (and 4-hours-a-day) limit. The Council unanimously voted against supporting a statewide proposal that would allow student-athletes to play on their high school team and their club team during the same season of sport. The two proposals will be voted on this weekend by all of the sections at the CIF Federated Council meeting.
• Who would monitor coaches to make sure they observe the 18 hours/4 hours cap? “Like always,” University football coach Mark Cunningham said, “it’s up to the school principal and the character of that coach. Either you follow the rules or you don’t.”
• League representatives on May 20 receive the CIF-SS office’s recommended playoff groupings for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years. The CIF-SS Council usually has three meetings a year, but some complications with forming leagues in other areas made a fourth meeting, June 10, necessary to finalize the groupings.
• Those complications were about deciding which schools go into which football leagues in northern Los Angeles County and the San Fernando Valley. The results created the Serra League’s seven-school lineup of Alemany of Mission Hills, Bishop Amat of La Puente, Chaminade of West Hills, Crespi of Encino, Loyola of Los Angeles, Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks and Serra of Gardena.
• The Serra League was a five-team league in the Pac-5 Division the past two school years. The top three finishers in a football seven-team league get guaranteed playoff entry in whatever division the Serra League would be part of this fall. Guaranteed playoff berths go to the top two finishers in a five-team football league.
• Cunningham, who is on the CIF-SS football coaches advisory committee, anticipates the new playoff groupings will create changes in county football. He expects the Sunset League, from which teams have won the Southwest Division football championship in its two years in the division, will be removed from the Southwest and sent to a group that will include Inland Empire leagues. “The Pacific Coast League (of which University is a member) probably will take the Sunset League’s place and wind up in the Southwest Division,” Cunningham said.
• Bethan Knights of Northwood broke the county record for the girls 3,200 when she finished in 9:59.20 on Saturday at the Orange County Championships. The state record is a bit further out there – 9:48.59 set by Kim Mortensen of Thousand Oaks in the 1996 CIF-Southern Section championships. That’s also the national record.
• Garrett Corcoran’s Orange County Championships winning time of 4:06.00 in the 1,600 puts the Villa Park senior among some elite names in county track history. It’s the second-best non-converted time, behind the county-record 4:00.83 set by Jantzen Oshier of Trabuco Hills in 2011. On the list of all 1,600 times, converted and non-converted, Corcoran is No. 6 all-time between legends Ralph Serna of Loara (converted 4:05.60) and Jon Butler of Edison (converted 4:06.75).
• Mackenna Howard of Los Alamitos is turning out to be one of the better throwers in county girls track and field history. She won the shot put and discus at the O.C. Championships. Her best shot put mark of 47-9, at the Mt. SAC Relays two weeks ago, is fourth-best in the state this year and the fifth-best all-time in county history.
• Curtis Godin’s season of records and medals continued at the county championships. Godin, a Mater Dei senior, won the 100 and 200, tying the meet record in the former and setting it in the latter.
• Two useful websites for keeping up with state and section leaders and other news in California track and field are dyestatcal.com and prepcaltrack.com.
• Yet another basketball all-star game is coming. The Ballislife All-American Game is Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Long Beach City College. Mater Dei’s Stanley Johnson, recently named to studentsports.com’s All-America first team, is scheduled to play. For information go to ballislifeallamerican.com.
• Any published “best” list – best movies, best Mexican restaurants, even best lawn mower – will create dissent. Our brief list last week of great county boys basketball players ignited second-guessing from readers and even from this guy who created it.
• Some additional names that came from this brain and from others included Matt Beeuwsaert (Mater Dei), Rich Branning (Marina), LeRon Ellis (Mater Dei), Reggie Geary (Mater Dei), Adam Keefe (Woodbridge), Taylor King (Mater Dei), Dave Meyers (Sonora), Clayton Olivier (Los Amigos), Johnny Rogers (La Quinta) and Klay Thompson (Santa Margarita). I am stopping at 10 players, but could quickly and easily add 10 more.
• Roger Holmes, who resigned late last week as basketball coach at Fountain Valley, was a great player at Fountain Valley in the 1980s.
• Rancho Alamitos has a new boys basketball coach – Andrew Scimeca, who has been the coach at Oxford Academy the past few years. Scimeca knows the Garden Grove League; he is first base coach for the Garden Grove baseball team.
• Wendy’s West Coast Showcase is a football camp for high school-aged football players June 24-26 at Fountain Valley High. Players must have a grade-point average of 3.0 or better to participate. For information go to wendysfootballcamp.com.
• Wind-power scoreboard: A downed power line at Servite forced the JSerra-Servite baseball game Tuesday to be moved to Glover Stadium, and fears that the backstop at Foothill might topple postponed the Brea Olinda-Foothill game Wednesday.
• For baseball game-day updates and other high school sports news, follow me at twitter.com/stevefryer.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
