Early indicators good sometimes, misleading others

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

• It's difficult to get a handle on which teams are truly the better ones in the county, but early-season tournaments and invitational meets in various sports sure help. A girls volleyball event that will do that is the Dave Mohs Tournament on Friday, Saturday and Monday at Corona del Mar, Huntington Beach and Newport Harbor for Division I matches and at Costa Mesa and Marina for Division II play.

Seven teams in the county's top 10 are in it: No. 1 Newport Harbor; No. 5 Woodbridge; No. 6 Corona del Mar; No. 7 San Clemente; No. 8 Orange Lutheran; No. 9 Laguna Beach; and No. 10 Rosary. St. Margaret's, though not in the county top 10 but No. 1 in CIF-Southern Section Division IV-AA, also is in.

• In the CIF-Southern Section football polls this week, JSerra was in the "Others receiving votes" category in the Pac-5 Division after beating Huntington Beach, which was 5-5 last year. Santa Margarita was not, although it beat Poway, which was a CIF-San Diego Section champion and was 12-0 in 2007.

When the ballots were distributed Monday, Santa Margarita was not listed as a candidate, although there is space for write-in votes and the CIF-SS office is open to suggestions and corrections.

• Two excellent names in county football: Mookie Cooksie, a running back at Western; and Lucky Moemoe, a defensive back at Garden Grove. Moemoe is pronounced "mo-ee mo-ee." Both are very good football players.

• Sonora's football team plays host to Brea Olinda on Friday at La Habra High, and a lot of Sonora coaches have connections to Brea football. Sonora head coach Paul Chiotti was Brea's offensive coordinator and played quarterback there; Sonora offensive coordinator Kyle Trudell coached and played at Brea; Sonora assistant Travis Robinson played and coached at Brea; and Sonora defensive coordinator Dave Baxley coached at Brea.

• Not only will the Mater Dei-Centennial of Corona football game Friday be played at Santa Ana Stadium, Mater Dei's usual home venue although it is Centennial's home game, but Mater Dei will get to use its usual home side of the field, too. That is a classy, accommodating move by Centennial coach Matt Logan. "It's their place," Logan said, "so why mess around with it?"

• Centennial will be without an excellent player, Brandon Brown, rated as one of the top junior linebackers in the nation, who has a broken fibula. Centennial was strengthened in the offseason when senior quarterback Taylor Martinez, who committed to Nebraska, transferred from Cajon. Other college-committed Centennial players: receiver Ricky Marvray, to UCLA; and Vontaze Burfict, one of the top linebacker prospects in the nation, to USC.

• The Mater Dei-Servite football game of Oct. 17 will be played at Cal State Fullerton. It was first scheduled for Angel Stadium, but the Angels involvement in the playoffs nixed that plan. The location then became Cerritos College, but a scheduling conflict there led to another venue change.

• A couple of reports indicated that Santa Ana Stadium had many light bulbs not functioning the past two weeks. The stadium, also known as The Bowl and as Eddie West Field, has undergone excellent improvements in recent years, so let's hope funding and personnel are able to keep maintenance what it should be.

• It's gotten so old, hearing football coaches say their teams can't find a county opponent willing to play them in a nonleague game. Certainly, in Week 1 or 2 if Team A is playing a non-county opponent and so is Team B, then Teams A and B can play each other instead.

Someone should start a Web site - nonleaguematches.com - and promote it with a commercial that would have a Trinity League coach and a South Coast League coach holding hands and saying, "We found our nonleague match, and so can you at nonleaguematches.com!"

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com