San Diego Prep Review : Appearing in Playoffs Is Nothing New for Several Teams at Poway

Teams from Poway and Serra high schools will be seeing a lot of one another in the next few days.

The schools’ boys’ basketball teams will meet Saturday at the Sports Arena for the 3-A title. Also, the 3-A semifinal for girls’ soccer will feature Poway against Serra.

Although the match at 3:30 Wednesday at Mount Miguel High may not receive the same kind of attention as the basketball game, it still means a lot to those involved with athletics at Poway High.

“In girls’ soccer, Poway has always been regarded as one of the better teams in the county,” said Poway Athletic Director Jerry Leinenger. “But they’d always played in the shadow of (perennial San Diego Section champion) Torrey Pines. This year we seem to be a cut above everybody else.”

Poway’s appearance in the girls’ soccer playoffs shows the school’s status in a wide range of sports.

On the day after Poway qualified for its fourth-straight boys’ basketball final, the school’s wrestling team won the county Masters Tournament. This came a week after the Titans were denied a fifth straight San Diego Section wrestling title because of a procedural violation.

“The wrestling team has been a cornerstone of our program for 12 years,” Leinenger said. “We don’t always have gifted wrestlers, but they work hard and (Coach) Wayne (Branstetter) gives them help with their technique. They haven’t lost a league competition in 12 years.”

Among other Poway teams to make the San Diego Section finals in recent years are volleyball (1984 and ‘85) boys’ soccer (‘85) and girls’ tennis (1984 and ‘85).

Poway’s reputation in the Palomar League the past few years as a tough, competitive school clashes with the city’s image as an upper-middle class suburb of red-tiled ranch homes with matching shopping centers. And that suits Leinenger just fine.

“A lot of people look at Poway and Rancho Bernardo and think that it’s a fairly wealthy area, so the kids are kind of spoiled,” he said. “But anybody who’s seen the 60 or 70 kids in the wrestling room working hard everyday for a spot on the varsity team knows they’re not spoiled or pampered. There’s a real work ethic here.”

According to Leinenger, a lot of Poway’s recent athletic success has to do with the philosophy of Principal Thomas Robinson.

“He runs the school like a business,” Leinenger. “He places a lot of importance on doing well. There are some high expectations set for students in general. His leadership and philosophy are pretty much old school. (So) the school’s success, both in athletics and academics, is a result of those fundamental things he believes in.”

And Leinenger admits that Poway’s success also makes his job a lot easier.

“As an athletic director, it’s a very pleasant and ideal situation,” he said. “I’m certainly spoiled from that standpoint. It’s certainly fun and exciting to compete in the postseason play.”

It’s a big week for soccer, as the final four in both the 2-A and 3-A classifications meet this week.

Perhaps the most intense soccer competition is in the 2-A boys’ playoffs, where two quarterfinals ended in ties that still could not be broken after four overtime period s and had to be decided by penalty kicks.

La Jolla, winner of a sudden-death, penalty-kick contest with Southwest, will play University City, the 2-A’s top-seeded team. According to La Jolla Coach Jerzy Szyndlar, this match between City Western League rivals will decide the San Diego section championship.

“It may be (a) semifinal game, but for me it will be the CIF,” Szyndlar said. “There’s not even any question--the team from (the) Western League should win CIF.”

However, Ramona Coach Bill Pittsford, whose team will play Avocado League rival San Marcos in the other semifinal, isn’t so sure.

“We’ve always had the stigma of the Avocado League being the weaker league and the Western League being stronger,” Pittsford said. “I do think whoever wins that (La Jolla-University City) game will be the favorite in the final, but I think there’s a lot more parity, especially this year. We’ve had a great season.”

Pittsford raised a few eyebrows Saturday in Ramona’s quarterfinal against Clairemont when he pulled starting goalkeeper Oscar Bravo, who had a shutout for 120 minutes, and replaced him with a stopper, Kevin Barber, who had not played goal this season.

Barber, an all-state goalkeeper from Vermont who transferred to Ramona this year, stopped seven penalty kicks to help the Bulldogs to a 1-0 win. The decision to use Barber in the event of a shootout had been made in practice several days earlier.

“We had a penalty kick contest and everybody could just see the difference in caliber,” the Ramona coach said. But while Barber may be used in a similar situation later in the playoffs, Pittsford said the senior--who was disappointed at not being the Bulldogs’ goalkeeper during the regular season--would never play goal during games.

“He’s too valuable on the field,” he said. “He’s one of our key defenders. And besides our other goalie was second-team all-league.”