High School Review / Chris De Luca : A Sizable Problem: Coronado Too Big for 1-A, Small for 3-A

The formation of one 10-team 3-A Metro Conference has left the Coronado High football team quite literally with no place to go.

The thought of playing in the powerful 3-A division is a bit overwhelming, and the Islanders just aren’t welcome in the 1-A division after coasting to two consecutive titles in 1985 and ’86.

Dave Tupek, Islander coach, said his team most likely will operate as a free-lancer next season.

“I think we are too big for the 1-A from a competitive standpoint,” he said. “And I’ve told the 3-A coaches that there is no way we will be playing them.”

The San Diego Section Board of Managers voted last Tuesday to allow the merger of the 2-A Metro-South Bay and the 3-A Metro-Mesa leagues into one 3-A conference. The board also will allow any of the 10 conference teams to join another league or play as a free-lancer for any sport.

Anthony Trujillo, superintendent of the Sweetwater Union High School District, told the board that the eight Sweetwater teams in the conference would remain there for all sports. Only Coronado and Marian are not Sweetwater district schools.

Marian, which has an enrollment of 446, will play in the 1-A Mountain-Desert League for football only, said Jerry Judge, Marian athletic director. Marian will participate in the Metro Conference for all other sports.

If Coronado decides to play on a free-lance basis, it would be the only football team in the county doing so. The water polo team has played on a free-lance basis because there are no other schools in the Metro-South Bay League with teams.

Tupek would prefer to play in a league, but there appears to be little chance of that happening outside the Metro Conference.

“I would rather be in a league affiliation; that way if you win your league, you have an automatic playoff berth,” he said. “As a free-lancer, you have no guarantees. You could go 9-0, and people will say you have no affiliation. To have one football team that is free-lance will put us in our own little category.”

As a free-lancer, Tupek would have to hope for an at-large playoff berth in the 2-A division.

For the first time since moving to the Palomar League in 1981, the Orange Glen girls’ basketball team has won three league games. Orange Glen is 12-7 overall and 3-4 in the league. The league record isn’t all that impressive, except to Coach Tony Ricketts.

Orange Glen finished 2-10 in league each of the last two seasons, the school’s best finish since making the jump from the 2-A Avocado League to the 3-A Palomar League.

“We might actually be a contender,” Ricketts said. “That might be stretching it a bit, because Vista (14-4, 6-0) and Mt. Carmel (16-3, 6-1) are so powerful. The Palomar League is more balanced than people believe.”

Only San Dieguito (6-10, 0-6) and Torrey Pines (8-9, 1-6) are struggling.

Orange Glen used to have trouble keeping players in the program through their senior year. The best explanation Ricketts could offer was that the girls lost interest in the failing program.

But there has been renewed interest, and the two junior high schools feeding students to Orange Glen--Valley Center and Hidden Valley--have been improving their girls’ basketball programs in recent years, Ricketts said.

The first four-year player at Orange Glen since the school moved up from the 2-A Avocado League is senior Laura Hughes, who averages 23 points a game.

A site for the Division IV and V San Diego Section basketball championships has finally been secured, according to Kendall Webb, section commissioner. The girls’ and boys’ championships for the two divisions will be played at the San Diego Sports Arena, March 4 and 6.

The section will pay the Sports Arena $800 for each day. A morning doubleheader for a girls’ and boys’ championship for each division will be played both days, Webb said. The games must be played in the morning, because San Diego State’s men’s basketball team has games scheduled for the evenings.

Webb said some schools may not like playing for a section championship at 10 a.m. on a Thursday (March 4). He said he would leave it to the schools involved as to whether they play at the Sports Arena or at another site at another time.