Prep Review : Sweetwater Picks Coach for Football

Sweetwater High School has named Andy Sanchez, 36, as its football coach.

“I’m ecstatic,” Sanchez said. He replaces Gene Alim, who resigned after eight years with an 80-11-2 record. “I didn’t think I had a chance. I just put my name in the hat and figured other people would have a better chance since I was never a head football coach.”

Sanchez, who was the San Diego Section player of the year in 1969 as a Castle Park tailback, was an assistant at Chula Vista from 1976 to 1977 and at Castle Park from 1979 to 1982. He has been out of football since 1982 but doesn’t think that will hurt him.

“It’s not the head coach who does all the work,” Sanchez said. “You’ve got to have good assistants, plus a good nucleus of kids.”

You won’t find them in any top 10s yet, but the Chula Vista Spartans are one of San Diego’s hottest baseball teams.

The Spartans remain absent from the rankings because their overall record is just 7-10, but consider that they have improved from 2-9.

After five wins in six games, Chula Vista is atop the Metro Mesa League with a 4-1 record. Last Thursday, the Spartans, behind Steve Trainor’s one-hitter, nipped Metro Conference rival Castle Park, 1-0. At the time, Castle Park was ranked No. 5 by The Times. And Juan Beltran, one of the county’s top pitchers, was on the mound for Castle Park.

“I was trying out everybody as a pitcher,” said Chula Vista Coach Dick Barcus of his club’s sluggish start. “I wasn’t going with Trainor and (Anthony) Garcia.”

Garcia is 3-3 and Trainor is 2-2 this spring.

But Chula Vista’s hot streak involves more than pitching. For one thing, the Spartans averaged 4 1/2 errors over the first 11 games.

“We didn’t do a lot of things right,” Barcus said.

So the coach began a tuneup. Juan Rodriquez was moved from second base to right. Deano Arellano went to second. Sean Desmond became the shortstop.

And in the last five games, Chula Vista has averaged just one error.

Said Barcus: “(The moves) gave us more speed in the outfield, and we’re playing more solidly in the infield.”

One of the highlights of the year for three area soccer players occurred during the week of April 4-11.

La Jolla High School’s Trevor Kelly and Ankist Zadeyan and University City’s Chris Haap were part of the Olympic Development Program’s West region under-16 team that toured Europe.

The team, selected by the United States Youth Soccer Assn., played four games during the week--two in the Netherlands and two in Belgium--winning three and tying one.

“I thought it was a great trip,” said Kelly, who was a forward on La Jolla’s San Diego Section 2-A championship team this winter. “It was a real good experience. We played on different surfaces, and we played different teams.”

The West team was one of four U.S. regional teams to tour Europe. This is the first European trip made by regional teams of the Olympic Development Program and was sponsored by the United States Youth Soccer Assn. for development of players for future national and Olympic soccer teams.

Mt. Carmel swimmer Lars Jorgensen has signed a letter of intent to attend USC.

Five San Diego County student-athletes are among 20 finalists for the award of high school scholar-athlete of the year, the California Interscholastic Federation has announced.

The five are Helix’s Erik Bliss (football), El Cajon Valley’s Andrew Castonguay (water polo), Bonita Vista’s Tracy Maria Gibbs (soccer), Point Loma’s Amy Lightner (tennis) and Mira Mesa’s Jennifer Moore (soccer).

The two scholar-athletes of the year--one boy and one girl--will be announced May 2. The winners will be recognized at the state track finals June 4 in Cerritos.