High School Review : Orange Glen Could Stand in Way of a Point Loma-Morse Rematch

How did last year’s San Diego Section football championship teams fare this year?

Defending 3-A champion Point Loma, which defeated Morse, 16-14, in last season’s title game, made the playoffs despite a 4-6 record. The Pointers had 2 victories turned into forfeit losses this season when it was discovered they used an ineligible player. Morse (8-2) also made the playoffs.

Point Loma and Morse are on opposite sides of the bracket, so they could meet again for the championship. Morse beat Point Loma in a City Eastern League game earlier this year, 35-27.

“We’d like to play Morse again,” Point Loma Coach Bennie Edens said before his team finished the regular season with a 13-7 victory over Patrick Henry Thursday. “Of course, we’d have to play Orange Glen along the way.”

If Point Loma beats Poway Friday in a first-round game and Granite Hills the following week (Granite Hills has a bye this week), the Pointers could face No. 1-seeded Orange Glen (10-0), which has a bye this week and meets the winner of next week’s game between Patrick Henry (7-3) and Southwest (8-2).

Defending 2-A co-champion San Pasqual (6-4) made the playoffs, but the team it shared the title with--San Marcos--finished with a 2-8 record and didn’t make it. The teams tied in last year’s final, 14-14.

San Pasqual Coach Mike Dolan wasn’t surprised that his team got an at-large berth after it tied for third place with Oceanside in the tough Avocado League. Still, when you’re not an automatic qualifier, nothing is guaranteed.

“I’m always nervous in a situation like that,” Dolan said after Saturday’s seeding meeting at Hoover High School. “When other people vote on your fate, nothing is a certainty.”

Dawn Gigstad, Poway’s No. 2 cross-country runner, finished third in the San Diego Section 3-A girls’ race last Friday but is not expected to run in Friday’s state qualifying meet at Morley Field, according to Coach Dan Schaitel. She has collapsed at the end of her last three races.

“Without her, it’ll be tough at Fresno (in the state championship race),” Schaitel said.

Doctors have run tests on Gigstad but have been unable to determine any reason for the collapses.

The La Jolla girls’ tennis team, which has missed has making the San Diego Section finals only 3 times since 1974, was happy to be in Saturday’s 2-A final. And that feeling didn’t change even after a 10-1 loss to Bishop’s, the school’s worst recorded defeat.

“Bishop’s is awesome this year,” said La Jolla Coach Beth Behnke. “I was proud of them just to get to the finals.”

Veena Prabhaker of Bonita Vista, seeded fifth in the individual girls’ singles tennis championships this week at the San Diego Tennis and Racquet Club, makes up half of the No. 1-ranked 16s doubles team in the country. She teams with Kimberly Po of Palos Verdes.

In singles, Prabhaker is No. 31 in 16s. Last year, she lost to sophomore Angelica Gavaldon of Our Lady of Peace Academy, the eventual San Diego Section winner. Gavaldon upset top-seeded Cammie Foley of Bonita Vista in the finals and is this year’s top-seeded player. Foley is not entered.

The CIF Competition Committee decided last week to move the Division IV and V basketball state championship games to the city in which the “home” school (determined by seeding) is located.

The Division IV and V boys’ and girls’ championships had been held at a common site, such as at the College of the Canyons. Starting this year, however, there could be 4 locations.

The goal is to eliminate half of the traveling cost. The games will not be in the gym of the home school; they will be played in another gym in the same city. As a result, the 2 host schools will not have to travel.

Another recommendation is to play the five boys’ division championships in the Oakland Coliseum starting in the 1989-1990 school year.