Broken Ankle Ends Season for Bovee

One of the county’s top pitchers, Mira Mesa junior Mike Bovee, is out the remainder of the season after suffering a broken ankle in a game against Serra last Thursday.

Bovee was playing shortstop and got his left foot tangled with a runner who was trying to steal second.

Bovee is 7-0 after going 3-0 as a sophomore, having never been beaten at the varsity level. Before his injury, Bovee was fourth in the county in strikeouts with 61.

“It is a big blow to the pitching staff when you lose a seven-game winner,” Mira Mesa Coach Mike Prosser said. “The remaining pitchers will have to muscle up and take up that void. It will be difficult, but it’s nothing nobody else hasn’t been through. We’re certainly not going to give up.”

Junior Marc Nielsen (5-1, 10-1 overall at the varsity level) will be one of those asked to take up the slack.

“Marc is a solid pitcher,” Prosser said. “I have all the confidence in the world in him.”

Mira Mesa is 17-3 and tied with Point Loma for first in the City Eastern League at 6-2.

The 24th Orange Glen Invitational tonight will be a little more appealing to spectators this year.

Fallbrook shotputter Brent Noon, who has the nation’s best throw this year (73-feet-5 3/4) will be performing at center stage, in a ring in the middle of the football field.

“We’ve built a shotput ring on the 40-yard line so spectators can see instead of it being out in the woods somewhere,” Orange Glen Coach Mike Cummings said.

Field events start at 4 p.m., running events at 5:30 p.m. The shotput will get prime time, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Noon is looking to throw 75 feet and has an ultimate goal of 77 feet, a national high school record set by Michael Carter of Texas in 1979.

Noon’s closest competition will be Orange Glen’s Troy Martz, who has thrown 55-7.

In the other featured field event, University City’s Jerome Price, the national leader in the long jump, will be attempting to break the all-time section best of 25-5 1/4 set by Doyle Steele of San Diego High in 1966. Price’s legal best is 25-5, but he jumped a wind-aided 25-8 in the Arcadia Invitational three weeks ago.

Price’s closest competition comes from Lincoln’s Scott Hammond (23-3 1/4) and Morse’s Teddy Lawrence (23-1).

The last race turned out to be good and bad for Poway High’s swim teams over the weekend.

Competing at the prestigious Mission Viejo Invitational, the Titan boys led Mission Viejo by five points before the final race.

But Mission Viejo won the race and also had a “B” team place. Poway finished third, with its second relay team taking second in the consolation final, 10th overall. The difference was enough to give Mission Viejo the title.

The good news was that it was the highest Poway has placed in the meet.

“I really thought we could beat Mission this year,” Poway Coach Dennis Moore said. “They qualified more swimmers than us, and they qualified higher, but our kids swam so well in the finals to make the meet close.”

The Poway girls also finished second to Mission Viejo.

Grossmont’s baseball field could get an official name soon.

Grossmont Principal Sidney Gerstler said that people in the community and with the baseball program have “expressed a desire to change the name, but there is a district policy and a formal procedure that has to be gone through.”

Gerstler said there is a movement to dedicate the field to former Grossmont teacher and coach David Brown, who died in a scuba diving accident in December.

Make ‘em count: Hilltop High graduate Tom Hinzo, now an infielder for the Atlanta Braves’ triple-A team in Richmond, Va., is just two for 20 this season. But both hits were bases-empty home runs.

Also: Patrick Henry graduate Eric Karros had 11 hits--including five doubles--in his first 21 at-bats but only one run batted in. Karros plays for the Dodgers’ double-A club in San Antonio.

In this month’s Over-the-Line Magazine, Steve Miner, Madison’s football and softball coach, was rated the No. 2 player on Coors Pro Series. The magazine likened his competitive style to Joe Montana’s and stated that Miner might be the most well-conditioned athlete on the beach.

Miner’s Beachcomber team is the two-time defending world champion.

Martin Henderson and Jim Lindgren contributed to this story.