Top Volleyball Teams Flop Spots This Season

For the past couple of years the top two girls’ volleyball teams in San Diego County have been Poway and Torrey Pines. In that order.

But this year, Torrey Pines has worked its way to the top. The Falcons not only defeated Poway earlier in the season, but again last Tuesday for the Palomar League title.

Now, when people speak of the top two teams, the answer is reversed. Torrey Pines and Poway. In that order.

“It was a real neat day,” Torrey Pines Coach Jim Harrah said of winning the league title. “It was a culmination of a lot of hard work and a lot of sweat.”

Tuesday’s victory also pushed Torrey Pines ahead of the Titans in the state coaches’ poll for the first time. Torrey Pines jumped from seventh to third in the rankings; Poway remained fourth.

“The girls are excited to be recognized,” Harrah said. “Any girl at the age of 15, 16 or 17 likes to be recognized. But at the same time they’re putting it in perspective. It’s a fine honor but it’s not everything to them. It’s not going to their heads. It’s nice but you still have to prove yourself.”

Poway had won the league title the past two years and in 1987 Torrey Pines was co-champion with Mt. Carmel. This year, however, the Falcons weren’t about to let that happen again.

“Before the match, the girls said they didn’t want to share the title this year,” Harrah said. “It’s been an interesting season. The short-term goal was to be strong at the end of the season. The long-term goal was to not only win the league but (to be as) prepared for the (section) playoffs as possible and possibly go to the state playoffs.”

With the realignment of the section playoff divisions this year, Torrey Pines and Poway will not meet for a third time this season. Poway remains in Division I; Torrey Pines is now in Division II. Poway has won the Division I title the past two years.

Poway will play Morse in today’s first round of Division I playoffs and Torrey Pines meets El Capitan when Division II play opens on Wednesday.

Torrey Pines (24-2) is second-seeded to Helix (28-0) in Division II, Harrah said, because Helix defeated Torrey Pines in a tournament two months ago.

“We’re a much different team now,” Harrah said. “The committee seeds the teams on head-to-head battles, not on how the teams are doing overall. I talked to some parents of the girls the other night and they all said, ‘Give us No. 2, it gives us motivation and puts the pressure on Helix.’ ”

Because of Saturday’s Times’ report on Mike Chamberlain, the Mission Bay High School football booster who collapsed because of an arrhythmic attack on his heart while watching his son play in Mission Bay’s football game Friday, his family said it has been flooded with calls and contributions from well-wishers at Mission Bay Hospital.

“Mission Bay (Hospital) says they’ve never gotten so many calls for one person,” Chamberlain’s wife, Betsy, said.

La Jolla Country Day has had games stopped before the end of fourth quarter because of the 45-point rule, but never after one quarter of play. La Jolla Country Day defeated Borrego Springs, 50-0, in the first quarter Friday.

“It was really unusual,” LJCD Coach Rick Woods said. “Everything happened so quickly. We knew Borrego Springs was having a rough year, they only have one win. We knew they weren’t up to their strength. It was an opportunity to play other kids, especially defensively.

“We made five interceptions, our defense kept getting the ball. It’s not that we ran up the score, they just kept throwing the ball in our hands. After the game (Borrego Springs Coach Rod Quigley) said he was sorry he couldn’t give us a better contest.”

Said LJCD linebacker Darren Hamilton, “What the score doesn’t indicate is we were trying to add a new defense and we were really confused at the start of the game.”

Kearny’s football team broke out of a midseason slump with a 28-0 victory over USDHS Friday mainly because it started using Darnay Scott as Notre Dame uses Raghib (Rocket) Ismail. Without Scott, a 6-foot-3 split end with 4.3 speed, Kearny is not the same team.

Against USDHS, Scott lined up at tailback on one play and scored on a 74-yard touchdown run, breaking numerous tackles and spinning off a violent collision with a linebacker, which almost knocked off his helmet, en route to the end zone. He also caught a 23-yard touchdown pass and had two interceptions. He leads the county with nine interceptions.

After starting the season 5-0 and averaging 30-plus points a game, Kearny went 1-1-1, and averaged 11 points during a three-game stretch, because it wasn’t getting the ball to Scott.

“Said Kearny offensive coordinator Steve Miner, “(Scott is) a rugged, tough football player.”

While being surrounded by reporters after he gained 159 yards against Fallbrook and became the county’s all-time leading rusher, Rancho Buena Vista’s Markeith Ross, who wanted to shake hands with the opposition, said: “Let me walk through here.”

It was the only time he asked all night.

Times Staff Writers Dana Haddad and Martin Henderson contributed to this report.