More of San Diego’s Best Get a Showcase

Football fans who want to see San Diego’s best can thank the San Diego High School Sports Assn. for putting together a Division 2-A vs. Division 3-A football game on July 6. The event will be called the Mighty 690 Pepsi Classic and is tentatively scheduled for Torrey Pines, pending the school’s approval.

The game is not in conflict with the San Diego-Los Angeles game that has been promoted by Jerry Weiner for the past five years. That game, which San Diego has won every year, is played at the end of July.

Both games are for graduated high school seniors.

Morse Coach John Shacklett will lead the 3-A team and El Camino’s Herb Meyer the 2-A.

“I think partly because of the way it’s been organized and set up, it has a chance to be first class from beginning to end,” Meyer said. “Unless there are some real screwups that aren’t apparent at this time, it should be self-perpetuating from year to year.”

Meyer said the coaches in the SDHSSA discussed as a group the problems they have encountered in previous all-star games. Also, the North County Conference had a committee that investigated all-star game possibilities and created a list of proposed criteria to set up an all-star game and it matched closely with the guidelines of the SDHSSA.

“We’ve got real good, solid sponsors and financial stability and it looks like it’s got a good future,” Meyer said.

Added Shacklett: “I like the idea of getting more San Diego kids involved. The San Diego-Los Angeles format is always exciting, but this gives more kids an opportunity to play in an all-star game.

Potential players have already been notified.

If they are agreeable, the coaches, like Meyer and Shacklett, would be from the section championship teams.

Earlier, on June 8, there will be a boys’ and girls’ volleyball doubleheader at UC San Diego. The SDHSSA is going to tie that in with a clinic during the day for coaches and players and have the all-star games at night.

The SDHSSA is looking at putting together a softball game next year.

“They already have their baseball and basketball games so we don’t want to mess with that,” Shacklett said. “We just want to make sure we show the kids off.”

Add game: Meyer said he didn’t know if it would be an even game or not.

“With the sheer numbers, you have to assume year-in and year-out there will be more 3-A players on the all-county team,” he said. “But you can only put 11 on the field at one time. In most instances, the front-line kids are probably going to be very comparable. The difference might be the depth of the 3-A team.”

Trivia time: Granite Hills broke Grossmont’s record 24-game baseball winning streak Thursday with an 8-7 victory. What school previously held the record for most consecutive baseball victories?

Feeling better: Madison football player Curtis Dawson on March 16 came out of the coma he had been in since March 8. He has been steadily improving and is now out of intensive care and in a regular room at Kaiser Hospital. Dawson suffered a brain stem contusion while playing a pickup football game.

“We’re all relieved he’s come out of it so quickly,” his coach, Steve Jacobacci, said. “Everyone over there, the doctors and the nurses, considered it miraculous that he’s come out of it so soon.”

Dawson, 16, is also talking to visitors.

“He’s not fully recovered, he’s not real coherent all the time. He’s gotten up and walked around the room with some help,” Jacobacci said. “Doctors want to give him another week or so before he begins rehabilitation. He’s very alert. His mom has been quizzing him on square roots. His mind is very active.”

Dawson, a junior, averaged 7.2 yards per carry and gained 1,154 yards last season.

Right area, wrong field? Dozens of scouts and more than 500 fans attended Castle Park’s 4-0 victory over Hilltop on Wednesday. They were there to watch the highly anticipated duel between pitchers Benji Gil and Jose Silva. They weren’t disappointed by the two, but the pitching was even better in three other games in the South Bay that day.

Bonita Vista’s Jorge Millan and Mar Vista’s Carlos Quinones each threw one-hitters over eight innings with Millan winning, 2-1.

Montgomery’s Pedro Ramirez also had a one-hitter in the Aztecs’ 1-0 victory over Sweetwater. Losing pitcher Lorenzo Inzunza threw a four-hitter.

Chula Vista’s Cesar Martinez had a two-hitter to beat Southwest, 3-1. The Raiders’ Joey Garcia and J.J. Wozniak limited Chula Vista to five hits.

Each of the those games had fewer total hits than the Hilltop-Castle Park game, which had eight.

Castle Park’s Gil yielded five hits and struck out 13. In three innings, Silva allowed only a home run and had nine strikeouts. David Mendoza and Sergio Guzman pitched the other three innings and gave up two hits.

Add South Bay pitchers: Seven of the top 13 county strikeout leaders pitch for Metro Conference teams.

No-hit bug: Jeff Freetly, a 6-foot-4, 170-pound junior at Orange Glen, kept not only San Dieguito, but his coach, Ken Walker, in the dark with his pitching. A day before beating San Dieguito with a no-hitter, 5-2, Freetly had the flu and a 102-degree temperature, something he kept secret from Walker.

Freetly, still with the bug, struggled in the first inning and almost didn’t get the chance to complete his no-hitter.

“He was throwing a 58-foot curve,” Walker said. “I said to my assistant, ‘If he has another inning like this, we’re going to have to pull him.’ ”

As it turned out, Freetly settled in and won the game. He walked two batters in the sixth inning and had a fielding and a throwing error behind him to allow San Dieguito the runs. He finished with three walks and nine strikeouts.

A real catch: Poway catcher Rob Plarski has orally committed to attend USC. Plarski has had only one passed ball in 10 games this season, thrown out five of seven base runners and picked off another. He has two errors. At the plate, he’s homered twice, driven in eight runs and batted .406.

Plarski is the second Poway catcher in two years to go to a Southern California university. Freshman Matt Schwenke is the starting catcher at UCLA.

Trivia answer: Mar Vista won 23 games from 1979 to 1980 and only two other schools got close to that in the past 10 years, Santana (22, 1986-87) and Mt. Carmel (20, 1986).