Prep column: Banner year for Sea Kings

Barry Faulkner

Corona del Mar High is either going to have to build a bigger gym

or start hanging smaller banners.

The Sea Kings added five CIF Southern Section titles, as well as one

CIF State crown, during the 2000-01 athletic year, making the company

that crafts the nylon CIF championship banners CdM displays in its gym

about as busy as an overseas Nike sweatshop.

The five section titles, in girls cross country (which also produced

the state crown), boys water polo, girls tennis, boys tennis and girls

track and field, are a CdM record for one school year.

The previous best was four section titles (1977-78 and 1988-89), as

well as three section crowns and two state championships (1992-93).

The five section crowns matched Long Beach Poly’s output this year,

but the Jackrabbits have considerably more athletes to choose from.

Poly’s enrollment was listed at 4,500 in this year’s section directory.

CdM’s was listed as 1,000.

Talented athletes are, of course, at the root of any athletic

program’s success, but it takes much more. CdM also comes through with

outstanding coaches and strong parental support.

And, with perennially strong programs under the guidance of renowned

coaches such as Bill Sumner (boys and girls track and field and boys and

girls cross country), boys and girls water polo (former U.S. national

team coach John Vargas), tennis coaches Tim Mang (boys) and Andy Stewart

(girls), and boys and girls volleyball coach Steve Conti, there is no

reason to expect a dropoff any time soon.

Newport Harbor High announced plans recently to inaugurate an annual

boys basketball alumni tournament, similar to the one CdM has run the

last 12 years.

The Sailors and Sea Kings have both scheduled their one-day events

July 28.

Should Newport Harbor generate enough interest to sustain its event,

the next logical step would be a Back Bay showdown each summer, between

the winners of the two schools’ respective tournaments.

Give the geezers a week to recuperate and tip off on a Saturday

evening at, in alternating years, either CdM or Newport Harbor. Tell me

I’m not the only one who has thought of this.

While I’m at it, I’d request an adjustment in the schedule, so each

tournament has its own day. This way, Back Bay basketball fans can double

their pleasure and the Daily Pilot staff, stretched thin by scheduled

summer vacations, can provide equal coverage.

While there remain dissenting views on whether some Estancia High

football players will be allowed to transfer to Costa Mesa to play for

their former coach, Dave Perkins, next fall, the Mustangs list of

expected returners has taken some hits.

Nick Cabico, a second-team All-Pacific Coast League running

back-receiver as a junior, said recently that he’ll give up football and

basketball his senior year, in order to concentrate on baseball.

Michael McGuire, who started some in the secondary and at receiver

last fall as a junior, has also decided to concentrate on baseball,

according to Kirk Bauermeister, Mesa’s baseball coach and boys athletic

director.

Beware of the Titans.

Tesoro High, which opens next fall and will compete for the first time

at the varsity level as a new member of the Pacific Coast League in the

fall of 2002, held spring football practice with about 40 athletes,

according to Coach Jim O’Connell.

O’Connell said his Titans will play eight games next fall, some

against sophomore teams and some against junior varsity teams, before

making the jump the the varsity level (sans seniors), similar to what

Northwood did last fall.

O’Connell, who has worked as an assistant at Pacifica, Fountain

Valley, Aliso Niguel and Capistrano Valley (where he toiled last season

with new Estancia Coach Jay Noonan), before getting the Tesoro job, has a

staff of seven assistants and said he could add more.

Among those assistants is Dave Penhall, a former quarterback at Cal,

who was an offensive mastermind under Coach Mike Milner at Fountain

Valley in the 1980s. Penhall’s son will be a freshman at Tesoro next

fall, O’Connell said.

With graduation at all four Newport-Mesa schools scheduled later this

week, I’d like to express my congratulations to the student-athletes from

the Class of 2001. It has been a pleasure watching you perform and I look

forward to following many of your continued collegiate athletic careers.