Prep Sports 2008: The top stories of the year

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By Keith Peters

Sports Editor, Palo Alto Weekly

Sports Illustrated called 2008 the greatest year in sports ever. While it wasn’t quite that good for local high school and youth teams, this year still has been quite special nonetheless.

There were the usual Central Coast Section team and individual champions and youth teams advancing to national playoffs. There was one state champion, one national player of the year and one boys’ basketball team that had to forfeit 11 games. Talk about highs and lows!

All in all, 2008 produced more highlights than lowlights. There were accomplishments never seen before and events we hope to never see again. Coaches were tossed in pools, had water dumped on them or simply packed their bags and moved on to other jobs and other schools.

Some amazing winning streaks were compiled before most ended, while a few survived and will see a new year and more perhaps more victories.

In a year of top dogs and underdogs, the No. 1 high school/youth sports story had to be the Castilleja girls’ volleyball team because the Gators played both roles for head coach Tracie Meskell.

Competing in the new and improved West Bay Athletic League with competition tougher than it had ever been, Castilleja went just 1-9 during the league season and took a 12-15 record into the CCS Division V playoffs.

The Gators reached the section finals before losing to St. Francis-Central Coast Catholic in three games. At that point, the story could have ended. One loss in the NorCal playoffs would have ended Castilleja’s season, but it didn’t happen.

The Gators hit the road for the NorCal playoffs and swept three higher-seeded teams — No. 3 Hamilton, No. 2 Marin Academy and No. 1 St. Francis-CCC to reach its third appearance in the CIF Division V State Championship match.

Despite having only three senior starters in Taylor Docter, Adrienne Dreyfus and Morgan Jones, Castilleja battled back from a two-game deficit to beat top-seeded Tri-City Christian, 25-15, 22-25, 21-25, 26-24, 16-14 and capture the school’s first-ever state championship.

Docter was named the game’s Most Valuable Player after producing 18 kills, including the winning point. Jones and junior Erin McLaughlin were named to the all-tournament team with McLaughlin earning the co-Sportsmanship Award.

Despite finishing the season with just an 18-16 record, Castilleja left its mark in the state history books. No other local team could boast such a feat in 2008.

“When it came down to it, we did what we needed to do,” said Meskell, who could have been talking about the entire season rather than the final match. “We haven’t done that in the past and I think that shows how great this team is this year.”

GREATNESS LEADS US to our No. 2 story of the year — Palo Alto senior soccer player Teresa Noyola receiving two national awards.

First, Noyola was honored as Parade Magazine’s All-America High School Girls Soccer Player of the Year. It was the second straight year that Noyola had won the award. A few days later, Noyola was named 2007-08 Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year.

“It’s hard to imagine ever winning one of these,” Noyola remarked after earning the Gatorade award, which made her a finalist for Gatorade’s National High School Girls Athlete of the Year (which she didn’t get). “Winning one is great. But two? It’s overwhelming.”

The two awards made Noyola the No. 1 high school female soccer player in the nation. No athlete in the history of Palo Alto sports ever had been so honored. Perhaps not too surprising, Noyola accepted a scholarship to play at Stanford and helped the Cardinal reach the national championship game this season.

AN EQUALLY UNIQUE SITUATION leads us to the No. 3 story of 2008, the Palo Alto Babe Ruth 14-year-old all-star team reaching the World Series for the first time ever. Making the trip to Quincy, Mass., easier was the fact Palo Alto only had to win the Pacific Southwest Regional to qualify for the World Series. Palo Alto did just that.

The season finally came to an end for the 14-year-old all-stars after a 17-10 loss to Youngstown (Ohio). Palo Alto earned a berth into the single-elimination portion of the tournament by going 3-1 in pool play, losing only to Tallahassee.

Palo Alto scored enough runs and had enough hits (14) against Youngstown, but gave up 17 hits and committed four errors in the season-ending loss.

Palo Alto finished its season having advanced further than any other youth baseball team from the community, reaching the World Series for the first time in the 50-year history of Palo Alto Babe Ruth baseball.

ALSO ENDING THE YEAR with a setback was the Palo Alto boys’ basketball team, which not only saw its streak of 44 straight home victories end in loss to Cupertino but suffered through the shock of having to forfeit 11 games due to an ineligible player and thus miss the CCS playoffs.

The loss to Cupertino was Paly’s first at home since 2003 and eventually resulted in the Vikings losing the SCVAL De Anza Division title for the first time since 2002. That, however, paled by comparison to what was to come.

Only days before Paly was to open the postseason, it was determined that a transfer student from Australia, Ed Hall, actually had completed eight semesters in high school and thus was ineligible to play for Palo Alto. That discovery cost the Vikings 11 victories, dropping them from 16-8 to 5-19 and out of the section playoffs.

Hall was allowed to play despite not having the proper paperwork available. By the time it showed up, the damage had been done. Soon after, Paly head coach Peter Diepenbrock accepted the head coaching job for the Canada College men’s basketball team.

ROUNDING OUT THE TOP FIVE stories of 2008 is the Menlo-Atherton football team winning the CCS Large School Division title. This was no ordinary championship and season, however.

Three games into the season, head coach Bob Sykes inexplicably left the team. It was reported he left for personal reasons and family matters.

Insiders, however, pointed to the possibility of parent(s) pressuring Sykes into changing his style of play in order to benefit their athletes.

No matter what the reason, Sykes left and assistant Phillip Brown was elevated to head coach. He took over a team that was 2-1 and coming off a 41-7 loss to powerful Valley Christian. M-A Athletic Director Pam Wimberly brought in former head football coach Ben Parks to oversee the program and take care of the discipline. The rest was up to Brown and his staff to keep the team headed in the right direction. They did.

The Bears won eight of their final 10 games, advancing to the CCS finals following a tie with Woodside in the semifinals. M-A won that game in a tiebreaker, 28-21. In the CCS finals, the Bears stopped Wilcox from the three-yard line on the final play of the game to win, 39-33.

Menlo-Atherton went 8-0-1 in its final nine games to finish 10-2-1. Seven of those final games were decided by a total of just 17 points. It was truly a remarkable performance during a season that could have gone nowhere.

NEARLY AS REMARKABLE was the Sacred Heart Prep football team, which earned the No. 6 story of the year.

In only their first season in the CCS, the Gators went through the PAL Ocean B Division undefeated, won a playoff game in overtime to earn their first-ever CCS berth, beat rival Menlo in back-to-back games (the second time in the CCS Small School Division opener) and advanced all the way to the section championship game before losing to Sacred Heart Cathedral of the West Catholic Athletic League.

The Gators finished 11-1-1 in a season that will go down in the school record books. Moreover, SHP perhaps shed the stigma that a small private school couldn’t play big-time football. The Gators, under head coach Pete Lavorato, proved that they could in perhaps the most remarkable athletic achievement in school history.

REMARKABLE WAS A WORD tossed around quite a bit in 2008, and it certainly pertained to the CCS Swimming and Diving Championships last spring. That swim meet is No.7 on our list.

A combination of lightning-fast conditions at Stanford’s Avery Aquatic Center and the use of revoluntionary high-tech suits responsible for a tidal wave of world records on the international scene, the ’08 CCS swim meet had to be considered the fastest ever. Leading the assault on the record books were Palo Alto seniors Liv Jensen and Colleen Fotsch.

Both swimmers won two individual events. Including prelims and finals and relays, Jensen broke five CCS records and Fotsch broke four in the two-day meet. Senior teammate Michela Fossati-Bellani won a third straight CCS diving title to give the Paly girls five total — the most in school history since the first girls’ CCS meet in 1974. Jensen and Fostch finished their respective seasons undefeated.

Elsewhere in the meet, Sacred Heart Prep senior Alex Navarro had a hand in four school records; SHP freshman Sarah Liang became the first girl in school history to win a CCS title (100 breast); and Gunn senior Casey Barnes-Waychus erased a long-standing school record while winning her first CCS title in the 500 free.

THE N0. 8 STORY of the year is the amazing run of the Eastside Prep girls’ basketball team. The Panthers, with only seven players (and one senior) on the roster, completed an 11th season in the Christian Private Schools Athletic League without ever losing. They went on to win their first-ever CCS Division V title and put together a 25-game winning streak before finally losing in the NorCal championship match to finish the year with a 31-2 mark, a school record for most wins.

“The girls had a phenomenal season,” said first-year coach Donovan Blythe. “Nobody had us going that far . . . the girls just went out, played hard and competed in every game.”

THE SAME COULD BE SAID about the Sacred Heart Prep boys’ tennis team, our No. 9 story of the year. One year after failing to win the 2007 CCS title after earlier winning a state and national tournament, the Gators came back and the seniors made a promise — to atone for what they had failed to do as juniors.

The seniors — Jamie Hutter, Erik Blumenkranz and Billy McCall — promised a CCS title and delivered with a 5-2 win over Saratoga. The Gators then added a NorCal championship as a bonus to finish the season 27-3. The titles capped a four-year period that saw the Gators fashion a 100-8 dual-match record, win three section titles, two NorCal crowns and unofficial state and national championships. It was truly a storybook finish.

SPEAKING OF STORYBOOK finishes, how about Gunn senior Miranda Der capping her prep gymnastics career with a second straight CCS all-around title? What makes this noteworthy is the fact Der suffered a severe injury prior to the first event.

While warming up for the balance beam, Der fell and injured her spine after landing on her neck. The mats weren’t set up properly and there was nothing to cushion her fall.

“It was really scary when it happened because I heard my spine crack several times,” Der said at the time. “I just kept thinking I was paralyzed.”

Once Der realized she could move, she shook off the pain as much as she could and got back into the competition

“The fact that this CCS meet was my last meet ever in California made me want to see it through to the end,” said Der, who did.

She finished second on the vault, won the uneven bars, took 11th on the beam and scored well enough on the floor exercise to win all-around honors by a meet .225 points.

“I had to miss my last dance of the year and I can’t drive,” Der said of the effects of her injury. “It was a pretty bittersweet CCS but, honestly, that’s gymnastics in a nutshell.”

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