Download complete file with overview and stats: 1920

1920
To attend Santa Cruz High School, students came from the Santa Cruz mountains in the east, from Aptos in the south, and as far north as Felton. Making Santa Cruz High the largest high school on the Central Coast.

In the 1920’s, the San Francisco Seals and the Seattle Rainers of the Pacific Coast baseball league, the West Coast equivalent of the Major leagues, wanted to find two cities in which each could train and play exhibition games during Spring training. Competing to lure one of these teams in, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Hollister built new fields, with the enticing amenities.

Santa Cruz built Water Street Park during this time. It was the cities first sports park and was located where the Water Street Medical Center is today. In its prime it competed with the best equipped parks in the region. It had full seating and lights with a locker room and showers under the bleachers.

Santa Cruz had a reputation of being a good sports town. One SC baseball team, the Padres, even played in the State League, a league including teams as far away as Stockton. All the small towns surrounding Santa Cruz had their own [baseball] teams, local companies and groups even formed teams. Santa Cruz itself had numerous [baseball] teams locals could play on. Baseball was so popular the games lasted into October, just like the World Series does now.

Santa Cruz ended up drawing in the Seattle Rainers. The Rainers trained and played against local and out of town teams at the Water Street Park facilities. They also traveled to play games in nearby cities. In the write ups of SCHS records, it mentions that some local players were good enough to be signed into the pro leagues. This was a new opportunity in the 1920’s, up to then players had responsibilities at home and were not able to accept college scholarships or pro contracts.

Once the Rainers stopped training in Santa Cruz, the economic benefits of maintaining Water Street Park were gone, it fell into ruin, and was torn down. It’s a shame that great community resources are sometimes lost to the narrow focus of economics.

Season totals:
Listed as: scores of games, the opponent will be listed, then the SCHS score followed by the opponent score.

BASKETBALL
GIRLS
3-0 in games with league schools:
Santa Cruz vs. Salinas, 26-17
Santa Cruz vs. Gilroy 29-2
Santa Cruz vs. King City 30-29
Against San Jose, Santa Cruz won one and lost one (18-22 and 21-9) for a 4-1 record. Sometimes the girls play as a preliminary game to the boys.

Team members: Did Faraola, Marjorie Houck, Louise Reukema, Anna Wright, Fern Morrison, Allice Parker, Rose Schlet, Doris Seeley, and Vera Jensen.

BASKETBALL
BOYS
UNDEFEATED LEAGUE CHAMPIONS.
Hollister and Gonzales came into the league for basketball.
Practice game: Campbell 54-33.
League games:
Santa Cruz vs. Salinas, 46-30
Santa Cruz vs. Watsonville 43-22
Santa Cruz vs. Gonzales 61-20
Santa Cruz vs. Pacific Grove 58-22
Santa Cruz vs. King City 43-12
Santa Cruz vs. Monterey 27-17
Santa Cruz vs. Hollister 52-7
League Champions 7-0
The team was undefeated for the season going 7-0 in league for the championship and winning a practice game for a season record of 8-0. They played the University of California frosh team and lost 40-51. But because it was a college/high school game it didn’t go on the records.

The team members were: Harold Van Gorder, Henry Leibbrandt, Lantange, Bibbins Jack Costell, Bill Organ, Butch Watson, Ahlstram, Sid Huffman, L Royse, Wolfe, and Jenne.

The Armory burned down with all the uniforms at the end of the season. The incident started a “We want a gym” campaign.

TRACK
Hollister first
Santa Cruz, second

On May first about 200 students went to Salinas to witness the biggest athletic event of the year. For the third time in sixteen years SC has been deprived of first place and forced to be content with second place to first place Hollister.

Watson was the high point man taking first in both the high and low hurdles, plus the broad jump for a total of 15 points.

Freshman, Ray Kirby was next taking second in both the mile and half mile scoring 6 points.
Hunter took second in the 100, third in the 440 and ran a relay lap to score 5 points.

Others scores:
Royse, third in the broad jump, tied for second in the high jump
Meadows, second in the high hurdles
Bibbins, third in discus
Thurston, tied for third in low hurdles
Mile relay runners, Hunter, Ebert, Paine, Costella, Steele and McAffee, won for a total of 6 points. Each runner earning a point.
Other participants: G Hammer, Wolfe, Miller and Porter

TENNIS
GIRLS
singles, Ivy Inman and Alice Bond
doubles, Evelyn Bettencourt and Caire Terra

BOYS
The SC boys won the doubles match, but lost to Pacific Grove in the CCAL meet.

Players at the CCAL meet
Singles, Hobart Harvey and Kenneth Trefts
Doubles, Earl Hunter and Paul Leibbrandt