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Coaches: Ron Mehuron, varsity football. Bob Nicholiason, assistant varsity football. Vic Miguel, softball and assistant varsity football. Mark Hodges, head JV football and baseball. Lucky Farales and Rich Martinez assistant JV football. Ellwanger, wrestling. Dennis Mullen, girls and boys tennis. Rich King, soccer. Mike Bennett, boys swimming and water polo. Carol Kreppel girls swimming and Dave Fafara, diving. Ray Hunter, girls basketball and assistant baseball. Karen Neely assistant girls basketball. Bill Dodge, baseball. Mike DiTano and Rich Castillo, JV assistant baseball. Cori Houston, girls soccer. Geesman, girls volleyball. Brian Wall and Marty Kruger, cross country and track.

1986
FOOTBALL Practice games; Marello 37-0, Gonzales 42-7, Steveson 50-0 and San Jose 34-21. Practice record 4-0. League: SLV 14-14, Soquel 59-28, NMC 12-41, Aptos 27-7, Harbor 6-14 and Watsonville 49-6. League record 3-2-1 for third place. Season record 7-2-1.
Soquel and North Monterey were co-champions with 5-1 records.

This years varsity football team came alive for the first time in a decade, with a 7-2-1 record. The team earned the support of the alumni and the community. The best overall record since 1967, when the Cards went 9-0. In past years, SC hasn’t been considered a competitor, but this year they surprised the league with individuals like Johnny Johnson (who went on to be a running back in the NFL) Sean Gahan, Chris Lovato and Bytheal Ratliff. These individuals played a role in the teams success. But one has to remember the saying, “there’s eleven guys on the field at a time.”

Sentinel preseason write up. SC faces a lot of work this season. The Cards have only seven returning players and only eight players have come up from the frosh-soph team. And that doesn’t add up to much depth. SC coach Ron Mehuron says, the team is also looking for leaders. We don’t have enough leaders.” SC does have one of the better athletes in the county in Johnny Johnson a 6-2, 185 pound halfback-defensive back with 1,000 yard running ability. “He could be outstanding, says Mehuron of the senior who was ineligible last season. Other standouts include quarterback-defensive back Chris Lovato, tight end-linebacker Sean Hawkins, two way linemen Bytheal Ratliff and Trevor McPherson. Mehuron is also high on quarterback-wide receiver-defensive back David Chase, who is up from the frosh-soph team and transfer wide receiver-defensive back Sean Gahan from Texas.

Team members were: Steve Mead, Mike Nevin, Paul Mavi, Victor Dopee, Chris Lovato, Peter Maestas, Booth Wainscoat, Gonio Martinez, Jason Folkins, Peter Discoe, John Nield, Dave Adams, Don Johnson, Doug Biddle, Brandon Fleming, Trevor McPherson, Rich Fernandez, Ballan Tuck, Rich Holm, Ramon Cornejo, Darryl Ratliff, David Chase, Johnny Johnson, Bytheal Ratliff and Sean Gahan. Head Coach Ron Mehuron. Assitant Bob Nicoliason.

New light standards at Memorial Field are being protested by neighbors. There was hope for a compromise, but it did not happen for this season. No home games were played under the lights.

Johnson Puts On A Show As SC Routs Marello 37-0. Tailback Johnny Johnson rushed for 216 yards in 18 carries and added four touchdowns. SC drove 83 yards in four plays to score on a 13 yard pass for Chris Lovato to Rich Fernandez. SC scored twice in the second quarter, first on Sean Gahan’s 54 yard punt return and then Johnson’s first touchdown on an eight yard run up the middle. SC led at halftime 19-0. Late in the third quarter, Johnson broke loose for a 43 yard touchdown. Marello fumbled on their own 32 and it was recovered by SC. Johnson ran for a 16 yard TD on his last offensive play of the game. Johnson got his last TD on a fumble recovery, which he retuned 85 yards into the end zone.
This was the first SC victory over Marello in the last three years. Lovato completed 10 of 15 attempts for 147 yards and one TD. He was intercepted once. Ballan Tuck caught five passes for 70 yards and Gahan caught three for 54. The Marello football coaches comments about Johnny Johnson, “Johnson is one of the most talented kids in the county, offensively, defensively and on kicking teams. If I were to start a team right now, I’d want him on my side. He can do it all, run, block, tackle and catch.”

Sentinel Athlete of the Week of September 17 was Johnny Johnson, who had a big game in SC’s opener against Marello.

Sentinel September 22. Santa Cruz Off To Best Start Since ‘78. Johnson runs For 241 yards, scores 4 touchdowns in Rout of Gonzales 42-7. For the first time since 1978, SC has blasted out of the blocks with a strong start, winning its first two games impressively. To say the Johnny Johnson played a key cog in the winning efforts would be a gross understatement. After the Cards first two games, Johnson has 457 yards rushing and has charged across the goal line eight times.
Johnson can not take all the credit as the Card defense has allowed only seven points. “It fires me up to put points on the board. It gives us an incentive, something to fall back on, once we started scoring our defense got going,” said Johnson. Johnson went 14 yards for the first score. One minute later, Bytheal Ratliff picked up a Spartan fumble and trucked 20 yards up the middle for the second score. Johnson and Chris Lovato exemplified the teams aggressive best on a third-and-13 play from the SC 15. Quarterback Lovato rolled to his right looking to pitch to Johnson, but Johnson was covered and Lovato kept the ball and made his way to the 35 yard line, then pitched the ball back to Johnson, who had alertly been trailing the play. Johnson went 65 yards to give the Cards a 21-0 halftime lead.
“In the beginning, it seemed like they were keying on me. But we have a really good option and with my speed and size, I don’t think a defensive back can take me down,” commented Johnson. In the third quarter, Johnson scored twice on runs of 91 and 16 yards and Ballan Tuck added a five yards TD run to round out the scoring. “I am really confident in our line,” said Johnson. “I feel we can do this every game. Its my goal to get 200 yards a game.

Johnson Runs For 250 yards: SC Routs RLS 50-0. When a football team scores seven touchdowns, the star runs 250 yards — the third week in a row he has been over 200 yards. The quarterback throws for 137 yards completing seven of 10 passes, which scored three touchdowns of 24, 28 and 43 yards and the defense shuts down the opposing team, it can make even a football coach smile. As good as the offense was the defense might have been better. It prevented RLS from making a first down until late in the fourth quarter. Defensive back Darryl Ratliff picked off two passes and ran them back for touchdowns. RLS never got past the SC 45. They gained 61 yards rushing and 65 passing.
While the Cards started the season with 17 players, they now have 22. From Johnson, “This team is molding itself and the guys are playing great. To be where we are now, considering how we looked before the season is amazing. People were saying we wouldn’t be any good, but we have really improved. Johnson, Sean Gahan and Ratliff go both ways, offense and defense. Coach Mehuron, “We have a fairly well balance team. We have a good mix on offense, two good running backs, good receivers and a good quarterback. We have a lot of talent on this team. We play very well on defense, even against bigger teams.”

Santa Cruz, SLV To Be In Spotlight. Rarely, if ever, have SC and SLV played a big football game against one another. The two perennial lightweights are –get this– 3-0 so far. The last time SC was 3-0 was in 1967, when the team went 9-0 for the season and won the MBL championship. The game pit’s the Cards offense, which is tops in the area with a 430 yards per game average against the SLV defense, which is tops in that category by having allowed only 129 yards a game. SC is number two in defense with a 142 a game average.
“It’s a different feeling going to school on Mondays,” said Coach Ron Mehuron. “It’s nice having the anxiety of winning, knowing when you win one you want to win another even more.” SC has uncharacteristically outscored its three opponents 129-7 and has two shutouts. Tailback Johnny Johnson has been a one man wrecking crew, running for 707 yards. H also scored 11 touchdowns, including one on a pass and another on a fumble return. But the SC defense has also been next to flawless.
Overall, Mehuron said, there is little to complain about. “We’ve done some things wrong and some thing well. There is a tendency for any coach to look at errors and magnify them to the point where achievements are minimized.” SC is even ranked fifth in the CCS Division II South. “That’s a very flattering type of situation to be in. it’s the first time we’ve ever been ranked” said Mehuron. Cardinal football has not been a winning proposition for most of the last 15 years. That’s why Mehuron doesn’t believe his players will to into the game overconfident. I’d like to think that the kids won’t get too big headed, because maybe they’ve seen in years past that we’d win one and not keep it up,” said Mehuron.

Sentinel October 6. SC, SLV Slug It Out, Tie 14-14. Neither Team That Thrilled By Results. Usually, when the gun sounds ending the game, one team jubilantly runs off the field celebrating victory, while the other team walks off the field in defeat. After this game there were mixed emotions for the players and coaches. After falling behind 14-0 early in the first quarter, SLV regrouped and came back to tie the game 14-14 at halftime. Unfortunately for both teams, that’s the way the game ended.
The Cards took the ball 56 yards on their first possession of the game, culminating in a 4 yard touchdown pass from Chris Lovato to Sean Gahan. On the ensuing kickoff, Darryl Ratliff put a big hit on the return man, who then fumbled the ball, which was recovered by Peter Maestas on the SLV 4 yard line. Two plays later, tailback Johnny Johnson carried the ball up the middle for the Cards second touchdown within one and a half minutes time with 6:22 left in the first quarter. “We got those two early scores and kind of let them off the hook. When you consider that in our first three games we had lopsided victories, how can you help but feel we were off to another one,” said Coach Mehuron. With 3:30 left in the first quarter SLV came out passing and scored on a 50 yard catch and run on a screen play. With 1:40 left in the half, a 35 yard screen play tied the score.
“Its rough,” said senior center-linebacker Bytheal Ratliff, “coming home you feel like you played your hardest and all you get is a tie. I wish we could have played it out, so that somebody could have won.” SLV agreed. In the final play of the game SLV barely missed a 42 yard field goal attempt. Johnson intercepted a pass on the SC two yard line to stop one SLV drive. On another occasion a SLV runner had gone 35 yards, when defensive back- fullback Rich Fernandez ran up and stole the ball on a turnover to stop another drive. SLV dominated the game statistically, out gaining SC 412 to 251 in net yards. SLV held the Cards scoreless in the final 41 minutes and 28 seconds.
After its first drive of the second half, SC managed but 56 yards the rest of the day and never got close to the end zone. Johnson, who practice only twice last week with the flu, picked up 108 yards in 22 carries, with 99 yards coming in the first half.
The game ended in a tie, which is the way it goes into the league standings, but they played a tie-breaker to determine which team would go to the CCS playoffs in the event they are tied for second place at the end of the season. The tie-breaker begins with the ball on the 50 yard line and each team has four plays, which are done alternately. Whichever team scores the most touchdowns is the winner, but in event neither team scores, the team that has the ball the furthers into the other team’s territory at the end of the eight plays is the winner.
SC won the tie-breaker by scoring a touchdown on its second play. It was a 56 yard pass play over the middle form Chris Lovato to Darryl Ratliff.

Card Defense Leads The Way. SC Forces Six Turnovers In Victory over San Jose High 34-21. A strong offense is the best defense, as the saying goes. But the Cards proved that a strong defense can be a better offense as the defenders carried the Cards to victory. The Cards are now 4-0-1. The defense forced six turnovers, three leading to easy first half touchdowns and stymied the San Jose offense until late in the third quarter. SC scored easily on its first possession, driving 59 yards in five plays, culminating with a 27 yard touchdown run by fullback Rich Fernandez.
Then the game turned into a series of “three downs and a punt” for each team. Defensive back Sean Gahan recovered a fumble on the San Jose 37 yard line. On the next play tailback Johnny Johnson took a pitchout to the right and bulled his way to a TD. Following the kickoff, Gahan picked off a pass at midfield and ran it to the San Jose 13. Five plays later, Johnson ran seven yards for his second score. After the kickoff, blitzing SC linebackers forced a fumble and SC recovered on San Jose’s 16. Three plays later Johnson had his third TD to make the score 27-0 at half. San Jose scored 13 unanswered points to start the second half.
Gahan said,” After we got the big lead, we sort of lost concentration and they came out with a lot of fire.” Gahan’s 51 yard kickoff return following the Bulldog’s second score gave the Cards good field position leading to SC’s final touchdown on a 23 yard pass from Chris Lovato to Gahan, who lined up as a wide receiver. With two minutes to play in the game, San Jose scored again to get two within two touchdowns. The defense got tough once more with strong pass coverage by Gahan and a interception by Johnson, in at linebacker, to stop the Bulldogs cold.
Gahan was the leading receiver with four receptions for 50 yards and one touchdown. On defense he had two interceptions and recovered two fumbles. Gahan also had a 90 yard kickoff return called back because of clipping. Johnson rushed for 145 yards, his fifth straight 100 plus day and moved to within 40 yards of having 1,000 yards for the season. He made two interceptions, recovered a fumble and was constantly putting pressure on the quarterback from his linebacker position.

Article in the Sentinel on the Cards success this season. Cardinals Off To Best Start In 18 Years. Not since 1972 have the Cards been above .500 after five games. After suffering through years of mediocrity and worse, football has been reborn at SC. Hallelujah! The undefeated Cards are experiencing a little bit of heaven on earth. “Everybody thinks that this is the year SC can do it. We want to show them that we can,” said Bytheal Ratliff. There will be a showdown at 3:30 at Memorial Field between the remaining two unbeaten teams in Santa Cruz county. Soquel is unbeaten and untied through its first five games and is ranked number one in the CCS Division II South. Soquel is coming off a big victory over North Monterey, the favorite to waltz off with the SCCAL championship. Number five, SC is a stranger to the CCS rankings, they have never been there before.
Led by tailback Johnny Johnson, who’s rushed for 960 yards in the first five games. SC is tops in the county in team offense with an average of 350 per game. It is also among the leaders on defense allowing only 214 yards per game. They have outscored their opponents 177-49. “When you get to this point, where you’ve been so successful, every week is a high point,” said Coach Mehuron.
No one predicted the Cards surprise turnaround. Some thought SC would be hard pressed to win a single game all season, especially after only a dozen players showed up for the first day of practice. “ I was a little disappointed, but a few others started to trickle in. Finally, we had to bring up six players from the frosh-soph. Out of necessity, we’ve pulled together,” said Mehuron, who is experiencing a rebirth of sorts himself. After coaching for six losing seasons in the late 70’s, Mehuron hung up his cleats. “I didn’t get tired of football, I didn’t think I was that effective,” he said. Three years later, Mehuron rejoined the football staff as frosh-soph coach. In 1983, when then Card coach Gary Sakamoto left for Harbor high, Mehuron was asked to return to varsity. Many of the same players he coached on the frosh-soph team are now the senior leaders on this years varsity. “Its been a lot more fun. Its not just the season, its everything. I feel comfortable with what I’m teaching the kids and the educational merits of it. Even if we don’t attain certain things this year, I’ll still have a sense of satisfaction.”
The turnaround for SC came midway through last season, when some players were dismissed from the team. At that time, the team was 1-4 overall and going nowhere. The Cards regrouped and finished the season by winning three of their last four games, setting the foundation for this years success. SC has lost only one of their last nine games. “We picked up at the end,” said Bytheal Ratliff, and that is carrying over this year.” Suddenly, the team that was going nowhere was somewhere. “We’ve had consistent performances from a lot of positions,” said Mehuron, who gives his team weekly tests on each upcoming game and their individual assignments. “I always have to give credit to the people, they’re the ones who play.” With only 23 players in uniform, every player has had to learn at least one other position besides his own in order to step in if the need arises. This week it did, when starting offensive- tackle and defensive end Doug Biddle underwent knee surgery. He will be replaced at both positions by sophomore Booth Wainscoat. “This years team has a lot of togetherness. When someone goes down, we pick each other up. That’s the main reason we’re doing better and we’re working harder,” said Ratliff. With six sophomores gaining this experience, the Cards should be expected to continue their winning ways in the future. “We’re on a pretty good track. If everybody comes out and is serious next year, we can be competitive. Its worked so far,” said Mehuron.

Pre-game story for the Soquel game. Stump Has Been In Storage. The finished piece of redwood burl approximately 16 inches square that has the mascots of both teams on it with the scores of the games since 1965. It is affectionally know as “The Stump” and is awarded annually to the winner of the SC vs. Soquel game. At least it used to be. The last time the Cards got their hands on the stump was in 1967, when SC defeated Soquel 19-14 on a last minute touchdown to finish the season unbeaten and win the MBL championship. The last 17 years, The Stump has found a semi-permanent home at Soquel.
“I don’t know if they even know about it over at SC. We‘ve had it so long,” said Soquel coach Dewey Tompkins. “It’s been sitting in a storage room for about eight to ten years. Nobody pays much attention to it.” According to tradition, the week following the game, the winning school’s captains go to the losing school and pick up the trophy, if need be. The Knights have been saving a lot of gas money over the years, having won the trophy 18 of the 20 times it has a been up for grabs.

More pre-game about the past. Football Rivalry To Resume. But Soquel-Santa Cruz Series Seems More Like A Massacre. In the 23 meetings between SC and the districts second school Soquel which opened in 1962, SC has won only twice and tied once. In the first meeting in 1962 the Cards won 21-14 to take the championship of the old CCAL league, which later became the MBL. The team went 7-0-1.
With a crowd of 7,000 in attendance at Memorial Field in 1967, in what has be referred to as the biggest county football game in the last 25 years, the Cards won their last game of the series 19-14 to win the league and go undefeated.
In 1965 the two teams battled to a 6-6 tie. In fact, not one of the current Card team was even born when SC last defeated Soquel.
SC brings a 4-0-1 record into the game and Soquel is 5-0. “Soquel is going to have a tougher time this year,” said SC center-middle linebacker Bytheal Ratliff. SC is ranked fifth in the CCS Division II South and Soquel is first.
SC was ranked number 11 in the state in 1967 and number one in the state in 1958. There were no CCS rankings before 1978.

More pre-game about this game. “We’re planning on the upset of the decade. But it is going to be awfully tough. We will not be able to make as many mistakes as Soquel and still win. If we play an errorless game, no penalties, catch passes, don’t fumble and blitz effectively on defense while still covering the receivers downfield, then we stand a chance,” said coach Mehuron. The game features two of the premier players in the league and in CCS. Soquel’s quarterback is ranked third in CCS. SC’s Johnny Johnson leads CCS runners with 960 yards, 13 TD’s on 96 carries. Soquel Coach Dewey Tompkins says, “He reminds me of Jim Brown the best runner in the NFL. There has never been as good a runner in Santa Cruz county. I have never seen anyone around here as big and as fast and with as much talent as he has.” SC has a good quarterback of its own in Chris Lovato, who has passed for 517 yards and six TD’s on 39 of 74 accuracy/ Ballan Tuck has caught 15 passes for 182 yards and Sean Gahan has pulled in 12 pass for three touchdowns and 177 yards. Rich Fernandez has run for 161 yards and scored a pair of TD’s on 29 carries.

Victory Ends 17 Years Of Frustration for SC with a 59-28 win over Soquel. This surely was one of the brightest in the last quarter century for the SC football program. The win enabled SC to move into first place for the first time since 1979. No it wasn’t just the 24 players on this years team, who felt the effects of the victory. “This was for everyone who ever played for SC,” said Johnny Johnson, “Even the alumni. Some of them came up to me after the game and said ‘thanks for doing that,’ They were all happy.” In the last decade, the Cards had managed to score only a total of 56 points against Soquel. In a span of three hours, they scored 59, which is the most every scored against Soquel by anyone.
“This makes up for last season,” said Bytheal Ratliff, who is one of the returning starters. In the week leading up to the game, Ratliff said that this was the year SC could end Soquel’s string of victories. He was right. “This is the best thing I’ve ever felt.”
The 59 points are also the most SC has scored since 1951 (records before that were unavailable). En-route to its record point total, SC put the ball in the end zone the first six times it had the ball and with 3:23 to play in the third quarter led 41-20. SC did not punt once, finished with 558 yards in total offense.
Johnny Johnson had his jersey torn to shreds in the first half and had to wear a different jersey the second half. “This is incredible, I’ve never been so amped in my life,” fullback Rich Fernandez said. We’d been working all week; I’ve never seen a team so pumped up at practice. We knew we could do it.” The estimated 2,500 at the game witnessed the biggest moment in SC football, since the crowd of 7,000 showed up at Memorial Field in 1967 to watch SC and Soquel, both undefeated, battle for the MBL championship won by SC. But 20 years from now, that number will double to 5,000 people who will say they were there the day SC unleashed an offensive flurry on the Knights.
A run down of the scoring. SC took the opening kickoff and marched 70 yards to score. Soquel scored on a pass to make it SC 7-6. Lovato completed two passes for 39 yards to set up Johnson’s option pass to Fernandez for a 23 yard TD. Soquel drove 70 yards and ran in the two point conversion to tie the score 14-14. Gahan returned the kickoff 49 yards, Lovato threw 36 yards to Johnson and three running plays later SC went ahead to stay 20-14. McPherson made two defensive plays to stop Soquel drives. With 23 seconds left in the first half, SC made it 27-14, driving 60 yards in 11 plays finishing the drive off on a Johnson two yard run.
Trailing 41-20 with nine minutes left in the game, Soquel had the ball at the SC 30, when Darryl Ratliff intercepted a pass and ran it back for a score. On the next series, Gahan’s interception set up a Johnson 42 yard TD run. It got worse. Soquel ran the kickoff back 92 yards to the SC three, but it went for naught when McPherson recovered a fumble. SC scored once more on Gahan’s 34 yard return of a interception for a TD to finish SC’s scoring at 59 points.
The heroes were many for SC. Coach Mehuron, “Everybody was contributing today. We had great pass blocking, the defense kept coming up with the great important plays. The guys really came through.” Johnny Johnson said, “Gahan is the most improved player on this team. He is a major factor. Rich Fernandez is a great back and helps the team in a lot of ways. We have so much talent and we always get a great team effort. We are well rounded and can hit from any angle.”
Sean Gahan, a transfer from Texas, who plays wide receiver and cornerback, caught six passes for 85 yards, including an incredible over the shoulder catch for 34 yards while leaning backward and falling down, had two interceptions returning one for a touchdown and the other set up a score. He set up a TD march with a 49 yard kickoff return and had 10 solo tackles and two assists. “Gahan had a terrific game,” said Mehuron. “He blocked well and had that super catch to pull us out of a hole in the second quarter and of course he played great defense.
Johnson, who plays free safety on defense, ran 24 times for 177 yards and three touchdowns, caught two passes for 67 yards, completed four of five passes on option plays for 71 yards with one going for a touchdown, a 23 yard TD strike to Fernandez and had six solo tackles and one assist. Coach Mehuron added a new play for this game. A halfback option pass designed to put a new weapon in Johnson’s hands. “It’s a great play,” Johnson said. It opens up the offense and spreads the defense. Teams have been keying on me with a lot of coverage. But with this play, if they cover me close I can pass it and if they stay back, I can run it and keep going.”
Chris Lovato, the unheralded quarterback had his best day as a Cardinal, completing 13 of 19 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns; he also ran eight times for 40 yards.
Fernandez, the blocking fullback who never played football before this year, caught eight passes for 107 yards, including three off the option from Johnson and scored two touchdowns.
Darryl Ratliff, the sophomore cornerback, returned an interception 80 yards for a touchdown and had five solo tackles.
Trevor McPherson, the linebacker and offensive lineman, who doubles as the Cards place kicker, personally stopped two Soquel drives with a quarterback sack on fourth down at the SC 26 yard line and a fumble recovery to thwart another drive. He also had five solo tackles and one assist.
There are the lineman, guys such as Bytheal Ratliff (Darryls cousin). Linemen are the players who get noticed mostly when the quarterback gets sacked or when the running backs get stuffed because there aren’t any holes to run through. Lovato was sacked only once and the Cards ran for 226 yards.
Considering the numbers, from the scoreboard to the statistics, it was as convincing a performance given by the Cards in quite some time. “We missed a couple of signs here and there,” said Lovato, “but we did great. There were some doubters of the Cards ability and were saying, “Play a real team,” the doubting Thomas’s would say.” Well, Friday, the Cards played a real team and they beat ’em. Beat them bad. “This proves we’re for real,” Gahan said. “I think its kind of obvious the way we rubbed it in their face.”
Soquel pulled to within 35-20 and then SC went for the jugular and scored four more touchdowns. Two of them were interception returns of the passes by a top CCS quarterback to put the game away. Killer instinct. Johnson got within 76 yards of the league rushing record. “It means little compared to the feeling of beating them, he said. “After all, how many years has one team dominated this rivalry.” No answer needed, just another question: will SC have to wait another 18 years, until the year 2003 to beat Soquel again?

SC football team was selected the Sentinels Athletes of the Week.

Cardinals QB Proves To Be Winner. Lovato Knows Santa Cruz Can’t Relax. When Lovato is in the SC lineup, the Cards seem unbeatable, at least that has been the case over the last two years. Lovato started the final two games last year, which the Cards won and every game this season as well giving SC a sparkling 7-0-1 mark with him at the helm. “He makes it happen,” said Coach Ron Mehurn of the quiet 5-9, 155 pound senior who has thrown for 738 yards and seven touchdowns this year. “Everybody has been congratulating us,” said Lovato. “We realize we can’t get too big a head about it. North County is going to be coming after us.” SC goes into the game ranked number 2 behind Palma in the CCS Division II South and North Monterey is third with a 4-2 record. Johnny Johnson leads CCS in rushing yards, 1,137 and touchdowns with 16.

Condors Outclass Cardinals. SC’s Cinderella Year Takes Turn For Worse. SC was shot out of the sky by a resurgent North Monterey 41-12. “The thing that beats me is how we can score so many points against Soquel and then come back like this,” Coach Mehuron. “SC was really flat today. They did not play very well. They used up a lot of energy last week with an inspired game against Soquel, ” the Condor coach said.
A lack of intensity on the Cards part was only partly to blame for the loss. The Condors played a patient, ball control game, grinding out 402 yards of offense and on defense they held Johnny Johnson to only 123 yards. Johnson gained more than ten yards on only three of his 21 carries, his longest going for 32 yards. The Condors keyed on Johnson with three to four men on him at all times.
After a scoreless first quarter, the Condors scored first. That marked the first time this season that the Cards had ever trailed in a game. Three plays later North Monterey scored again to lead 14-0. SC came back with its best effort of the day, a 83 yard, 16 play drive. Johnson converted two crucial fourth downs in the series, both times bulling past the stubborn Condor defenders for drive maintaining first downs. He charged into the end zone for a touchdown with 1:40 left in the half to make the score 14-6. But the Condors came right back and scored to go into the locker room ahead 21-6.
The deflated Cards came out for the second half and ran right into a fresh and inspired Condor squad. SC’s sole points in the second half came on a 75 yard Chris Lovato to Sean Gahan pass. Gahan slipped by the Condor defensive coverage, made a juggling catch and then zig-zagged his way down the field for the score. SC moved the ball for 312 yards, but were only able to score two touchdowns against the tough Condor defense. Rich Fernandez had a good all around game, rushing eight times for 49 yards, while catching five passes for 42 more yards. Gahan chipped in two catches for 86 yards and a touchdown. Lovato was 8 for 18 passing for 138 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

On The Road To Success. Gahan Making His Mark. The Cardinals don’t go anywhere without Sean Gahan. Here’s a kid who got lost in the shuffle of playing on high school teams of over 60 players in Texas. Now after moving to Santa Cruz, he gets overlooked because Johnny Johnson is having a career year having run for 1,137 yards and scored 18 touchdowns in six games, the best in CCS. When SC beat San Jose 34-21, two weeks ago, Gahan gave a clinic on what an all purpose player he is.

Loss Takes The Luster Off Johnson’s Record. Johnny Johnson did not have the look of someone, who had just set an all-time SCCAL rushing record. As Johnson stood alone in the eerie quiet of the Card locker room after the North Monterey game, he was surprisingly subdued as he spoke softly of his accomplishment. “It’s a bummer that it had to come in a loss like this,” said Johnson, who ran for 123 yards in 21 carries. “Today the yards meant nothing. I wanted to win the game. It’s depressing to lose, especially after the way we played last week. After last week, we were riding at such a high emotional level, we just weren’t prepared for this game. All week we were saying we were ready and we weren’t. Bittersweet as it may be, Johnson now has run for 1,260 yards and still has three games left in the season.

Sentinel November 3. Johnson Spoils The Mariners Homecoming. SC Routs Aptos 27-7. All Johnson did on offense was rush for 199 yards on 26 carries, score three touchdown, catch a pass and complete his only pass attempt. He was just as impressive on defense, causing and recovering two fumbles, snagged an interception and contributing numerous block shedding, bone-jarring solo tackles. For an encore? “Johnson decided to enter the coaching ranks. “During halftime, Johnny indicated we needed an adjustment on a play. The sprint option to the outside was taking too long, so we adjusted it,” said coach Mehuron. Johnson responded by jetting down the left sideline for a 84 yard TD run late in the fourth quarter.
“He hurt us more on defense than on offense. One time I think we handed off to him. He was blitzing a lot,” said the Aptos coach. Card defensive coordinator Bob Nicolaisen said, “I’m sure he’s a blue-chip prospect anywhere in the country. He makes sure he punishes people when he tackles them.” Johnson increased his rushing record to 1,459 and his total of 22 touchdowns is twice as many as his closest competitor. Johnson said, “I thought I played one of my best all-around games. The win gives the Cards a 2-1-1 record in league and 6-1-1 overall to keep its CCS playoff hopes alive.
SC took advantage of the six Aptos turnovers, which led directly to points for SC. Johnson put the Cards ahead 14-0 on runs of one yard and two yards. With Aptos on there own three yard line, they attempted an option pitch and Chris Lovato picked up the ball and went in for the score. Aptos blocked a punt into the end zone for its only touchdown make the score 20-7. Aptos did not score against the Card defense.
After a Card fumble, Aptos started a march, but Johnson made a juggling as he was falling down interception, giving SC possession on its own ten. Two plays later, Johnson broke a tackle and raced 84 yards for the clinching TD, By the end of his run, his knee brace was down by his ankle and his elbow pad was on his wrist. He always makes sure he has his protective gear on. You can never get hurt, when you have these things on.
SC received great play from its defense. Trevor McPherson had one interception and numerous tackles. Sean Gahan one interception, good coverage in pass protection, as well as the hit of the year on an Aptos receiver. Other busy defenders were Rich Fernandez, Darryl Ratliff, Booth Wainscoat, Lovato, Bytheal Ratliff and Jon Nield.

Sentinel Athlete of the week of November 5 was Johnny Johnson for his play in the Aptos game.

A personal part of the Harbor pre-game write up. At this point of the season, the Cards defensive stat sheet shows Johnson has 39 solo tackles, 15 assists, three fumbles caused, six fumbles recovered and five interceptions. On offense he has a 8.7 yard per carry average rushing.

Harbors Defense Stuns Santa Cruz. Harbor Spoils Homecoming. A tough Harbor defense held the number one offensive team in the league to a mere six points as the Pirates stun the Cards 14-6. Tailback Johnny Johnson was limited to 104 yards on 20 carries, but pushed his county rushing lead to 1,563 yards. Harbor stacked its defense to stop the run with eight men on the line of scrimmage. What hurt the Cards the most were the turnovers and costly penalties. There were three interceptions thrown by the Cards. One ended a scoring threat in the second half, that would have put the Cards ahead. SC was penalized nine times for 95 yards. Two of which were crucial at the end of the game. SC’s only score came on its opening drive of the game on a 11 yard scramble by fullback Rich Fernandez The loss eliminated any chance of SC making the playoffs.

Pre-game write up for the Watsonville homecoming game. Pride Is All That’s Really At Stake. Santa Cruz and Watsonville Are Both Out Of Race For A Playoff Berth. For SC, which has done exceedingly well for having very few players on its roster, doesn’t want to end the season with back to back losses. The game is steeped in tradition, since the series is one of the oldest in the state and old grads will be on hand. “It is difficult to prepare for this game. It comes down to basic pride. Even though we’re not in the playoffs, its important that we go out on a winning note,” said Coach Ron Mehuron. There have been upsets, the biggest one was in 1952, when Watsonville was 8-0 and king of the league. The game was played under a relentless rainstorm and the only score came, when a center snap on a punt by Watsonville squirted out of the end zone for a safety to give SC a 2-0 win.

A Night Of Stars For Santa Cruz. Johnson Gets 166 Yards In His Finale For Cards; Gahan, Lovato Shine Too. In the final game of the season the Cards beat the injury plagued Watsonville Wildcats 49-6. SC piled up 517 yards of total offense. Quarterback Chris Lovato completed 14 of 22 passes for 280 yards with Sean Gahan catching seven for 112 yards. They were joined in the limelight by Johnny Johnson who gained 166 on the ground in 24 carries. He finished with an all time record of 1,729 yards rushing and 26 touchdowns. Johnson said, “I’ll remember how great we all played together. I came out at the start of the season and saw we didn’t have a lot of players, but we played together, we won. We worked hard in practice and got better and better as the season went on.”
“We could have looked back and said ‘what if.’ But if you were there the first day of practice, you never would have expected us to get this far. We were tell the kids we had a long way to go just be competitive,” said Coach Ron Mehuron. Johnson scored four touchdowns of 9, 4, 5 and 36 yards. A 18 yard pass play from Lovato to Gahan for a touchdown added to the score. Senior fullback Rich Fernandez had another great all-around game, gaining 30 yards on three carries, including a 29 yard TD run, while catching four passes for 59 yards and another touchdown.
The punting game was the Cats down fall as 22 of the Cards 29 first half points were a direct result of breakdowns by the Wildcats. Watsonville’s only score came on a Card botched punt attempt. Watsonville recovered the ball on the SC 3 and punched it in for their only score. For the second game in a row the Card defense held tight. SC was so dominate, it only had to punt once the whole game.

SC finished one and a half games behind co-champions Soquel and North Monterey with 5-1 records.

Sentinel end of the season area football stats.
Individual rushing by place in order, name, number of carries, yards gained, average yards per carry and touchdowns scored.
PO NAME CA YD AVG TD
1 Johnson 211 1729 8.2 24
13 Fernandez 63 311 4.9 4

Individual receiving by place in order, name, number of receptions, yards gained, average yards per carry and touchdowns scored.

PO NAME REC YD AVG TD
5 Gahan 29 517 17.8 4
6 Fernandez 27 282 10.4 4
7 Tuck 25 314 12.6 2

Individual scoring by position in order, name, touchdowns and total points
PO NAME TD TP
1 Johnson 26 160
9 Fernandez 8 48
11 Gahan 7 42
18 McPherson 0 28 all on extra point kicks

Chris Lovato was third in passing with 164 attempts, 90 completions for a .549 average, 11 interceptions, 1321 yards gained for a 8.1 average gain for passes completed and 9 touchdowns.
Johnson was thirteenth in passing with 13 attempts, 8 completions for a .615 average, 1 interceptions, 112 yards gained for a 8.6 average gain for passes completed and 1 touchdown.

SC had the best team offense with 330 carries, 2250 yards gained rushing, 1433 passing yards for a total yards gained of 3683 with a 368.3 yards gained on the average per game.

SC was fifth in team defense allowing the other teams to have the ball for only 138 plays. They gave up 1128 yards on the ground and 1300 in the air for a total of 2428 or 242.8 yards per game.

Trident December 13. Football awards voted by the team members
MVP: Johnny Johnson
MV Receiver: Sean Gahan
MV Back: Chris Lovato
MV Lineman: Trevor McPherson and Bytheal Ratliff
Sportsmanship: Rich Fernandez

Sentinel All County Football Team. Player of the Year, Johnny Johnson. Sophomore of the Year, Booth Wainscoat. Coach of the Year, Ron Mehuron.
First team offense: Johnny Johnson, running back, 6-2, 200 pound senior. Sean Gahen, tight end, 6-1, 185 pound, senior. Bytheal Ratliff, center, 6-0, 210 pound, senior.
Defense: Johnny Johnson, free safety.
Honorable mention: Rich Fernandez, Chris Lovato, Trevor McPherson and Ballan Tuck.

The All SCCAL team, chosen by the coaches, selected Johnny Johnson as the leagues Most Valuable Player. Coach Ron Mehuron commented, “Johnny definitely made the big plays for us. We were able to do so many things this year because of capabilities. Offensively, he was an very effective decoy, because teams always had to be concerned about him.” Not only did Johnson run for yardage, but he passed the ball thirteen times for 112 yards and one touchdown. He caught 12 passes averaging 19.2 yards per reception and one touchdown. He scored 26 touchdowns, 24 rushing, one receiving and one on an 85 fumble return. He also ran for a two point conversion and scored on a safety, when he shot through the line and dropped the quarterback in the end zone.
First team ALL SCCAL players were Johnny Johnson who broke the league rushing record gaining 1,729 yards and scoring 26 touchdowns, while playing free safety on defense and making solid tackles.
Rick Fernandez in his first season of football proved to be an all around weapon on offense and defense. He scored 8 touchdowns.
Sean Gahan, wide receiver extraordinaire, caught 29 balls for 517 yards, the fourth most in league. He also played defensive back and some of his catches would have made any highlight film.
Chris Lovato, quarterback, was second in the league in passing yards and played strong safety on defense.
Bytheal Ratliff a two way starter at center and middle linebacker was the heart of the Cards tough defense.
Second team ALL SCCAL was Trevor McPherson, like Ratliff was a bull both ways at linebacker and guard.
Sophomore Booth Wainscoat a tackle on offense and defensive end was the only sophomore on the first two ALL SCCAL teams.
Honorable mention were Ballan Tuck, Ramon Cornejo, Peter Discoe and Steve Mead.

FROSH-SOPH FOOTBALL had a record of 1-9 record as six sophomores were moved to the varsity team to fill out that squad. Therefore, it was almost an all freshman team with the exception of four returning sophomores Scott Lowe, Andrew Danner, Matt Zwerling and Jeff Neumann. Freshmen with natural talent were Shawn Gologuard, Bernarlo Basteasta and Shawn McFarland.

Team members were:Scott Lowe, Patrick Bush, Gary Alvarez, Saman Parinifar, Flavia Cornejo, Jeffrey Neumann, Andrew Danner, Dino Scoppetone, Marin Brandt. Carlos Norena, Ricky Reyes, Scott Simmons, Sean McFarland, Matt Zwerling, Stephen Lang, June Vitug, Jorge Alvarez, Aaron Wainscoat, Amando Cierra, Richard Harbison, Bernardo Beautista, Patrick Sizemore, Sean Foreguard, Daniel Klien, Daniel Cooper, Daniel Kelsay, Tigo Mason and Lance Vomvolakis.

Gonzales defeated the Frosh-soph team 33-6. The Cards only score came on the opening kick off on a 85 yard return by Shawn Forgaard.

Cards lose to RLS 13-32. San Jose defeated SC 38-14. SLV won 25-8. Soquel won 26-16.
North Monterey swamped SC 61-0. Aptos won 33-6. Harbor won 42-6. Watsonville beat SC 46-14 to tie North Monterey for the league title.

CROSS COUNTRY The Boys’ team had the most successful season in Santa Cruz High History. They finished second in SCCAL, second in CCS Region IV, and ran for only the second time ever in the final CCS meet. Good athletes make the success of a team.

Yearbook. Team members were Vic and Vince Panero, Pat Sullivan, James Locks, Bill Bennett, Roland Von Der Muhl, Brad Norton, Kevin Smith, Wade Petersen, and Brandon Smith. Girls: Anna Locks and Crystal Menis.

Trident December 13. Smith Leads Cross Country With First In SCCAL Meet. Brandon Smith Leads Cross Country Team To Second Place in SCCAL meet. Smith was the first place finisher. He ran the first two miles at a slow pace, but ran the rest of the race as hard as he could to beat a Harbor runner by some 50 to 60 yards or ten seconds in the time of 16:30:26. Bill Bennett came in a strong fourth place. The Cards lost their opportunity for first place, when third man Vince Panero was unable to run due to illness.

At SCHS has of late been a sport of depleting numbers. This years boys’ team consisted of 12 members, and the girls’ team only had two, but the individual runners did well. Brandy Smith finished first in the league and second in the region, and was closely followed by strong finishes by Bill Bennett, Vince Panero, Brad Norton, Pat Sullivan, Vic Panero, Roland VonDer Muhl, James Locks and Wade Petersen.

Sentinel. Cards Break Loose. Santa Cruz boys Set School Marks. Coach Gian Starinieri, “If we could have run as well as we did today last week against North Monterey, it would have been a totally different ballgame. The Cards set team and all time school records in a 23-32 victory over Watsonville at UCSC. Last week SC lost to North Monterey 22-36, as the Condors won their thirty-sixth straight dual meet league victory spanning six years.
SC broke the school and course record at the UCSC 2.25 mile circuit for five and seven man teams. The Cards now 2-1 in league, broke the five man mark by 21 seconds and the all time record by 13 seconds with a combined time of 60:13. “We’ve been shooting for this all year,” said Starinieri, who’s top seven men broke the school and all time mark with a time of 86:13, trimming 36 seconds off of the old record. Brandon Smith topped all runners with a personal best time of 11:21.44, coming within 15 seconds of the individual course record. Vince Panero took third in 11:50.

This years girls’ team consisted of Anna Locks and Crystal Menis. Anna continued to the Region meet where she finished well among the field of 120 runners.

Since there are only two girls competing, Watsonville won their meet, because SC had an incomplete team. Anna Locks finished in seventh place in 16:33.

November 7. SC 17, Soquel 40. Brandon Smith, Bill Bennett, Vince Panero and Roland VonDerMuhl swept the top four finishing positions to spark the Cards. Smith won in 11:28 over the 2.25 mile course at UCSC

Sentinel Athlete of the Week of November 19 was senior Brandon Smith, who won the SCCAL individual championship in 16:30.26, bettering his fifth place 16:49.8 in last years race. He finished ten seconds and some 50 yards ahead of the second place finisher.

Brandy Smith was named MVP along with Anna Locks. The sportsmanship awards were given to Vince and Vic Panero, and Roland Von Der Muhl. Bill Bennett was the most improved runner and Brad Norton was voted the Iron Man of the team.

GIRLS TENNIS SCCAL CHAMPIONS
Practice matches: Monte Vista Christian 7-0. Gunn 1-5, Los Gatos 1-6, Monterey 6-1, Carmel 4-3, Santa Catalina 5-2, Monta Vista of Cupertino 6-1 and Salinas win. Practice record 6-2. League: Aptos 6-1, 7-0; Soquel 7-0, 6-1; Harbor 7-0, 7-0; SLV 7-0, 7-0, Watsonville 7-0, 7-0. League record 10-0 for the title. CCS playoff: Leland of San Jose 1-6. Overall record according to the Sentinel 17-3.

Yearbook. Congratulations to the “86 Girls Varsity Tennis Team for a fantastic season. The team went undefeated in league (10-0) and (17-3) overall. Their only losses where to the top three teams in CCS. Much of their success can be credited to their talented coach Dennis Mullen, and his famous one liners, “Let’s get the balls in”, “Take off”, “Ok go hit some serves,” and their favorite “Sprint to the last court and back”.

This season was quite enjoyable thanks to a very enthusiastic group, which included Jenny Newman, Gloria Zwerling, Hilary Hultzen, Sharon Kilmartin, Jennifer Mullen, Amy Rinaldi, Jane Wolfe, Stephanie Kwan, Kelly Nelson and Kelli Mullen. Substituting for the varsity players were Cathy Rodoni, Sarah Alpert, Lizzy Christensen, Beth Jarmin and Becki Fomasi.

Jenny Newman, only a junior, won her second straight SCCAL singles title. Newman advanced to the league finals by beating Soquel and Harbors representatives 6-0, 6-0. In the finals she beat Harbors top player 6-0, 6-2. Jenny was never seriously tested in league play. She will be playing in the CCS finals at the Cuesta Courts in Mountain View. The doubles team of Jennifer Mullen and Hilary Hultzen playing together for the first time, took the defending champions to three sets before losing 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. They advanced to the finals by winning their first match 6-3, 6-3 and the semifinals 6-3, 6-2. SC’s other doubles team of Kelly Mullen and Kelly Nelson won their first match easily 6-0, 6-1, but lost their next match 4-6, 2-6. In the match for third place they lost a close one 6-3, 7-6 (7-5).

Trident December13. Tennis Tough Ending. Girls considered to be one of the top four teams in CCS had the bad luck of drawing the number one ranked team Leland and lost 6-1, to bring to a close to a great season in which they dominated the SCCAL. The number three team of Kelly Mullen and Kelly Nelson got the only victory over Leland. Number one player Jenny Newman will represent the Cards in the individual singles CCS matches next week. Jennifer Mullen and Hilary Hultzen are the doubles team for SC.

Sentinel Nov. 19. Early Exit For Cards In Tennis. Because of the luck of the draw, or bad luck, SC faced number one seed Leland of San Jose and lost 6-1. “We were all disappointed by drawing Leland, because the kids had worked really hard this year and it didn’t seem fair,” said coach Dennis Mullen, whose team ended the season 17-3. “But that’s the way it goes.”
SC’s lone victory was in number three doubles where Kelli Mullen and Kelly Nelson won in a thriller 7-6 (7-3 tiebreaker), 7-6 (7-5). “It was the final match of the day. That made it good for all of us. At least we got to walk off with the last victory,” Mullen.
Of the 16 teams in the tourney, there were three teams Mullen did not want to play in the first round, Leland, Gunn and Los Gatos, the top three seeds. “All the other 12 teams in the tourney, I knew we could have given them a good match. That’s the sad part, we were never given the chance to prove ourselves,” Coach Mullen.

Nov. 14. Santa Cruz Rolls. SC captured the mythical Santa Cruz County girls tennis championship with a 7-0 over non-league foe Monte Vista Christian, which won the Christian Schools Athletic League. Both schools will compete in the CCS tournament next week. Number one Jenny Newman won 6-1, 6-1. In number one doubles, Jennifer Mullen and Amy Rinaldi won 6-1, 6-0.

Nov. 7. Second Loss For Cards. The Cards lost to powerful Gunn of Palo Alto 5-1 and last week lost to Los Gatos 6-1. “Both of these teams are considered in the top three of CCS. SC’s lone victory came in the number four singles, where Sharon Kilmartin won 6-3, 7-6 (7-5 tiebreaker). Number one Jenny Newman lost 0-6, 5-7. The number three doubles team of Kelli Mullen and Kelly Nelson won their first set 7-6, but the match was called on account of darkness.

Sentinel. Nov. 1 Cards Tennis Team Best Ever, Says Coach. Coach Dennis Mullen gave his team the supreme compliment following the 7-0 victory over Watsonville to end the league season an undefeated 10-0 for the league crown. Junior Jenny Newman won her match 6-0, 6-3. She is 10-0 in league and 15-1 overall. “I think this is the best overall team we’ve ever had in girls tennis,” said Mullen, who started the girls program in 1972. “I think we have an awful lot of depth.”
This is the teams third straight SCCAL title, including a co-championship with Aptos in 1983. It was also SC’s second straight undefeated season, one in which SC lost only two out of a possible 70 matches in league. “I thought it was a pretty good team before the season started, but you never know until the players get out there. You have to see what the competition is like,” Mullen said.
Jennifer Mullen, the coaches daughter and Stephanie Kwan also hit a milestone, they finished four seasons of play without losing a varsity doubles match. For two of those years they played together as a doubles team. “The thing I’m really pleased about is how hard the girls have worked all season and their concentration. The kids are all friends and get along. I think that’s helped too,” Mullen said.

Jenny Newman, Hilary Hultzen and Sharon Kimartin all finished their SCCAL seasons unbeaten. Doubles teams of Jennifer Mullen — Ami Rainaldi, Stephanie Kwan — Jane Woolf, and Kelly Mullen — Kelly Nelson also finished with perfect SCCAL records. Gloria Zwerling took the only loss of the year, but won all the rest of her matches for a 9-1 record in league play.

Sentinel Athlete of the Week of November 12 was junior Jenny Newman, who ran her season record to 18-3 and winning the SCCAL singles championship. She won her two preliminary round matches by the score of 6-0, 6-0 and then won the title 6-0, 6-2.
Added from a Sentinel article. The doubles final was close and exciting. The Aptos pair won the championship for the second straight year defeating Jennifer Mullens and Hilary Hultzen 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
Newman, whose most recent Northern California Tennis Association ranking was thirty-five in the girls 16’s, became not only the second player to win back-to-back SCCAL single titles, but also the second in her immediate family. Older sister Judy won the titles in 1978 and 79 playing for Harbor. Since Jenny is only a junior, she will probably get number three next year. Last year she won the title by the score of 6-0, 6-4.

Sept. 20. SC raises its record to 2-0 as Jenny Newman won her number one singles match 6-1, 6-1 and SC topped Monterey 6-1.

Sept. 26. Net Win For SC as the Cards down Santa Catalina 5-2. Jenny Newman won her match 6-0, 6-1. Gloria Zwerling at number two and Hilary Hultzen at number three won their singles matches SC swept the doubles matches.

Oct. 2.Sentinel. Victory Was In The Cards. Santa Cruz Tops Aptos In The Opener. Since no other girls team other than SC has ever won the SCCAL championship, is this a quick impact on this years standings? Coach Dennis Mullen, isn’t so sure. “It’s early. I don’t know,” said Mullen after his team took a 3-1 lead and then won 6-1 at the Aptos courts. “Most of the time, its been us and Aptos. Looking from that prospective, it was a really big step for us.” Last year SC went 10-0 in league and Aptos had only two losses, both to SC. Junior Jenny Newman, last years SCCAL singles champion, won the number one singles 6-0, 6-2. Number two singles player Gloria Zwerling lost 4-6, 4-6. Number three Hilary Hultzen and number four Sharon Kilmartin won. SC is now 4-0 overall.

Oct. 3. Cards Keep It Up. SC rolled to a 6-1 victory over Monta Vista of Cupertino, which is now 5-1, while SC is 5-0. Jenny Newman posted a 6-1. 6-3 victory. In the closes match of the day, the number two doubles team of Jane Wolfe and Stephanie Kwan won 7-6 (7-3 tie-breaker), 7-6 (7-4).

Oct. 4. Unbeaten Santa Cruz Netters Roll. SC blanked Soquel 7-0. Jenny Newman won her number one singles match 6-0, 6-2. SC is now 5-0 overall and 2-0 in league. Other singles winners were Hilary Hultzen, Sharon Kilmartin and Jennifer Mullen. Double winners were Amy Rinaldi and Gloria Zwerling; Jane Wolfe and Stephanie Kawn; Kelli Mullen and Kelly Nelson.

Oct. 6. Cards Still Unbeaten with a 4-3 win over Carmel. SC is 7-0 in the season. “The play of our doubles teams and Hilary Hultzen win won the match for us.” Coach Mullen. Hultzen the number three singles player won her match 7-6, 7-5. The number one doubles team of Jennifer Mullen and Amy Rinaldi won 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 and the two other doubles teams won also. Jenny Newman lost for the first time this season 1-6, 5-7 to her opponent who is ranked eleventh in the girls 16 age group.

Oct. 11 SC 7, Harbor 0. Losing only seven games in four singles matches, SC is 4-0 in league and 10-0 overall. SC has lost only one singles match so far this season, going 27-1. Jenny Newman won 6-0, 6-1. The closest match came at number one doubles, where Jennifer Mullen and Amy Rinaldi won 6-4, 6-4.

Oct. 16. Cardinal Netters Perfect. SC ran its record to 5-0 in SCCAL play and 11-0 overall, blanked Watsonville 7-0. “They were a really good team and we had to play some good tennis to beat them,” said coach Mullen. Hilary Hultzen handed the Wildcat player her first defeat of the year 6-1, 6-2 in the number one singles. Other singles winners were Jenny Newman, Gloria Zwerling and Sharon Kilmartin. In number one doubles, Jennifer Mullen and Amy Rinaldi won 6-0, 6-0.

Oct. 18.Cardinals Continue To Dominate SCCAL. The only time the Cards have lost an individual match in SCCAL play this year was against Aptos in the league opener. But in this opener of the second half of league, Aptos was blanked 7-0, but it was not easy. The Cards are now 6-0 in league and 12-0 overall. After losing in her first meeting with Aptos, Gloria Zwerling won this time 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Jenny Newman won 6-2, 6-2.

Oct. 23. Cards On Top. SC 6, Soquel 1. Jenny Newman won 6-0, 6-2. SC with a perfect 7-0 record has a comfortable two match lead over Watsonville. Jenny Newman led SC winning her match 6-0, 6-2.

Oct 25. Cards Unbeaten. Roll over SLV 7-0. SC won each of the seven individual matches in straight sets and lost only 12 games overall. In the number three singles, Hilary Hultzen won 6-0, 6-0, as did Kelli Mullen and Kelly Nelson in the number three doubles. For the day SC captured nine of the 14 sets 6-love. SC is 3-0 in league.

There were four three set matches in the SC-Salinas match up as the Cards won to go 9-0 on the season. SC won two of the doubles matches and in the number one singles, Jenny Newman won 6-0, 6-2.

Trident December 13. Tennis Team Perfect. As of October 15, SC with a 7-0 victory over Watsonville, followed by another 7-0 win over Aptos ran its league record to 6-0 and overall record to 12-0. SC has so dominated the league that the only match they have lost is in singles were Gloria Zwerling avenged her only loss with a victory in the rematch against Aptos. Singles players Jenny Newman, Hilary Hultzen and Sharon Kilmartin, the doubles teams of Jennifer Mullen-Amy Ranaldi, Jane Wolfe-Stephanie Kwan and Kelly Mullen-Kelly Nelson all remain unbeaten with easy victories over Aptos. Last year the Cards struggled to beat Aptos 4-3, while this year SC has won twice by 6-1 and 7-0 scores. There are two more league matches left and then the SCCAL finals.

In A Class by Herself. Cards’ Newman Keeps On Winning. Newman & Co. blasted Harbor 7-0. Newman, a junior is the Cards number one singles player and is 9-0 in league and has not been challenged this season. Her closest match in league has been to Aptos 6-2, 6-2. Today against Harbor, she won 6-0, 6-0 for her fourteenth victory with just one defeat. The Cards are now 9-0 in league. The closes match of the day was in the number four singles where Sharon Kilmartin won 6-3, 6-3. Even though the girls have been play well, they’ve still kept working hard in practice,” said Mullen.

ALL LEAGUE; Jenny Newman won the league singles title and Hilary Hultzen and Jennifer Mullen won the doubles title.

BOYS WATER POLO
League record 2-4 and 10-16 overall.
Yearbook. Team members were: Bill Hackbarth, Chris Urich, Chris Shumate, Ben, Jim Murphy, Jason Allison, Joel Moreno, Mark Drobac, Jove Shapiro, Brent Erickson, Anders Carr and Brian Herbert

Sentinel Athlete of the Week of October 8 was Bill Hackbarth, a junior field player, who scored seven goals last week in a 11-10 overtime upset of Aptos. Hackbarth scored two of the Cards final three goals.

Oct. 30. Harbor blows out SC 16-6 to clinch the league title. SC held Harbor to a 3-2 lead at the end of the first quarter, but then Harbor scored five goals in the second period to go ahead 8-3 at halftime. SC slipped to 2-4 in league and 10-16 overall.
The undefeated 27-0 Harbor frosh-soph team downed SC 20-3.

Sentinel Nov. 19. Bill Hackbarth was selected by the league coaches to the ALL SCCAL team. Jim Murphy was a honorable mention.

GIRLS SWIMMING In the duel meet season, the Cards defeated Aptos, Harbor 89-83, Gilroy 100-59, Watsonville 111-58 and Santa Catalina. They lost to Soquel 75-97 and Live Oak.

SCCAL championship meet results were Live Oak first, Soquel second, Harbor third and SC fourth. CCS qualifiers were Traci Kreppel in the 50 and 100 Freestyle, Suzy Wickum in 200 and 500 Freestyle and Carrie Kreppel in 200 Freestyle. The Medley relay team of Portia Libby, Shelly Leber, Heidi McPherson and Kirsten Mitchell qualified too.

Sentinel Athlete of the Week was Suzy Wickum, a senior who qualified for the CCS championship meet in the 100 freestyle in 1:00.8, 200 freestyle in 2:12.91 and the 400 freestyle relay in 4:15.75 as SC defeated Gilroy 100-59. Wickum was a winner in all three events.

Trident December 13. Swim Success. At the SCCAL meet Heidi Whiting took first place in the 500 freestyle and second places in the 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley and 100 backstroke. Suzy Wickum placed second in the 500 freestyle, third in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle and fifth in the 50 freestyle. Tracy Kreppel placed first in the 100 freestyle and fourth in the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke. Sister Carrie Kreppel took second in the 100 breaststroke and fourth in the 100 butterfly. Heidi McPherson finished fifth in the 100 breaststroke. Diver Jennifer Houser took second place.

The following team of Traci Kreppel, Carrie Kreppel, Suzy Wickum and Heidi Whiting set a new school record in the 400 free relay and placed eleventh at CCS in a time of 4:00.63

Sentinel Athlete of the Week of September 23 was sophomore Traci Kreppel, who was the only double winner in the SCHS Backwards Meet (events were run in reverse order). Kreppel won the 25 freestyle in 12.76 and the 50 freestyle in 27.21. SC finished third in the meet.

Sentinel. Cardinals Cool Off With Win. SC still has the upper hand in the SCCAL with its latest conquest of Gilroy 100-59 at their pool in the 98 degree heat. Suzy Wickum, Heidi Whiting, Traci Kreppel and Carrie Kreppel each won two events to spark the Cards, now 2-0 overall and 1-0 in league. Wickum and Whiting both set CCS meet qualifying times as Wickum won the 100 and 200 freestyles, while Whiting won the 200 individual medley and 500 free. Traci Kreppel posted a CCS time in winning the 50 free. The 400 free relay team of Kirsten Mitchell, Wickum, Whiting and Heidi McPherson posted a CCS qualifying 4:14.75. SC won nine out of the 11 events.

Sentinel. Santa Cruz Swimmers Blow Out Watsonville winning their second straight SCCAL meet and running their overall record to 3-0, by downing Watsonville 111-58. Carrie Kreppel captured a double victory, winning the 200 freestyle and the 100 butterfly. Traci Kreppel, Heidi McPherson, Heidi Whiting and Suzy Wickum posted a CCS qualifying time of 2:07.55 in winning the 200 medley relay. Individuals with qualifying CCS times were Carrie Kreppel in the 200 freestyle in 2:13.71, Traci Kreppel, the 100 freestyle in 1:00.50 and Heidi Whiting in the 100 backstroke in 1:07.73.

Sentinel. Soquel beat SC 97-75 to tie SC for second place in the SCCAL with 3-1 records just behind Live Oak, who is a undefeated 4-0. Suzy Wickum won the 50 free in 27.19 and the 500 free in 5:56.89. Jennifer Houser became the county diving leader in her first appearance since breaking her nose in a diving accident two weeks ago. Traci Kreppel moved into first place in the county standings, as she won the 100 free in 59.43. The closes race was the 100 butterfly with only five-tenths of a second separating the first to third swimmers. Carrie Kreppel came in third. “It was an excellent meet. There were excellent times in every race,” Coach Kreppel said.

Sentinel. Santa Cruz Edges Harbor In See-Saw Swim Meet. SC won 89-83 in the closes battle of the SCCAL season, which boosted SC’s record in league to 4-1, tied for second place with Soquel. Exceptional performances were common place. Both teams came up with many personal bests that it made heads swim. It went down to the final event the 400 freestyle relay. Heidi McPherson led off and took a lead, but Harbor’s second swimmer pulled even. Then Ginger Anderson pulled ahead about five yards and then the anchor Suzy Wickum kept the margin the whole way for the SC win and the meet. Wickum clocked 58.6 in the anchor leg for the best time of her life. Coach Carol Kreppel said, “It was just an exciting race. Many of my girls swam personal best time. They knew the score was close.”
SC missed its defending 100 backstroke league champion Heidi Whiting, who was ill. The Cards did well in her absence thanks to numerous courageous performances and they had to, because Harbor applied relentless pressure. Anderson was runner up in the 200 and 500 freestyles, “the first time she had ever done those two events in one meet,” said Kreppel. Wickum won the 200 freestyle in 2:15.23 and the 100 freestyle in 1:01.68. Traci Kreppel won the 200 individual medley in 2:.35.50 and the 100 backstroke in 1:15.10. Kristen Mitchell won the 500 freestyle in 6:35.52. Carrie Kreppel won the 100 breaststroke in 1:20.85.

Yearbook. Team members were: Joanna Plumly, Ginger Anderson, Kia Beasley, Larkin Ferber, Christie Clark, Shelly Leber, Rachel Edginton, Vonnie Leber, Kirsten Mitchell, Traci Krepple, Cece Caraway, Heather Demoss, Carrie Krepple, Jennifer Houser, Cyrena Hillyard, Maisie Ganzler, Susy Wickum, Portia Libby and Heidi McPherson. Coach Ginger Anderson

Sentinel prep swimming statistics as of November 19, which is the final for the season.
SC swimmers will be mentioned by race, place of swimmer, swimmers name and time.
200 Freestyle:
PL NAME TIME
2 Whiting 2:10.09
3 Wickum 2:10.74
200 Individual Medley
2 Whiting 2:29.61
4 T. Kreppel 2:30.79
50 Freestyle
3 T. Kreppel 26.96
5 Wickum 27.19
100 Butterfly
4 C. Kreppel 1:08.71
100 Freestyle
1 T. Kreppel 59.43
3 Wickum 59.72
500 Freestyle
1 Whiting 5:54.63
2 Wickum 5:56.81
100 Backstroke
2 Whiting 1:07.73
4 T. Kreppel 1:11.10
100 Breaststroke
2 C. Kreppel 1:20.56
5 McPherson 1:22.58
Diving
2 Houser 172.65 points

JV GIRLS SWIMMING
JV’s defeated Gilroy 116-50 led by Linda Guilbert, who won the 100 free and 100 backstroke.

Soquel won the junior varsity meet 90-81, despite the two wins posted by SC’s Linda Guilbert.

VOLLEYBALL League games: North Monterey, two wins; Soquel, two losses; Aptos, two wins; SLV, two wins; Harbor, two losses and Watsonville, two wins. League record 8-4.

Yearbook. Although their record of 8-4 was not enough for CCS playoff eligibility, the Cards were indeed a strong league power, giving both league champions Harbor and Soquel a tough challenge. The overall record was 11-4.

Yearbook. Once again the Cardinal’s Volleyball team earned third place in the SCCAL with two players named to the All-County and all SCCAL teams, setter-hitter Amy Ball and middle-hitter Angie Work. The varsity finished third in the Gilroy Invitational Tournament at the beginning of the season, with Work named to the All-tourney team.

Sentinel. Cards Perfect. SC defeated Notre Dame of Salinas 15-12, 15-11, 11-15, 15-7, behind the hitting of Angie Work and the serving of Jana Burr, who served seven straight points in the fourth game. SC is now 2-0.

Sentinel. Oct. 4. Cardinals Pull Mild Volleyball Upset. Coach Betty Geesman hesitated to call the Cards win over previously unbeaten North Monterey 15-6, 15-9, 15-9 and upset, but upset or not the Cards moved into a second place tie with Soquel for second place in league with 2-1 records. “I can’t say this was our strongest team, but we sure played that way,” said Geesman, whose team won without starters Jaylene Hauk and Annissa Ratliff.

Sentinel. Oct. 9. Soquel took over second place in league with a four game victory over SC, 16-14, 12-15, 15-11, 16-14. Soquel trailed 10-14 in the fourth game, before reeling off six straight points to win. “We should have won that last game. It’s still early. We hope to get them next time. I think we can,” said coach Betty Geesman. Soquel JV won 15-12, 15-12.

Oct. 11. SC swept Aptos, 15-13, 15-1, 15-7. SC now 3-2 in SCCAL was led by Jana Burr, who served nine straight points in the second game and the setting of Amy and Molly Ball. SC won the JV contest 15-10, 15-6.

Oct. 16. SC in third place at 4-2 overpowered SLV 15-3, 15-2, 15-2. In JV action, SC won 15-10, 6-15, 15-7.

Oct. 23. Harbor lost a lopsided match to Soquel in their last game, so the Harbor coach benched his first team and played freshmen and sophomores against SC and they were up to the chore, posting a 13-15, 15-9, 15-5, 15-13 victory. “Our passing wasn’t on and you can’t run an offense without passing. We didn’t play as well as we can. We‘re right in there with Harbor and Soquel.,” said coach Geesmen. Angela Work and Jody Thuringer had most of the kills for the Cards. Work also found some satisfaction in two stuffs she had. SC JV lost 15-7, 8-15, 8-15.
League standings at the moment: Harbor and Soquel 7-1 tied for first; SC and Watsonville 4-3; North Monterey 3-5, Aptos 2-6 and SLV 0-8.

Oct. 25. SC topped Watsonville 13-15, 15-4, 15-0, 15-9. SC 5-3, was led by Mindy Hawkins and Tami King. SC remains two games behind the leaders, despite a spirited performance from Watsonville 4-4.

Double Trouble For Gilroy Volleyball. The match was a make up game and a play off of the tie for third in the Gilroy tournament earlier in the year. The Cards won 5-15, 15-9, 15-12, 15-13. Amy Ball, Jana Burr, Angie Work and Mindy Hawkins led the Cards. Also contributing were Molly Ball, Tami King, Jaylene Hauk and Jodi Thuringer. The team record at this point is 5-3 in league and 9-3 overall.

Sentinel Athlete of the Week of October 29 was senior Angie Work, who “did a great job of blocking and hitting in the Cards win over Gilroy for third place in the Gilroy tournament. She also had a “strong all around game in the Cards win over Watsonville,” said coach Betty Geesman.

Oct. 30. SC stayed in contention in the SCCAL and built some momentum for its next big match against Soquel, by beating North Monterey 15-11, 15-8, 3-15, 15-3. Tami King served nine consecutive points in game four to improve the Cards record to 6-3 in league and 13-4 overall. North Monterey won the JV match 16-14, 15-13.

Nov. 1. Soquel was forced to work hard for everything it got, nipping the pesky Cards, 17-15, 16-14, 15-3. SC was in position to win the first two games. In the first game SC was up 14-13 and serving for the game. In the second, the Cards were in front 11-8 and had the serve. “We were ready and able,” said coach Geesman, whose team fell to 6-4 in league. “But, sometimes nothing happens. The girls were having an excellent time passing in the first two games, but had trouble in the third game. That lost it for us. They were really tough games,” Soquel coach, “SC is a challenge for a defense. I think SC had a really good night. They gave us a really hard match. I feel they have improved substantially.” Soquel won the JV match, 15-11, 14-16, 15-8.

Nov. 6. SC beat Aptos 15-10, 15-5, 15-9. SC stayed in third place at 7-4. SC was led by the setting and hitting of Amy Ball and the blocking of Tami King. SC won the JV game 15-4, 15-11. Soquel is 10-1 and Harbor 11-1 now.

Trident. The last two games of the season were very impressive, blowing out Aptos and SLV. Against Aptos the Cards has a little trouble in the first set, but then surged on for a 15-10, 15-5, 15-8 scoring victory. SC was led by Amy Ball and some tough defense from Tami King. Two days later in the last game of the season, SLV went down 15-5, 15-1 15-7. It was the last game for Amy Ball, Jana Burr and Angie Work, who all played well. Also contributing were Molly Ball and Tami King.

Yearbook. Standout weapons include setter Molly Ball’s wicked serve, Mindy Hawkin’s defensive wizardry, Jaylene Hauk’s effective middle blocking and Annissa Ratliff’s domination in the outside hitting position. Senior three year starter, Jana Burr’s diving expertise also earned the Cards many points and the consistency of Kora McNaught, Jody Thuringer, and Tami King, three hitters which will prove themselves to a greater extent next season. The three sophomores contributed were Molly Ball, Jodi Thuringer and Tami King.

Once again the Cardinal’s Volleyball team earned third place in the SCCAL with two players named to the all-county team. They were senior setter-hitter Amy Ball and senior middle-hitter Angie Work. The varsity finished third in the Gilroy Invitational Tournament at the beginning of the season, with Work named to the All-tourney team. They were both three year starters.
Sentinel Nov. 19 ALL SCCAL first team members were Amy Ball and Angie Work.

JV GIRLS VOLLEYBALL (league scores show at the end of varsity write-ups above)
JV members were Karen, Val, Mary, Kristen, Julie, Sarah, Marcie and Celia.

JV’s follow the varsity beating Notre Dame 15-13, 15-10.

BOYS VARSITY BASKETBALL Practice games: Alisal 59-56, Carmel 56-52. Dad’s Club Tournament: Soquel 62-57. SLV 48-37, Aptos 41-78 for second place. Carmel Tournament: Monterey 62-42, Seaside 68-49, Salinas 52-36 for the championship. Los Gatos 70-54, Palma 61-44 and Monterey 62-54. Practice record 10-1. League: Aptos 51-59, 51-58; North Monterey 59-46, 51-42; Marello 59-49, 69-36; SLV 56-39, 67-30; Harbor 39-49, 73-44; Soquel 62-51, 58-42; Watsonville 61-46. 43-45. League record 10-4 for second place. SCCAL playoffs: Defeated Watsonville 44-42, lost to Aptos 42-58. In CCS Division II South playoffs beat Carmel 42-32 and lost to Palma in the semi-finals Season record 22-7.
Play off write ups except for Palma are missing.

Preseason write up in Sentinel. It’s easy to forget the Cards were co-champions of the SCCAL last season. After all, SC has always seemed to have taken a back seat to the perennial league powerhouses Aptos and Harbor. This year SC is one of the early favorites. “Its an unusual position,” said Coach Pete Newell, who begins his twelfth season at SC and was the All County Coach of the Year in 1984 after the Cards won 11 of their last 14 games to finish 15-13 overall. “Being the favorite is something we have no control over. What we do have control over is what happens on the court,” Coach Newell.
The Cards have three retuning All County players in 6-3 forward-center Johnny Johnson and 5-10 guards senior Eddy Marcum and junior Sean Harrell. Johnson, whom Newell calls, “ the best athlete this area has seen in 12 years,” averaged 11.8 points and 11.1 rebounds last year. This Fall, coming off a record-breaking football season, Johnson immediately livened up his first basketball practice with three slam-dunks.
With Marcum at point guard and the speedy, penetrating Harrell at his side, SC easily has the best backcourt duo in the league, Newell indicated. The post will be manned by 6-2 senior Dylan Lease, while 5-11 sophomore Darryl Ratliff appears to have the inside position in a four way battle at small forward.

Team members were: Darryl Ratliff, Tom Morrione, Kenny Moore, Curt Rayer, Dylan Lease, Johnny Johnson, Charles Howard, Jack Sylvan, Rick Bol, Colin Anderson, Bytheal Ratliff, Silviano Gaona, Sean Harrell, Eddy Marcum, Alex Curotto and Joel Domhoff. Coach Pete Newell.

Santa Cruz defeats Alisal 59-56 in season opener. Johnny Johnson and Charles Howard led a second half surge as the Cards shook loose from a 31-28 deficit and took command. Howard tossed in eight points in the fourth quarter to nail down the season opening triumph after Johnson had netted six points in the third quarter. Howard and Johnson wound up with 10 and 11 points respectively, while Sean Harrell was top scorer with 18 points. Harrell scored seven of his 18 points in the second quarter. A basket by Howard put SC ahead to stay early in the fourth quarter. “We’re very happy with the win. It was a very typical first game,” Newell said.

Behind 30-40 late in the third quarter, SC punched in the after-burners outscoring Carmel 26-12 down the stretch to win the game 56-52. Cat quick guard Sean Harrell ignited the Cards engine, as he scored 10 of his game high 20 points in the final quarter. Johnny Johnson, who finished the game with nine points, chipped in five points during the crucial SC fourth quarter flourish. Johnson also snagged nine rebounds to lead all players. Eddie Marcum had eight assists.

Cards Hold Off Knights. Johnson’s Muscle Is The Difference. SC utilizing a dominant offensive and defensive rebounding game, held off a late surge from the Knights to win the opening round game of the 30th Annual Dads Club Tournament 62-57. With Card coach Pete Newell using a variety of offenses and defenses and player combinations, SC was oh-so-slightly in front of Soquel all evening. “It was a struggle, but we’re grateful for the victory. It was a typical December game for us. Periodically, we played reasonably well and then we had stretches where we were non-productive both offensively and defensively,” Newell said.
The primary muscleman for the Cards was 6-3 senior forward Johnny Johnson, who controlled the defensive rebounds from the start. Johnson led the Cards in scoring with 18 points. SC used a balance attack that eventually saw 11 players break into the scoring column, sprinted to an 18-10 first quarter advantage and never looked back until late in the final period. SC led 35-26 at the half.
Unheralded junior forward Colin Anderson was able to penetrate Soquel’s defense and grabbed several offensive rebound and put them back up and into the hoop, scoring seven straight points in the third quarter. “Last Spring, I told Colin I thought his chances of making the team were somewhere between slim and none, but he worked hard all summer. He was in the gym every day. He proved to me he could not only make varsity, but that he could play at this level,” Newell commented. The Cards with a 58-48 advantage, seemingly had put the game away at the 2:35 mark of the final quarter, when SC went into a delay game.
Soquel waited for SC to turn the ball over, which it promptly did several times and the Knights responded with two quick buckets. Johnson hung on the rime too long following a failed attempt to slam dunk and was called for a technical foul, which Soquel scored on to help Soquel close the gap 58-53. With 1:38 left on the clock, the Knights also had the ball. However, they didn’t keep it. SC continued to exert its rebounding strength, grabbing two errant Knight shots and converting them into four points, two on Johnson free throws and two on a Darryl Ratliff lay-up. SC is now 3-0 on the season.

Cardinal Defense Too Much For SLV in the semi-finals of the Dads Club Tournament. SC’s ball hawking defense bushwhacked SLV in the second half. The Cards 48-37 victory put them in the finals of their own tournament for the first time since 1978. SLV jumped on top going ahead 13-6 in the first period and 21-20 at intermission. Two Card spurts, each producing six points in 45 seconds, kept SC close. “The defense keys our offensive success. In the second half Marcum and Harrell keyed the defense,” Coach Newell.
What Marcum and Harrell did was expose SLV’s glaring weakness, the lack of confident ball handlers. Once the Cards found the weak link, it attacked with vengeance. While the SC pressure produced turnovers, Johnson and Harrell racked up points. SC scored eight straight points, six by Harrell to open the third quarter, when the Cards outscored SLV 14-2 in the first five minutes to take the lead for good. Johnson led the scoring with 22 points, 16 in the second half, while Harrell had 14, ten in the second half. They combined for 26 of SC’s 28 second half points.

Aptos Captures Dads Club Title. Santa Cruz Blown Out Of Game. Aptos experienced good times as they blew open a close game early in the second quarter and eventually coasting to a lopsided 78-41 victory. SC struggled most of the game with the Mariners tough 2-1-2 zone defense, limping to a chilly eight points in the second quarter and a ice cold six points in the third. “We stopped attacking their zone midway through the second quarter. We became too predictable,” Coach Newell. Aptos 51 percent shooting average combined with SC’s inability to hit the 15-20 foot jump shots that Aptos’ zone forced them to take, broke the Cards back. To make matters worse was their not being able to control the boards, traditionally a Card strong point. “It became a game of two teams utilizing a one shot offense. They made their one shot and we didn’t. We did all right, but it seemed that every shot they took went in and at times we could do very little right,” coach Newell.
The lone bright spot for the Cards was their play during the first quarter. Senior center Charles Howard sparked SC with eight first quarter points as the quarter concluded with Aptos ahead by a slim 16-15 margin. Howard opened the second quarter with another bucket, this one coming on a baseline offensive rebound that the lanky center put right back up and in. That basket was Howard’s last and the Cards 17-16 lead was short lived, as Aptos exploded for eight unanswered points. Aptos was able to play the rest of the game with relative abandon, as the tentative Card offense began to wilt. During one stretch of the third quarter, SC went nearly six minutes without scoring, as the Mariners ran off a string of 12 consecutive points. Sean Harrell and Johnny Johnson were selected for the ALL Tourney team.

What a difference a few days can make. After getting blown out by Aptos, the Cards were not the same team in a 62-42 victory over Monterey in the first game of the Carmel Tournament.. The Cards held Monterey’s top scorer to just four points. He had a 26 points per game average coming in. It was Monterey’s first loss in eight games. “It was our best performance this season at both ends of the court, through the first three quarters. We’re real pleased to respond with this type of an effort after our game against Aptos,” Coach Newell. Johnson and Harrell each scored six points in the first quarter and finished with 16 and 15 points respectively. The Cards lead in the first quarter 12-7 and at half 33-11. Harrell contributed five assists and four steals.

The Cards cruised into the championship game on Friday as 11 of their 16 players, who got into the game scored in a 68-49 win over Seaside in the semi-finals of the Carmel Tourney. The Cards led 39-18 at halftime were led in scoring by Harrell’s 13 points followed by Lease with 12 and Anderson 10. Johnson had nine points and 17 rebounds, while Marcum dished out seven assists.

Santa Cruz Takes Title In Carmel. SC and Salinas met for the Carmel Tourney title for the second year in a row. But this time, the story had a different ending as SC more than atoned for last years 39-36 defeat with a 52-36 blowout. And for the second year in a row Johnny Johnson was named the tourneys Most Valuable Player. He finished the night with eight points, four steals and 12 of the Cards 25 rebounds against Salinas total of 12 rebounds. Sean Harrell, who scored 20 points and Colin Anderson joined Johnson on the All Tourney team. The Cards led 9-8 in the first quarter, the Card backcourt duo of Harrell and Eddie Marcum took control of the situation and harassed Salinas into turnover after turnover, 34 in all. As the Cowboy turnovers grew, so did the Cards lead.
The Cards led 24-15 at halftime and 40-27 after three quarters in route to their seventh win of the season against one loss. “Harrell and Marcum’s pressure is the key to our defense. Once they began to assert themselves late in the first quarter, it started to pick up the whole attack,” Coach Newell. Two players scored in double figures, Harrell with 20 and Dylan Lease, who scored 10 of his 11 points in the second half. Marcum played an outstanding floor game and had five assists.

High Flying Cardinals Romp In Home Opener. The Cards used a ball hawking turnover producing defense to derail Los Gatos 70-54, giving the Cards a 8-1 record with the last four wins in a row. SC scored the first six points, quickly jumping out to a 11-3 lead with 2:47 left in the first quarter and then exploded for 10 more points to close out the quarter. Johnny Johnson, who topped the Cards with 10 rebounds, finished the scoring onslaught with a rip-roaring slam-dunk, giving the Cards a commanding 21-7 lead. The Wildcats never recovered. “Aggressive defense creates turnovers.
We have to work on not being over-aggressive and fouling. But the turnovers key our quick transition game,” Coach Newell. Newell was a bit worried about sharpness, when the Cards took the floor for the first time in seven days, but the speedy duo of Sean Harrell and Darryl Ratliff laid those fears to rest. Harrell in particular got the action going and gave his team a cushion for the rest of the game. Ratliff was very impressive on both ends of the floor. Harrell led the Card in both scoring and assists, connecting for 14 points and dish out five assists. Ratliff was a perfect 5 for 5 from the floor, finishing with 12 points.
“We got quality time from a lot of players tonight. We’ve played stretches in the last four games that were the type of ball we need to play in league. I’m beginning to settle on the top eight or nine players, who will get the majority of playing time once league starts,” Newell. SC won the rebounding battle 30-13.

Cards Win Again beating Palma 61-46. Darryl Ratliff and Sean Harrell scored 18 and 14 points respectively. SC held a 32-19 halftime lead. Palma trimmed the gap to eight points on two occasions in the third period, before falling back. Sentinel said, No other details available

Cards defeat Monterey for second time 62-54. Cardinal reserve forward Rick Bol canned a technical foul free throw to put the Cards ahead 1-0 before the first tip. The officials caught Monterey dunking during warm ups and awarded the Cards a free throw for it. The worst, however was yet to come. When the lightning quick Card fast break started flying, keyed by several wing-and-a-prayer full court passes started clicking, the Cards were off and running. The game was not as close as the score indicates. The Cardinals ranked second in the CCS Division II South, led by 22 points 58-36 at the conclusion of the third quarter, when SC began substituting literarily during the final period and the third ranked Monterey outscored the Cards 18-4. SC is now 10-1.

Red Hot Night At The Line Keys Mariner Comeback. Aptos had 20 opportunities at the free throw line and they connected on 19 of them for a blazing 95 percent accuracy. Aptos took advantage of those charity stripe tosses to eventually pull away from SC and claim a 59-51 victory. It is kind of hard to lose a game, when you shoot that many free throws. Aptos solidified their number one ranking in the CCS Division II South with a 13-1 record. SC is second and is now 10-2. SC coach Pete Newell saw a silver lining among the dark clouds, “The first time we played them in the Dads Club Tournament, a game Aptos won 78-41, we were in it for seven minutes. Tonight we wee in the game for 30 minutes. The bottom line is the same, but I see improvement.” Coach Newell.
The Cards shot well in the first quarter. The Cards had a new “Lease” on life to start with, as workman like senior forward Dylan Lease had the hot hand. He scored six points early as SC had one run of 10 unanswered points. The Cards aggressive defense kept the usually sure shooting Mariners away from the basket and generally off the scoreboard. SC jumped out to a 16-8 first period lead. Aptos chipped away at the Card advantage throughout the second period, eventually tying the game with 1:25 left in the quarter. Sean Harrell hit a bucket to give SC a 26-24 halftime edge. Midway through the third quarter, SC held a 33-27 advantage, but it proved to be short lived. Aptos score seven straight points to go ahead 34-33 for their first lead, since their opening basket. From that point on, the game was a see-saw affair as the lead changed hands nine times.
But SC had a premonition of bad things to come, when key starter and floor leader Eddy Marcum fouled out with 1:30 left in the third quarter. “I totally take responsibility for that,” said Newell, who thought Marcum was playing with only three fouls. “If I were aware that he had four fouls, he wouldn’t have been out there.” Harrell was forced to be one man trying to do two jobs, offensive floor general and scoring catalyst, ended up being able to do neither in the face of the Mariner’s concentrated defensive efforts.
SC had four players score in double figures, but to no avail. Charles Howard topped the Cards scoring with 14 points followed by Lease 13, Johnson 12 and Harrell 10. Aptos were not fazed by the Cards pressure defense. The census of area sports enthusiast are that SC would be the Mariners main obstacle to another SCCAL title.

Santa Cruz Bounces Back; Fourth Quarter Explosion Gives Cardinals A ‘Must’ Victory over North Monterey 59-46. It shouldn’t take long to establish a clear cut favorite in the SCCAL, since the three top contenders all jumped into the fracas immediately. Aptos, SC and North Monterey will meet before the week is spent. SC used a 13 point explosion early in the fourth quarter to subdue the Condors. Even though the SCCAL schedule has just begun, the SC victory was one that Cardinal Coach Pete Newell felt was essential. “We had to win. If you want to win the league championship, you can’t go 0-2 against your main rivals.”
North Monterey had a 11-1 record coming into the game. From the North County coach, “SC won for two reasons tonight. They play with more intensity and they do what their coach tells them to do.” Four points was the biggest margin to separate the teams in the first half. SC took a 23-20 lead at halftime, thanks to a pair of follow shots by forward Dylan Lease, the second coming as time expired.
A magical slight of hand by point guard Eddie Marcum to open the second half, when Marcum dropped an alley-oop pass over the Condor zone to center Johnny Johnson for a layup 10 second into the third period. Eddie Marcum was involved in the first four scores for he Cards in the second half. Just 20 seconds later Sean Harrell scored on a breakaway lay up following a Marcum steal and pass. North County scores. Marcum split two defenders with a left handed bounce pass in open court to Colin Anderson for an easy lay up. Another Marcum steal led to a lay up of his own and a nine point Card lead.
Just moments into the fourth period the Condors crept to one point, 38-37, but that was as close as they would get. SC ran off 13 unanswered points to raise its record to 11-2. With Johnson owning the defensive boards, 15 of his game high 20 rebounds were Condor misses. The Cards owned the boards 35-11. Johnson led the Card scoring with 19 points followed by Harrell with 12, including 8 of 8 from the line. Marcum dished off eight assists and took the responsibility for containing North Monterey’s explosive point guard.

Santa Cruz defeats Marello 59-49. Marello coach Russell Gross saw improved play from his squad, but he also saw too much from Johnny Johnson. “Johnson killed us. He really was the difference. This was the best I’ve seen him play.” Johnson scored 12 of his 18 points in the second half. No rebound figures were available, but his board play was crucial for the Cards. Eleven players shared in the scoring for SC. SC led at halftime 27-13. Marello came within seven points of the Cards in the third period, before the Cards gained control again.

Santa Cruz 56 and SLV 39. The flu bud had the Cards down, but not out. Three of the Cards top eight did not play, Sean Harrell, Colin Anderson and Darryl Ratliff. Forward Johnny Johnson was at the game, but did not start. With three minutes to play in the first quarter, SLV was up 10-3, Johnson was inserted into the lineup and he made his presence felt. “Johnson helped us reestablish ourselves,” said Coach Newell, whose team pulled to within 11-14 at the end of the first quarter, then outscored SLV 16-9 in the second quarter to take control.
SLV scored six field goals in the first quarter, but only a total of eight over the final three periods. “We got our defense going. It took us a while to adjust and we kept getting caught out of position early,” Newell said. The game marked the third time this season the Cards have held their opponent to fewer than 40 points. Joel Domhoff scored a career high 17 points and was a key factor for the Cards, said Newell. Johnson scored nine points and pulled down a team high 14 rebounds. Charles Howard added 10 points.

Fright Night; Harbor Put Santa Cruz Through Game Of Horror as the Pirates upset SC 49-39 to drop the Cards to a 3-2 league record, while Harbor is tied with Aptos for first place with 5-0 records. The Pirate strategy looked something like this: employ a stingy ‘twilight” zone defense that allows no Card to score in double figures. Keep the top two Card scoring threats, Harrell and Johnson, off the ledger until the third quarter. Crash the boards, out quick, out run and out fast break a team that lives and dies by being quicker, running faster and breaking better than its opponents.
The listless Cards were outscored by the Pirates in three of the four quarters. SC suffered from an uncharacteristic bout of turnover-itis and connected on only 14 of 37 shots from the floor and 11 of 20 from the free throw line. After outscoring the Cards 16-9 in the first quarter, Harbor took a 22-13 lead into the halftime locker room. The second half saw more of the same. Tough Pirate defense and SC errors, that is. As a result Harbor led 38-26 at the end of the third period and eventually took a commanding 47-30 lead with 3:13 remaining. Both teams substituted liberally in the final moments.
Indicative of the Pirates defensive effort was the fact that Dylan Lease was the Cards leading scorer with seven points. As right as things went for Harbor, they went wrong for the troubled Cards. Newell wouldn’t place the blame for SC’s uninspired performance on a flu bug that has plagued the Cards in recent days, he instead gave the Pirates credit for a good game.

Santa Cruz defeats Soquel 62-51. Johnny Johnson picked up the slack for the Cards, who were missing two starters. Johnson scored a season high 25 points, 17 in the second half and pulled down 19 rebounds. The Cards are now 4-2 in league and 14-3 overall. “They didn’t have anybody who could stop Johnny inside and we just kept going to him,” said Coach Newell, whose team took the floor without starting guard Eddy Marcum and center Dylan Lease, who were both suffering from the flu. When SC wasn’t scoring inside, it was getting fouled. The Cards outscored Soquel 18-3 at the free throw line.
“They were forced to foul us on a number of occasions,” said coach Newell, whose Cards out rebounded the Knights by a solid 34-19 margin. Trailing 23-29 at the half, SC came out and scored the first 11 point of the third quarter. “That gave us a cushion . We didn’t cruise after that, but we kept the lead the rest of the game,” coach Newell. Sean Harrell and Charles Howard added 13 and 12 points respectively.

Cards take Watsonville 61-46. Sean Harrell scored 13 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter and Johnny Johnson further sparked the Cards with a game total of 18 points. Watsonville had a chance to trim its deficit to four points at the end of the third quarter, when it pressed and stole the ball, but instead the Cats fell behind by eight, 28-36, when the Cats gave the ball right back to SC and surrendered a quick field goal at the buzzer. Harrell, who else ?, put the game out of reach with a three point play to open the fourth period. Seven of Johnson’s points came in the second quarter. SC out rebounded the Cats badly.

Three Players Ejected In Brawl-Marred Game. A bad fight broke out in a good game between SC and Aptos. As expected, it was a physical contest between SCCAL basketball rivals. But a third quarter, bleacher clearing brawl marred an otherwise exciting game. When the dust settled, the Mariners had defeated SC 58-51 for the fourth time in a row, including last years SCCAL playoff game and won their nineteenth game of the season against one loss.
The Mariners are an undefeated 8-0 in league. SC slipped to 5-3, but retains its second place status as Harbor lost to Marello. SC came out blazing at the opening tip. Johnson hit his first three shots of the game. Both teams utilized full court presses in the first few minutes of the game, whipping the crowd into a frenzy with frantic non-stop action on the court. When the first quarter ended the Cards were ahead 21-14. The towering Mariners came roaring back to take a 34-30 halftime lead.
In the bleachers, the Mariner fans supplied the roar. The usual taunting and cheering between the home Aptos crowd and the visiting SC contingent reached a crescendo early in the third quarter. The Mariners altered their defensive strategy in the third quarter. Instead of pressing and trapping, they settled back into their comfortable 2-3 zone, frustrating SC. Coach Newell, “Aptos used three different defenses in the second quarter. We didn’t adjust. Then, in the beginning of the third, they’re back in the 2-3. We had been facing and onslaught of pressure for the first two quarters, then they collapse into the zone.” The first four times down the court in the second half, SC failed to get off a shot. Aptos intercepted eight Cards passes in the third quarter.
With 5:38 left in the third quarter, the beautifully competitive game became a loathsome melee. Aptos had the lead 38-30, when Dylan Lease and Mariner Warren Holt jostled for the ball as it was heading out of bounds under the Aptos hoop in front of the Aptos student section. The jostling turned to clenched fists and flying elbows. A blue wave descended upon the court in the direction of the fight from the Aptos side of the court. Both teams rose from their seats and sped to the action. They were followed by SC supporters. No less than 50 people were on the court. Most were trying to restore order, some were trying to defend themselves, others trying to satisfy an urge for violence.
Coach Newell, “What I saw were two kids getting swept up in the emotion of the play and they reacted. Up to that point, it was a very cleanly played game; physical, but clean. Both referees are to be commended for diffusing the situation. It was just a two-man fight, then the Aptos kids in the stands got swept on to the floor. You have what could have been a real ugly situation. Luckily, there were enough adults, who came out that were able to, first of all, separate the students from the players, then players from the players.” Both combatants were ejected from the game along with one other SC player. When the game continued, Aptos remained dominant. Their biggest lead was 12 points at 52-40 and 54-42. Johnson led SC with 16 points and 16 rebounds.

(A summary of two articles in the Sentinel followed re-explaining what happened at the game, disciplinary actions taken, ways to have better control at the games and giving credit to those who helped defuse the situation. The explanation in both articles come next.) Holt and Lease struggled for a loose ball next to the Aptos basket. Both players fell to the floor with Lease landing on top of Holt, said one of the officials. Holt reacted immediately. The brawl was halted in less than a minute. Lease got a chipped tooth, while teammate Ken Moore was knocked down by a student from the stands, who then was arrested as the Aptos principal made a citizen’s arrest. Moore complained of arm, hip and back pains. There were 12 Aptos faculty and administrative staff supervising the game. The SCCAL commissioner said a stricter “code of ethics” will likely have to be enforce at future games. Better sportsmanship, better crowd control methods applied.” The commissioner is going to propose that no fans be allowed to stand against or near the walls at the end of the court. He believes it was these fans, who jumped into the fray.

Another article in the Sentinel about the ejection of Aptos’ Holt. Aptos coach Bill Warmerdam at the next game held his team in the dressing room before the game until the horned sounded and it was time to introduce the starting lineups. Then, just as Soquel players took the court for the opening tip off, he had his captain call five straight time outs, one after the other, before the game was allowed to finally get under way. “I’m standing up for my player. That’s my way of supporting him. I don’t care if we lose the game,” Warmerdam said before the contest.

The Defense Rests . . . After Keying Cards Rally. There was no need for a complicated, drawn out explanation of SC’s 51-42 victory over North Monterey. “Our defense shut them down in the second quarter,” was Coach Newell’s rather brief testimony of the game. Newell does not mean to imply that the second quarter was the only time his team played tough “D”. In fact, it was four quarters of team defense that shut down a potentially explosive Condor offense. The evidence supports Newell. North County led 18-11 at the end of the first quarter. Newell made some personnel shifts in his ever present man to man defense and subsequently held the Condors to one field goal on a steal in the second quarter. SC held its ground the rest of the half and eventually took a 27-25 lead at intermission.
The win kept SC tied for second place with Harbor with 6-3 records. “Colin Anderson has not played for five games, because of height match ups and illness. The Condors top scorer with a 23 per game average scored 10 points in the first quarter, but then Colin started guarding him and held him to two points the rest of the game. Guard Eddy Marcum held the sparkplug point guard of the Condor offense under control and gummed up their offense. While the other four players were playing man to man center Johnny Johnson was able to patrol the paint as he would in a zone defense. “Johnny dominates the inside. His presence in the middle discourages someone like the Condors speedy driving point guard from penetrating. Johnny does so many things you can’t measure. A lot of things don’t happen, simply because he is there,” Coach Newell. There are some things you can measure. Johnson grabbed 20 rebounds and scored 15 points to lead all players in both categories.

Santa Cruz Tops Marello 69-36. SC improved its SCCAL record to 7-3 and each of their 16 players scored. “That’s one of the major highlights of our season. There aren’t too many varsity teams that have 16 players score in a game,” coach Newell. Johnson who played only half the game was the lone SC player who scored in double figures. He had 15 points and 15 rebounds.

Santa Cruz in easy victory 67-30 over SLV. As first quarters go, the Cards effort couldn’t have been much better. SC scored the first nine points in less than a minute, ran out to a 25-0 lead and held a 31-2 advantage at the end of the first period. Johnson scored six of his team high 12 points in the first minute, while Sean Harrell had 10 points. Joel Domhoff scored eight of his 10 points in the first period, when seven different Cards put points on the board. “We spent more time than usual Monday at practice on defense and it carried over tonight,” said Newell, whose team has given up less than 10 points in 17 of 44 quarters in league play. Only one team, Aptos, has scored over 60 points on the Cards. “Its not like we’re holding the ball either and we’re playing a lot of people,” coach Newell. SC is now 18-4 overall and alone in second place in league at 8-3.

SC Thrashes The Stunned Pirates 73-44. Harbor has now lost four of their last six league games after starting 5-0. They are now tied with Watsonville at 7-5 for third place. Meanwhile SC is sitting on top of the world at 9-3 in second place and can start preparing for the playoffs. For Coach Pete Newell, his teams nineteenth win of the season, against four loses was a personal record in his 12 years at the school.
The first quarter Cardinal lead was misleading. SC was lunching on layups, while Harbor was shooting off balanced low percentage shots. The two point lead did not indicate what was happening on the court. SC’s man to man defense was shredding at the Pirate’s expense. “In the first quarter, our ‘D’ was creating opportunities, but we were just missing some passes. It took us a couple of minutes longer than usual to get into our rhythm. Then we had it until Johnny Johnson picked up his second foul,” Coach Newell. That foul came midway through the second quarter after the Cards had built a 28-16 lead.
Two fouls may not seem like enough reason to sit someone down for the four minutes of the first half, but Newell has his reasons. “If we have a lead, I’ll be more conservative. If we get to halftime with the lead and Johnny with two or less fouls on him, I feel we’re in the drivers seat. If he has three fouls, I become concerned,” Coach Newell. Newell had the lead at halftime, 33-26 and Johnson only had two fouls. While the first 83 seconds were ticking off the clock in the third quarter, SC scored eight points on four lay ups in a flurry of action that flustered the floundering Pirates. Suddenly, the score was 41-26 and Harbor called time.
Of SC’s 35 field goals, at least 22 were lay ups. That enabled the Cards to shoot 63 percent from the floor on 35 of 56 shots. Newell was asked if his squad could now be considered a great basketball team. “I would say so, if we beat Aptos, who we have lost too three times so far this year. Its not that SC and Aptos can’t both be great. There’s room in the county for two great teams. But greats is not a loose word. If you are great, then you can beat other great teams. I think Aptos is a great high school team, their record proves it. They’re blowing everyone away. If we get an opportunity to play them again and beat them, then maybe I could call us great. But right now my focus is not on the value of this team, its on Soquel, who we play next,” Coach Newell.
Johnson finished the night with 19 rebounds and 17 points. Sean Harrell was the leading scorer with 18 followed by Howard with 10 and Anderson 9. Eddy Marcum dished off nine assists. SC out rebounded Harbor 35-16.

SC defeats Soquel 58-42. With the Cards previously having clinched second place, the teams basically went through the motions. It was SC’s third victory over Soquel this season. SC led by Johnson’s 11 points and Harrell’s eight, took control in the second quarter by outscoring Soquel 21-14. Johnson led all scorers in the game with 19 points, while Harrell finished with 12 to lead SC 20-4 overall and 10-3 in league. Fourteen SC players got into the game and Soquel played 12. SC’s defense held Soquel to 27 points going into the fourth quarter.

Wildcats Slip Past Cards Into Playoffs with a 45-43 upset of the Cards at Cabrillo College in their last regular season SCCAL game. Watsonville high coach Bob Linney would rather be good then lucky. By beating SC in the last SCCAL game of the season, Watsonville placed fourth in the league all by themselves with a 8-6 league record and a place in the league playoffs. It is the first time since 1971 that Watsonville has advanced to the post season. The Wildcats never trailed after a la up put them ahead 35-33 with 23 seconds remaining in the third quarter. But the game was far from over.
SC fought back to tie the game twice, the last time at 41-41 on a n Alley-Oop pass to Johnson with 2:28 to play. Watsonville stripped the ball from a Card rebounded and put it in the basket for a 45-43 lead. “That was the key play,” said Linney. SC came down the court and had a lay up roll around the rim and off. Watsonville rebounded and called time with 29 seconds left. SC waited until three seconds left to foul and the Cat missed, SC rebounded and called time. The full court passes was intercepted to end the game. The Cats won six of their last seven games. SC 20-5 for the season and 10-4 in league got 16 points from Johnson and 12 points from Harrell. The Cards out rebounded the Cats by a solid 27-19 margin.

From the Trident. In a 44-42 victory over Watsonville in the league semi-finals, the Cards paid the Cats back for defeating them five days earlier to give the Cards another chance against Aptos in the finals. Thanks to Johnny Johnson’s 20 points and 8 rebounds and Eddy Macum’s seven points and floor leadership. SC got off to a quick lead and led by 12 points in the second quarter. Watsonville came back and closed it up to 24-19 at half. SC came out of the locker room playing great defense and went ahead 38-29 at the end of the third quarter. Some bad passing allowed Watsonville to tie the score with two minutes left. SC played for one shot and Johnson took it with 14 seconds left. The ball went straight up and Darryl Ratliff tipped the ball up to the basket where Charles Howard rebounded it and was fouled with 11 seconds left. Howard made the first foul shot, but missed the second. Watsonville called time and then threw the ball away. On the inbound pass Marcum was fouled and made one of two. Watsonville got off a shot that missed.

Trident Quest For The Crown. In the finals Aptos won 58-42 for their fourth win over the Cards this season. Following the pattern of the previous three games, the Cards fast broke their way to a first period lead getting a quick outlet pass to Eddie Marcum and letting him do his thing from there. This time it was SC 16-12 at the end of one. Charles Howard’s two handed slamma jamma got the SC crowd rocking. Sean Harrell was playing like a man possessed as he was continually penetrating the Aptos zone and dishing off or going all the way for the hoop or being fouled. Johnny Johnson played his best six point game of his career as he soared for 18 rebounds and at least six blocks, including a spike job on the Aptos center. Defensively he was a force against the Mariner big three on the boards.
SC continued their spurt in the second quarter and led 22-14, before Aptos started to assert itself on the boards and took a 28-26 lead at halftime. SC came out the second half and the shots were not dropping as they shot only 17 percent in the second half and 28 for the whole game. Aptos started getting two and three rebounds at a time on the offensive boards as Johnson started to wear down. Harrell had a fine night scoring 15 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and five steals. Going into the CCS playoffs the Cards are 21-6.

Music Stops For Cards. Santa Cruz and Aptos Won’t Play Again This Year. For the Cardinals, the music that had provided the rhythm for a successful season ceased at Hartnell College. It was like a game of musical chairs without the chairs. And it was the Palma Chieftains, champions of the MBL, who kept lifting the needle off the record as if to say, “the beat stops here.” SC’s anticipated fifth appointment with the SCCAL champion Aptos was cancelled due to a 42-38 loss to Palma.
Despite losing all four games to Aptos, the second place Cards felt they still has a good chance to upend Aptos in a fifth try. Aptos will face Palma at Cabrillo College to see who advances from the CCS Division II South to the CCS finals in San Jose. The Cards did not overlook Palma a team they had beaten 61-46 on New Years Eve. “We knew what we had to do against Palma. This is just one game in a very successful season. When you get to this part of the season, everybody, but the state champion ends their season with a loss. Our loss was just earlier than expected.
It was Palma’s sagging man to man defense that was the demise of the Cards. Their defense took us out of the normal offensive set. It created a lack of rhythm. We would come down the court and take the shot they were giving us, but Johnson would never touch the ball.” Coach Newell. In the second half, Johnson moved farther from the basket. “When Johnson moved away from the hoop, we gained an advantage. We felt his offense was from the foul line and in. We wanted him to shoot those long jumpers,” Palma coach. SC had the lead early in the game, the last time at 21-19 in the opening seconds of the second half. SC finished the season 22-7 and this game was the final chapter in the careers of seniors Johnson, Eddy Marcum, Charles Howard, Bytheal Ratliff, Joel Domhoff and Dylan Lease.
“It’s the end of a mini-era for us, but I don’t feel bad about it. I feel lucky to be associated with these kids. My only regret is that we won’t be in the gym together as a team,” Coach Newell. From the Card post-game locker room, in unison a rousing “SC” could be heard. “That’s good. They feel good,” coach Newell. The beat of another successful SC basketball season may have ended, but the memories will linger in the minds of each team member.

From the Trident. The normal starting lineup was Johnson, Marcum, Harrell, Howard and Lease plus the top bench players Darryl Ratliff and Colin Anderson. Returning players are Harrell, Anderson, Ratliff, Jack Sylvan, Alex Curotto and Kenny Moore.

Sean Harrell and Johnny Johnson were selected for the Dads Club ALL Tourney team.

For the second year in a row Johnny Johnson was named the Carmel tourneys Most Valuable Player. Sean Harrell and Colin Anderson joined Johnson on the All Tourney team.

Sentinel area high school boys statistics as of March 28, 1986. SC players by place in order, name, games played, total points scored, high game scoring and average points per game.
Individual scoring
PL NAME GP TP HI AVG
10 Johnson 29 399 25 13.8
14 Harrell 28 344 25 12.3
28 Howard 29 201 10 6.9
5 SC team 29 1601 70 55.2

Individual rebounding
PL NAME GP TR HI AVG
1 Johnson 29 411 21 14.2

SC was tops in team defense holding their opponents to 1371 points and a average of 47.3 points per game.

All SCCAL selections were Johnny Johnson and Sean Harrell on the first team of five players and Eddy Marcum on the second five. Johnson was first in league rebounding with total rebounds of 411, high game of 21 and average rebounds a game 14.2. Charles Howard was honorable mention.

BOYS FROSH-SOPH BASKETBALL
Harbor clinched the league frosh-soph title by defeating SC 57-44. The Pirates are undefeated in league 12-0 and 20-3 overall.

GIRLS VARSITY BASKETBALL Practice games: Notre Dame 33-32, Gilroy 31-39, Hollister 36-45, Leland 36-59, Menlo Atherton 49-60. Cardinal Classic: Live Oak 45-29, Mitty 50-70, St, Francis 38-49, fourth place. Seaside 40-65. Practice record 2-7. League: Aptos 43-58, 24-35; North Monterey 44-40, 57-51; SLV 47-50, 48-33; Soquel 47-53, 49-53; Watsonville 51-54, 54-44; Harbor 25-50, 30-74. League record 4-8. Soquel 46-57 in league playoffs.
Season record 6-16 Sentinel.

From the Sentinel. Whether or not the Cardinals stay health will go a long way in determining how this season goes. Last year the Cards ended up with only eight of the original 14 players, due to injuries and players moving out of the area. “We’ll be improved,” said coach Ray Hunter, who returned to coach the team last year after a two year absence and went 4-15 overall and 3-9 in league. This year, Hunter’s low post offense will revolve around 5-11 junior center Kristy Netto, who dislocated her knee last year in the second game of the season. The lone returning starter is 5-6 senior Amy Ball, who will be joined at forward by 5-7 senior Kelly Netto. Guards are a question mark, but juniors Annissa Ratliff and Dina Avila appear to have the inside track.

Team members were: Trish Wright, Celia Homesley, Maria Shanle, Kristy Netto, Tami King, Karen Neeley, Annissa Ratliff, Dyan Seville-Jones, Rhonda Lyon, Dina Avila and Amy Ball. Coach Ray Hunter.

Santa Cruz Girls Rally For Opening win over Notre Dame of Salinas 33-32. SC overcame a 12 point deficit with a great second half. “We came back well,’ said coach Ray Hunter. “We played good defense in the second half. Tric Wright grabbed eight rebounds and freshman Celia Homesley picked off six as the Cards controlled the boards, especially in the second half. Homesley and Rhonda Lyon led the scoring with 10 and 12 points respectively. Notre Dame held a 28-16 halftime lead, but was held to only one point in the third quarter and three in the fourth period. Annissa Ratliff led the defense in the second half. “She harassed their point guard to the point where she was either stealing the ball or forcing a bad pass. Annissa is really quick and showed it tonight.” “Everyone who played tonight hung in there. Nobody got down and we came back. There is a lot of room for improvement, but this was just the first game,” said Hunter.

Gilroy 39, SC 31. “We shot and rebounded well enough, but we just didn’t do enough right things,” said coach Hunter. Kristy Netto led SC with eight points and eight rebounds.

Hollister 45, SC 36. “We’re playing pretty good defense now. We played four different defenses tonight. The man to man is getting a lot better and that will be our bread and butter, before the season is over. Kristy Netto contributed eight points and 12 rebounds.

Leland 59, SC 36. The Cards chances went out the window early in the second quarter when 6 foot center Kristy Netto sprained an ankle and did not play again. While she was in the game she had five blocked shots and six rebounds. SC trailed at halftime 15-23. Guard Annissa Ratliff, who scored eight points was the bright spot for the Cards. ”She just ripped people up. She took the ball through everybody. Plus, she played a heck of a game on defense,” said coach Hunter.

Menlo-Atherton 60, SC 49. SC played Menlo-Atherton tough in the first half trailing only 29-30. The Cards hit 21 of 57 shots from the floor for 37 percent. Amy Ball and Kristy Netto each scored 16 points.

At the Cardinal Classic Girls Basketball tournament at the Civic Auditorium, Mitty of San Jose defeated the Cards in the semi-finals 70-50. Mitty scored 12 unanswered points in the first four minutes and went ahead 44-26 at halftime. SC narrowed the gap to 12 midway in the third quarter, but could draw no closer. Mitty, one of the best teams in San Jose, went on to win the tournament and had the most valuable player Sue Phillips (who later became the teams coach as they went on to win State titles.)

Poor Shooting Hurts Cards. SC Beaten By St. Francis of Mt. View 44-38 in the third place game. Kristy Netto scored 10 points and blocked five shots.

Seaside 65, SC 40. Seaside lost in the finals of the Cardinal Classic Tournament to Mitty by one point and have an excellent team. “I like to play good teams, because they are tough. You don’t get any better playing weak teams. The biggest thing that’s hurting us is our inexperience,” said coach Ra\y Hunter. The game was tight at the half as Seaside was only ahead 32-29. Freshman Celia Homesley topped the SC scoring with 12 points.

Aptos 58, SC 43. In the first league game Aptos broke out to a 37-17 halftime lead. Annissa Ratliff scored 11 points.

SC 44, North Monterey 40. Kristy Netto and Celia Homesley scored 19 and 12 points respectively. Defensively, SC forced 34 turnovers, which was the key of the game. North Monterey led all the way until the middle of the fourth quarter, when Homesley sparked a SC comeback. She score all her 12 points in the second half. Netto was the story of the first half, when she scored 11 points. For the game Netto grabbed 15 rebounds.

SLV 50, SC 47. The Cougars extended a 30-27 halftime lead to 44-32 at the end of the third period. SC drew close by outscoring the Cougars 15-6 in the fourth quarter. SC 3-9 overall, slipped to 1-2 in league. Celia Homesley topped SC with 16 points.

Soquel 53, SC 47. Guards Annissa Ratliff and Rhonda Lyon were two of the three SC starters, who fouled out in the game, which helped the Knights catch and pass the Cards in the fourth quarter. Celia Homesley scored 15 points and Kristy Netto scored 12 before fouling out. Tric Wright scored 10 points.

Watsonville 54, SC 51 in overtime. Even though Kristy Netto scored 27 points and had 26 rebounds in what her coach said was definitely her best game. The game was tied 47-47 at the end of regulation. Rhonda Lyon contributed two points, six steals and nine rebounds.

Harbor Express Keeps Right On Going to defeat SC 50-25 to remain atop of the SCCAL. Harbor led 34-7 at halftime. Celia Homesley and Kristy Netto grabbed nine and six rebounds respectively. Harbor is now 18-1 overall and 6-0 in league. Netto, Tami King (playing for the first time since breaking her ankle in the season opener against Notre Dame) and Homesley with ten points drew praise from Coach Hunter, who also noted that, “the Harbor girls play very well together. I have to give them credit.”

Mariners Escape With A Win beating SC 35-24. SC Holds Henderson To Season-low Five Points, But to No Avail to start the second round of league play. Aptos was held to ten second half points, before escaping with a win. This time, the Card defense held the Mariners top center, who came into the game sporting a 19.6 average per game to a season low five points. “Defensively, we really came on. We really played tough tonight. The girls were all over the floor, blocking shots, making steals, everything,” said coach Hunter. The Cards blocked 11 shots and had 16 steals. Aptos led 25-16 at intermission, then someone put the lid on the basket. Kristy Netto had eight points and nine rebounds.

SC 57, North Monterey 51. Coach Ray Hunter knows his Cardinals aren’t as bad as their record indicates and SC proved that to the Condors. “We blitzed them,”, said Hunter, whose team scored 20 points in the fourth quarter.” Celia Homesley scored 17 points and pulled down seven rebounds. Kristy Netto had 16 points, seven rebounds and nine blocked shots. Trish Wright added 14 points and seven rebounds as the Card front line dominated play. “We’re a young team and we’ve been making a lot of dumb mistakes. The last three games, we’ve been starting to put it together. We’re not making mistakes now and we’re executing,” Said Coach Hunter.

SC 48, SLV 33. For the first time this season, the Cards have posted back-to-back wins. “The kids understand what they’re doing now. They believe in themselves, which is the biggest thing,” said Hunter. SLV ran out to a 14-7 lead in the first quarter, but SC outscored them 15-2 in the second quarter. The score at the end of the third period was 43-19. “We started playing more aggressively on defense forcing 45 turnovers. We are doing the things we were supposed to be doing at the right time.” Amy Ball topped the scoring with 14 points followed by Celia Homesley with ten points and eight rebounds. The Cards are now 5-10 overall and 3-6 in league.

The Rich Keep Getting Richer as the first place Pirates defeated SC 74-30. Harbor coach, Nick Adams was impressed with the Cardinals. “They are a young team. They’ve been improving every week and with four people back, they will be a good team next year.” Junior center Kristy Netto scored all nine of the third quarter points for her team and finished with 13 points as did freshman guard-forward Celia Homesley. Homesley started quickly with nine points in the first quarter. Harbor is 22-1 overall and 10-0 in league.

Soquel 53, SC 49. Soquel weathered a furious Cards rally in the fourth quarter. SC out scored Soquel 21-13 in the final period. Tric Wright scored all her nine points coming off the bench in the fourth quarter. Soquel held a slim 22-20 lead at half, but then sprinted ahead 40-28 in the third quarter. Kristy Netto scored 24 points, pulled down ten rebounds and blocked five shots.

Surprise! Santa Cruz Girls Are In the playoffs. By beating Watsonville 54-44 the Cards earned the number four spot in the SCCAL playoffs. SC, Watsonville and North Monterey tied for fourth place at 4-8. SC won the tie-breaker because it had a 3-1 record in games against each other (SC beat North Monterey twice and split with Watsonville,) Watsonville was 2-2 and North Monterey 1-3. The Cards took a 27-15 halftime lead and never looked back. Their lead was up to 22 points, 48-26, early in the fourth quarter.
“Kristy Netto nullified everything in the middle on defense and Celia Homesley put in everything she shot up.” Netto had 11 rebounds and three blocked shots, while holding the Cat center scoreless. Freshman Homesley scored 17 points. Rhonda Lyon grabbed ten rebounds all on the defensive end. Point guard Dina Avila did a great job directing the team.
The Cards won only three of their first 16 games, but have now won three of their last five, the latter figure has been bettered only by undefeated Harbor. “As far as I’m concerned, the playoffs aren’t what we’ve been striving for this year. It was just to improve as a team and we have done that now. Last night we played a whole consistent game,” said coach Ray Hunter.

Soquel defeated SC 57-46 in the first round of the SCCAL playoffs. SC led 11-8 with a minute left in the first quarter, when Soquel’s pressing defense began to go to work on the Cards. During the next four minutes SC turned the ball over four times and Soquel went on a 10-2 run to take the lead 18-13. SC stayed close for a long time, but at the outset of the fourth quarter, Soquel scored nine out of ten points to stretch their lead from 40-35 to 49-36. SC never again saw inside of a nine point deficit. “The kids played hard, but we just weren’t in the right position to win the game,” said coach Ray Hunter. “I’m impressed with their man to man defense,” the leagues top scorer said. Annissa Ratliff covered the top scorer the leagues player of the year so closely that her teammates had a difficult time getting the ball to her. Kristy Netto had 15 points and ten rebounds. Celia Homesley had 15 points and seven rebounds. SC out rebounded Soquel 29-23, but Soquel out shot SC from the field 48 percent, 24 for 50 and SC 37 percent on 19 for 51.

Sentinel final girls SCCAL Top 20 stats of March 11.
Individual scoring by place, name, games played, total points, high game and average per game.
Individual scoring
PL NAME GP TP HI AV
12 Kr. Netto 22 242 27 11.0
16 Homesley 22 199 17 9.0
6 SC team 22 923 57 42.0

SC was last in team defense allowing 1097 points, low score allowed 31 and average points a game allowed 49.9.

GIRLS JV BASKETBALL
Team members were Janice Zumot, Dorte Moeller, Carol Ronzano, Kelli Mullen, Monique James, Wendy Marcenaro, Meara Noe, Val Kingdom, Lori Aaron, Molly Ball, Stacy Whilelmson, Gwen, Heide and Sarah Hart. Coach Burger.

WRESTLING
Yearbook. Team members were Sean Parnianfar, Ramon Cornejo, Wolfgang Witkowski, Steve Heninger, Booth Wainscoat, Chris Lovato, Steve Ball, Ian Allison, Conrad Alvarez, Chris Hillyard, Thomas Ronzano, Gary Alvarez and Jesse Corona. Coach Ellwanger.

Sentinel Athlete of the Week of January 28 was senior Chris Lovato, who extended his record to 18-1 in winning the 147 pound division of the Gonzales tournament. Chris won 10-4 in the finals to cap a 4-0 day that included two technical falls and one pin. In a SC 43-24 win over Harbor earlier in the week he won by pin.

Trident March 7. Mr. Unstoppable. Chris Lovato is off to an incredible start. Not only does he have a record of 21-1, but he has won four tournament championships as well. His only loss was at a tournament in Los Vegas. His main goal this year is to win State. He is currently ranked number one in CCS in the 147 pound class. From football teammate Johnny Johnson, “Chris is the most intense, hardworking person I’ve ever played with. He is capable of completing his task.”

Cards Big Win over Aptos 66-12. Those who won by pins were Chris Lovato who pinned his man in 40 seconds, Thomas Ronzano, Gary Alvarez, Booth Wainscoat, Wolfgang Witkowski, Chris Hillyard and Jesse Corona.

SC 50, SLV 15. The night began and ended well for SLV, but the Cougars would like to forget the rest. SLV won the 100 and 107 weight classes and the last event the heavyweight class. SC aided by three SLV forfeits dominated the rest of the match. Earning pins for SC were Thomas Ronzano at 121 and Wolfgang Whitkowski at 167. In the best match of the night freshman Chris Hillyard at 114 won by decision over a SLV senior 14-12 on a three point near fall in the final 30 seconds. SC now has a 2-2 dual match SCCAL record. “I was really pleased with the performance of our team, which is comprised of 11 freshman and sophomores, a first year junior and a second year senior,” said Coach Russel Ellswanger.

Lovato Takes First In Aptos Tourney. Not only is Chris Lovato one tough football player, but he’s a brute of a wrestler. Lovato won the championship of the 145 pound division of the Aptos Takedown tournament. He did so, while not giving up a point en route to impressive victories, two by pin and one by technical fall. “He was pretty stunning,” said coach Russell Ellwanger of Lovato, who won the SCCAL championship in the 138 pound class last year.
Freshman Ian Allison won the championship of the 98 pound division with two pins and a technical fall. It was Allison’s first high school competition. SC finished third of nine teams. Second place finishers were Casey Alvarez at 126 and Steve Henninger at 165. Conrad Alvarez was third at 105. Fourth place finishers were Chris Hillyard at 119, Thomas Ronzano at 132 and Wolfgang Witkowski at 165.

Sentinel. Lovato Wins Again. Chris Lovato has become one of the premier wrestlers in the area, won his fourth individual tournament championship at the Gonzales Tournament in the 147pound division. He extended his season record to 18-1. In only his second year of competition, the senior has won every tournament he has been in, won four matches to take the title at Gonzales, by winning the final match 10-4. He won two matches by technical falls and the other by pin. He is ranked the number one wrestler in his division in CCS, while the wrestler he beat in the finals was last years winner in his section last year. Sophomore Jesse Corona took fourth at 140 pounds.

Sentinel January 31.
Quick Learner. Lovato Has Come A Long Way, Fast.

BOYS VARSITY SOCCER
Team members were Dan Kern, Keith Wipke, Darwin Harris, Tracy Scala, David Adams, Kurt Hodges, Ozzie Ulwelling, Andy Verprauskus, Efrain, Frank Vargas, Bones Pacheco, Paul Mavis, Brian Kimura and Jorge Sierra. Coach Richard King.

Sentinel Feb. 13. Wildcats Win League Crown. They Beat The Elements and SC. Memorial Field was a muddy island and it wasn’t the best of conditions to decide the SCCAL Championship. The teams spent as much time battling the elements as they did each other, but Watsonville wasn’t complaining after emerging with a 2-0 victory that avenged an earlier loss to SC for Watsonville’s only league loss. It is the second year that the two teams have wrapped up berths in the CCS playoffs.
Watsonville was able to adapt to the field conditions more effectively moving the ball with long aerial passes, while SC’s offense bogged down trying to dribble down field, and impossible task given the puddles and patches of mud. The advantage often with to whomever was left standing, as players were sliding and falling all over the field. Where the pass would go was anyone’s guess.
The physical play resulted in a spattering of yellow cards, four for Watsonville and one for SC. What it came down to was who wanted it more. Watsonville made it obvious before the game that it wasn’t afraid to get dirty, when the entire team dove in unison into the mud. Watsonville scored mid-way into the second half and the other with 15 minutes left. Both balls were effected by the mud, that made it difficult for goalie Luis Marquez. SC was not going to give up. They had several prolonged attacks in front of the Watsonville goal, but failed to get an open shot. “We didn’t concede,” said coach Richard King. “it’s the first time this season that we have fallen behind and had to struggle, but we never stopped struggling. It bodes well for the style of our team.”

Trident on March 7. SC held their last two opponents scoreless, posting victories over Marello 1-0 and Soquel 1-0. In the Marello game, the Cards shot 56 times, but the only score was by David Adams, who booted his unassisted goal, with 14 minutes gone in the second half. The defense is credited with both wins. Goalie Luis Marquez went on to post his seventh shutout of the season.
Kurt Hodges scored SC’s lone goal against the Knights. SC raised their season record to 7-0-3 to put them in a first place tie with Watsonville.
In the championship game with Watsonville, who SC beat 1-0 in their first round game was played under bad rainy conditions. The game was filled with physical play, which resulted in 5 yellow cards, 4 on Watsonville and one on SC. Watsonville won 2-0 to tie with the Cards for the title and send both to the CCS playoffs for the second year in a row. SC record is 9-1-3.

Sentinel Feb. 28. The Cards have three senior players on the ALL SCCAL first team of 18 players. They are halfbacks, Jim Ulwelling and David Adams and goalie Luis Marquez.

BOYS JV SOCCER
Team members were Carlos Ruiz, Rolando Ruiz, Carlos Carrilo, Mike Nevin, David Machado, Armando Sierra, Scott Lowe, Noah Whitman, Jon Baron, Matt Henry, Andrew Danner and Ian McLellan.

GIRLS SOCCER
Yearbook. Team members were Adele Gemignani, Connie Mustain, Rachel, Skehan, Laura Shumate, Ashley Anderson, Jennifer Turner, Grace Coulson, Michelle Ponce and Lisa Homesley.

Sentinel Feb. 11. Aptos at 8-0-1 has locked up first place in the SCCAL and Soquel is 6-2-1 with 13 points and is one point ahead of SC at 5-2-1 and 11 points with two games remaining and Soquel has one game left.

Feb. 17. SC placed three players on the ALL SCCAL 20 player first team. They were juniors, Jenny Bloom and Valerie Holman and sophomore Grace Coulsen. Honorable mention were Aimee Nitzberg, Laura Shumate and Rachael Skehan.

BASEBALL Practice record: Hill 2-3, Alisal 4-2, Valley Christian 9-2, North Salinas 6-2, Gonzales 16-1. San Jose Lions Tournament: Cupertino 13-1, Monta Vista 1-3, Astoria, Oregon, 6-0, Homestead 2-8, tournament record 2-2. Saratoga 4-5 (ten innings), James Lick 11-6, Fremont 5-4 (nine innings). Practice record, 8-4. League: Harbor 1-11, 7-2; SLV 6-0, 7-9; Watsonville 2-3, 5-7; Marello 8-2, 9-2; Soquel 1-5, 0-6; Aptos 17-14, 5-0; North Monterey 4-5, 13-3. League record 7-7. Season record, 15-11.
Final league standings: Soquel1 12-2, Watsonville 11-3, Harbor 9-5, Aptos 8-6, SC 7-7, NMC 6-8, SLV 2-12 and Marello 1-13. The top three teams qualified for the CCS playoffs.

Team members
Seniors returning: Sean Gahan, Bytheal Ratliff for his fourth season (two as a full time starter), Don Keathley, Joel Domhoff, Richie Fernandez. Juniors returning: Ballan Tuck and Sean Harrell. JV players moving up: sophomores Darryl Ratliff, Scott Wilkinson and Eric Ulwelling. Juniors: Brian Kingdom, Mike Stange, John Oxford, Danny Cooper. New to the team junior Zack Rainey. Sophomore Bill Mellis moved up from the JV’s at the end of the season to play defensive infield.

Cards lose opener to Andrew Hill 2-3. Down 2-0 going into the top of the seventh the Cards tied the score, when Tuck and Kingdom walked and scored on two errors. Hill came back and won the game on two walks and an error on a dropped pop up with two outs. Cardinal starter Bytheal Ratliff and Brian Kingdom each pitched three strong innings a piece. Cards had two errors. Lineup: Wilkinson SS, 3-1, hit by pitch; Gahan 3B/P, 4-1, steal; Fernandez CF, 2-0, walk; Keathley C, 3-0; B. Ratliff P/1B, 3-1, walk; Tuck 2B, 2-0, run, walk; Kingdom 1B/P/3B, 2-0, run, walk; Stange LF, 0-0, sacrifice, two walks and Cooper RF, 2-0, walk.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 3 1 1 0 1
Kingdom 3 3 0 1 6
Gahan 1 0 0 1 1 lost

Cardinal pitchers Sean Gahan and Bytheal Ratliff combined for a one hitter, striking out eight and walked two in defeating Alisal 4-2. In the first inning Gahan singled was sacrificed to second by Wilkinson and scored on Fernandez’ single. Fernandez scored on two errors. In the third, Fernandez walked, Keathley singled him to third and Ratliff single him home. Tuck singled in Keathley with the fourth run. “The guys were really in the game today. The defense was solid, no errors. There were four innings where Gahan and Bytheal Ratliff faced only three batters. The pitchers allowed only three batters over the minimum 21. Keathley threw out a base runner. Lineup: Gahan P/3B, 4-1, run; Wilkinson SS, 3-1, sacrifice; Fernandez CF, 3-1, two runs, walk; Keathley C, 3-1, run; B. Ratliff 1B/P, 3-1; Tuck 2B, 3-2; Kingdom 3B, 3-0; Stange LF, 3-0; Ulwelling RF, 3-0.
INN H ER BB SO
Gahan 4 0 1 1 5 win
B, Ratliff 3 1 0 1 3 save

SC 9, Valley Christian 2. Bytheal Ratliff drove in three runs with a single and a sacrifice fly, while hurling three shut out innings to pace the Cards to their second straight win. SC scored three runs in the third, four more in the fifth and had 13 hits in the game. Mike Stange and Eric Ulwelling each had three hits. Bytheal Ratliff had three RBI’s, Stange two and the rest with one Keathley, Kingdom and Ulwelling. Keathley and Ulwelling had doubles and Kingdom had a triple. Tuck, Fernandez, Stange and Ulwelling each stole a base. “It was nice to see a few base hits. We looked looser at the plate.” Brian Kindgom started and was the winning pitcher. “Brian played his best game I’ve seen him play. He pitched well, looked good defensively at first base and hit the ball well. One was an RBI triple. Lineup: Gahan SS, 5-1; Tuck 2B, 4-1, run; Fernandez 3B, 3-1, three runs, walk; Keathley C, 3-1, two runs, walk; Bytheal Ratliff 1B/P, 3-2; run; Kingdom P/1B, 3-1, run, walk; Stange LF, 4-3, run; Ulwelling RF, 4-3 and Rainey CF, 4-0.
INN H ER BB SO
Kingdom 4 5 2 0 6 win
B. Ratliff 3 3 0 1 3 save

SC 6, North Salinas 2. Layoff Hasn’t Hurt Cards. Happy days are here again at SCHS. Delighted just to play a game after two weeks of inactivity caused by the recent rains, the Cards were even happier when they whipped North Salinas 6-2. Defensively, the Cards highlights included an exceptional over the head catch by left fielder Mike Stange and a pair of nice plays by third baseman Sean Gahan. Gahan also went 3 for 4, stole two bases and scored four times. “He did it all.” SC picked up all the runs it needed in the top of the first inning. Scott Wilkinson doubled, Gahan beat out a bunt and when the throw was wild at first, Wilkinson scored. Keathley then drove in Gahan. Lineup: Wilkinson SS, 4-1, run; Gahan 3B, 4-3, two steals, four runs. RBI, double; Fernandez CF, 2-1, run, RBI, steal, two walks; Keathley C, 4-2, triple, three RBI’s; B. Ratliff P/1B, 3-0; Tuck 2B, 2-1, double; Kingdom 1B/P, 2-0, sacrifice; Stange LF, 3-0; Cooper RF, 3-0; Harrell 2B, 1-0 and D. Ratliff LF 0-0.
INN H ER BB SO
B, Ratliff 4 3 0 1 3 win
Kingdom 3 1 0 1 2 save

Santa Cruz Rolls over Gonzales 16-1. Led by the outstanding play of Sean Gahan for the second straight day. He pitched the first three innings and at the plate, he went 3 for 3 with four runs scored. Sean Harrell in his second game out from basketball went 3 for 5 and Darrell Ratliff just out also had a good day with three RBI’a. “It has been good the last two days. Today everyone had a chance to show what they could do.” Defensively there were no errors. Those with RBI’s: Darryl Ratliff three. Wilkinson, Gahan and Domhoff two apiece. Rainey, Ulwelling, and Tuck one each. Lineup: Wilkinson 3B, 3-2, three runs, triple, three walks, steal; Gahan P, 3-3, run, three steals; Fernandez CF, 3-0; Keathley C, 1-0, walk; B. Ratliff 1B, 3-0, two runs, two walks; Tuck 2B, 4-2, two runs, walk; Kingdom DH, 1-0, three runs, four walks; Stange LF, defense; Harrell SS, 5-3, run; Darryl Ratliff RF, 4-1, two runs, double, walk; Domhoff P, 3-1; Rainey CF, 1-0, run, two walks and Ulwelling C, 4-1, run, double.
INN H ER BB SO
Gahan 3 0 0 2 5 win
Domhoff 3 3 0 1 3
D. Ratliff 1 0 0 0 1

In the opening round of the San Jose Lions Tournament the Cards out scored Cupertino 13-2 for their fifth win in a row. Sean Gahan capped a 10 for 12 week at the plate with four hits, including a double and his three run homer high lighted a six run fifth inning. Richie Fernandez doubled and tripled. Bytheal Ratliff was 2 for 4 and gave up no earned runs while pitching five innings. RBI’s: Gahan and Bytheal Ratliff had three each. Darryl Ratliff two and Fernandez, Tuck and Kingdom one each. Gahan and Harrell had doubles. Cards had five errors. Lineup: Wilkinson 3B/2B, 4-0, run, hit by pitch twice; Gahan RF/3B, 5-4, three runs, steal; Fernandez 1B, 2-2, two runs, sacrifice, hit by pitch; Keathley C, 3-0, two runs, walk; Bytheal Ratliff P, 4-2, run; Tuck 2B, 2-1; Kingdom DH, 3-2, run; Harrell SS, 3-1, run; Darryl Ratliff CF, 3-1, run, walk; Ulwelling RF, 0-0; Rainey RF, 0-0; Oxford CF, 0-0; Cooper 1B, 1-0, run; Domhoff P, 0-0 and Stange DH, 1-1.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 5 4 0 0 5 win
Kingdom 1 0 0 0 0
Domhoff 1 0 1 1 2

Monta Vista of Mountain View 3, SC 1 in the second game of the tournament. Sean Gahan pitched and went the distance. He experienced a rocky first inning giving up three of the four hits he allowed in the game, but then settled down. “He loosened up and had no problem the rest of the way.” His line was four hits, two earned runs, walked three and struck out three. Monta Vista scored two runs in the first inning and an unearned run in the fifth. The Cards lone run came in the third inning, when Scott Wilkinson walked, then was forced out at second on Gahan’s ground out. Gahan stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Keathley’s ground out.
The coach felt the Cards played pretty decently. The Cards had only four hits. “We hit the ball and only struck out three times. We just didn’t hit the ball into the holes.” The Cards played well defensively committing only one error. Kingdom doubled to lead off the fourth and made it to third without scoring. Lineup: Wilkinson 3B, 2-0, two walks; Gahan P, 4-0, run, steal; Fernandez LF, 3-1, steal, walk; Keathley C, 2-0, walk; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 3-1; Tuck 2B, 2-0, walk; Kingdom DH, 2-1, walk; Stange LF, defense; Harrell SS, 3-1 and Darryl Ratliff CF, 3-0.

SC 6, Astoria, Oregon 0 in the third game of the tournament. Brian Kingdom struck out 10, walked one, allowing only three hits, while putting Astoria down in order five times in a complete game win. Kingdom moved the ball around, changed speeds and pitched a real heady game. Sean Gahan and Richie Fernandez each were 2 for 3. Fernandez contributed a two run double in the first inning, when he drove in Wilkinson who had doubled and Gahan who had walked. The third run of the inning scored on Bytheal Ratliff’s single. Darryl Ratliff’s single and stolen base triggered a three run second inning. Gahan, Fernandez and Keathley each drove in a run to end the scoring. Cards had one error. Lineup: Wilkinson SS, 4-1; Gahan LF, 3-2, two runs, two steals, walk; Fernandez RF, 3-2, two runs; Keathley C, 3-0; B. Ratliff 1B, 3-1; Tuck 3B, 3-0, steal, walk; Kingdom P, 3-0; Harrell 2B, 3-0; D. Ratliff CF, 2-1, run, two steals, walk; Domhoff RF, 1-0; Ulwelling C, 1-0 and Cooper 1B, 1-0.

In a scrimmage with Astoria after the first game to give them an extra tournament game, the following had RBI‘s: Kingdom, Ulwelling, Domhoff, Rainey and Gahan. Cards had two errors. Lineup: Harrell 2B, 3-0, run, walk; Tuck 3B, 0-0, sacrifice, hit by pitch; Gahan SS, 3-0, two runs; Kingdom 1B, 2-0, run, walk; Ulwelling C, 2-0, sacrifice; Domhoff DH, 3-1, run; Cooper RF, 3-2; Rainey CF/P, 3-1, triple; Oxford LF, 3-1; Darryl Ratliff P/LF, 3-1, run two steals.
INN H ER BB SO
D. Ratliff 4 2 0 2 3
Rainey 2 0 0 1 3
Wilkinson 1 2 1 2 0

Homestead 8, SC 2 to end the preseason practice games with a 6-3 record. In the last game of the tournament the Cards were down 2-3 with two out and two runners on base in the fifth inning and Darryl Ratliff hit a line drive to right center. The center fielder made a diving catch inches from the grass and SC never got within striking distance thereafter. There was some speculation on whether it was trapped. “That hurt us a little and we didn’t come back after that,” said Ray Hunter. Homestead put the game away with a four run sixth inning. Cards had three errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff, CF, 3-1, run; Wilkinson SS, 1-0, sacrifice, walk; Gahan LF, 2-0, walk; Fernandez RF, 3-1, double; Bytheal Ratliff P, 3-0; Tuck 3B, 3-1; Kingdom 1B, 3-1; Keathley C, 2-0, walk, steal; Harrell 2B, 2-1, run, steal and Domhoff P, 0-0.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 5 5 2 1 1 loss
Domhoff 2 2 2 1 1

Harbor Takes No Prisoners In League Opener. A lot can happen in the seven weeks it’s going to take to complete the SCCAL baseball season, but if somebody doesn’t do something soon to stop the unbeaten Pirates, the rest of the league can start jockeying around for second place. Tuesday night the Pirates beat SC 11-1. It was a massacre, whose casualty listed included senior Sean Gahan, who apparently pulled a muscle in the middle of his back pitching to the first batter of the game. For SC, once Gahan was hurt, everything seemed to go wrong. They made five errors and only hit the ball out of the infield four times in the first five innings. Even when the Cards did something right, it ended up wrong. Center fielder Darryl Ratliff seemed to misjudge a fly ball in the top of the sixth, but reached up to apparently get the out, but the base umpire was waving the safe call and the play opened the door to a six run inning. This was supposed to be a key league opener, but what looked good on paper doesn’t look so good today in the paper. “I hope they can take it in stride.
We’re a heck of a lot better team than we played tonight.” The thing that may help the Cards bounce back is the fact that five teams–Harbor, Aptos, SC, Soquel and Watsonville are considered CCS playoff contenders. “It’s a good league and, in that way, this game is not as important. It’s a matter of our guys thinking we have a good team. But we have to play better than that.” Cards had five errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 3-1, run; Gahan P, 1-0; Ulwelling RF, 2-0; Fernandez LF/1B/LF, 3-0; Keathley C, 2-1, double, RBI; Bytheal Ratliff 1B/P/1B, 3-1; Tuck 2B, 3-0; Wilkinson 3B, 3-0; Kingdom DH/P, 0-0, two walks; Harrell SS, 3-0 and Domhoff P, 1-0.
INN H ER BB SO
Gahan 1 2 3 3 2 lost
B. Ratliff 3 1 0 2 1
Kingdom 1.1 6 4 0 0
Domhoff 1.2 2 0 1 1
Under innings, the 1.1 means one and one third innings.

SC 6, SLV 0. Bytheal Ratliff and Sean Gahan doubled and each drove in two runs in addition to combining to pitch a shut out to give the Cards their first league victory. “We were a little looser tonight and played more to the potential of our team. The defense was much improved.” The infield defense made good plays and made no errors. Ballan Tuck and Brian Kingdom each took away hits with diving stops. Sean Harrell made a diving catch going into the hole and Scott Wilkinson gloved a bad hop grounder and forced the runner at third to stop a SLV rally.
SC scored three runs in each of the first and third innings. Gahan and Bytheal Ratliff each drove in two runs and Fernandez drove in one. Ratliff pitched four hit ball for the first five innings and Gahan no hit SLV over the final two innings. SC is 7-3 for the season. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF/LF, 4-1, two runs, two steals; Gahan LF/P, 3-2, two runs, steal; Fernandez RF, 2-0, run, walk; Keathley C, 3-1, run; Bytheal Ratliff P/1B, 3-1; Tuck 2B, 3-1; Wilkinson 3B, 3-0; Kingdom 1B, 2-1; Harrell SS, 3-0; Ulwelling C, 0-0; Stange 2B, 0-0 and Domhoff CF, 1-0.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 5 4 0 3 6 win
Gahan 2 0 0 1 5 save

Saratoga 5, SC 4 in ten innings Saturday at Harvey West. The Cards tied the game in the bottom of the fifth on a two run single by Don Keathley, but couldn’t score again over the last five innings. Wilkinson was 3 for 5 with a pair of doubles to lead SC at the plate. Beside Keathley’s two RBI’s, Fernandez had two and Eric Ulwelling had one. Cards had two errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 1-0, run, steal; Gahan LF/RF, 4-1, run, walk, three steals; Fernandez 3B, 4-1, two steals, walk; Keathley C, 4-1, walk; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 5-1; Tuck 2B, 5-1; Kingdom P, 3-0; Wilkinson SS, 5-3, run; Stange LF, 5-0, run; Domhoff P, 2-1; Ulwelling RF, 3-1 and Harrell RF, 1-0.
INN H ER BB SO
Kingdom 6.1 12 2 0 4
Domhoff 3.2 2 1 2 1 loss

Cats Make The Right Moves in their 3-2 win over the Cardinals. SC have become the early favorites for the Flop of the Year. The Cats escaped a tense top of the seventh with Card runners on second and third and no outs, they got out of the inning without giving up a run. Gahan grounded out to third base. Fernandez, the Cards best clutch hitter, was walked intentionally to load the bases. The next hitter struck out and the third out came on a fly ball. The strategy worked.
The Cards took a two run lead in the fifth inning, when designated hitter Joel Domhoff led off the inning with a single, but was forced out at second on Sean Harrell’s grounder. Harrell stole second and went to third on Darryl Ratliff’s ground out. Gahan singled him home and stole second. Gahan scored when Fernandez’ grounder was thrown away at first. The last of the seventh started with a Cat batter, who was at bat for just the third time this season, walked on a full count. (It was felt by the Cards that the batter had been struck out) The ninth place hitter singled and both moved up to second and third on a wild pitch. The lead off batter singled in both runners and the stole second. Bytheal Ratliff took over on the mound and walked the first batter he faced, The third place hitter bunted the base runners up putting the winning run on third base. A suicide squeeze was called, but the batter missed the sign and the runner from third was out at the plate, but the runner on second moved up to third. A single drove in the winning run.
From the Watsonville paper: Gahan reportedly was miffed with the laid back attitude of some of his teammates near the end of the game. Cards had two errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 4-2, two steals; Gahan P, 4-1, run, RBI; Fernandez RF, 3-0, walk, RBI; Keathley C, 4-1; Bytheal Ratliff 3B/P, 4-2; Tuck 2B, 3-1,; Wilkinson 3B, 3-0; Domhoff DH, 3-1 and Harrell SS, 3-1, run, two steals.
INN H ER BB SO
Gahan 6.1 5 2 3 4
B. Ratliff .2 2 1 3 0 loss

SC 11, James Lick 6. in an easy victory after the third inning when the score was tied 5-5.
Darryl Ratliff and Sean Harrell, SC’s first and second place hitters, got half the team’s 12 hits. Ratliff was 4 for 4 with two doubles, three runs and drove in two runs. Harrell was 2 for 3 including a two run homer, a double, scored three times, walked twice and drove in three runs. Joel Domhoff got the victory in relief, pitching four innings, giving up three hits, no earned runs, walked three and struck out five. Cards had three errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 4-4, three runs, two doubles, steal, sacrifice, two RBI; Harrell SS, 3-2, three runs, double, home run, two walks, three RBI; Gahan LF, 4-1, steal; Fernandez 3B, 2-0, two walks, steal; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 2-1; Rainey RF, 4-1; Domhoff DH/P, 3-1, run, walk, two steals; Kingdom P/1B, 4-0; Ulwelling C, 3-1; Wilkinson 3B, 1-0; Cooper LF, 0-0, walk; Tuck 2B, 3-1, run; Stange 2B, 0-0 and Keathley PH, 0-0, walk.
INN H ER BB SO
Kingdom 3 6 1 2 0
Domhoff 4 3 0 3 5 won

SC 8, Marello 2. SC scored only one earned run, taking advantage of seven errors. Coach, “speed might have had a little to do with it. The guys can run a little and if they bobble the ball a little, it’s enough for us to get on base. If we can put the ball in play, we can be tough.” SC scored four runs in the third inning to pull away. Bytheal Ratliff went the distance on the mound giving up six hits, two earned runs, walked two and struck out five. Marello got their two runs in the first inning. SC’s defense made no errors. “We had good throwing and everybody was in the game. We played solid and looked like a pretty good team.” The Cards are now 2-2 in league. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 4-0, run, steal; Harrell SS, 3-1, two runs, two steals, walk; Gahan LF, 3-1, two runs, double, two steals, walk; Fernandez 3B, 2-1, run, steal, sacrifice fly, walk; Bytheal Ratliff P, 4-0, run, sacrifice; Tuck 2B, 3-1, run, sacrifice fly; Keathley C, 3-0, walk; Domhoff DH, 3-0, steal; Kingdom 1B, defense and Cooper 1B, defense.
Rainey RF, 2-1, walk; Ulwelling C, 0-0 and Stange RF, 0-0.

SC 5, Fremont 4 in nine innings at Harvey West. Trailing by a run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Sean Gahan and Ballen Tuck both had RBI singles to end the game for the Cards. Brian Kingdom started and went three innings giving up two runs in the first inning. Joel Domhoff came on in relief and pitched six innings for the win. Gahan and Tuck each drove in two runs. The Cards are now 10-6 overall. The Cards had two errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 5-1, steal; Harrell SS, 5-1, two runs, triple, steal; Gahan LF, 4-3, two runs, two steals, sacrifice fly, two RBI; Fernandez 3B, 4-0; walk; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 1-0, walk; Tuck 2B, 5-2, two RBI; Rainey DH, 3-0, walk; Stange RF, defense; Kingdom P/1B, 4-1; Ulwelling C, 1-0, walk; Keathley C, 2-0, run; Cooper 1B, 0-0 and Domhoff P, 1-0, two walks.
INN H ER BB SO
Kingdom 3 4 2 0 0
Domhoff 6 6 2 6 2 won

Soquel 5, SC 1. The Cards lone run came in the fourth inning, when Gahan led off with a walk, stole second, went to third on a wild pitch, then he was hit in the back on a pickoff throw and scored the Cards lone run. Soquel scored two in the second and three in the fourth. The Cards had five errors and struck out eight times. The Cards have lost to the league leaders, whose league records are Soquel 5-0, Harbor 4-0 and Watsonville 3-1. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 1-0, sacrifice, walk; Harrell SS, 3-0; Gahan P/LF, 2-0, run, two steals, walk; Tuck 2B, 3-1; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 3-0; Fernandez RF, 2-0, walk; Domhoff DH/P, 2-0, walk; Stange LF, defense; Keathley C, 3-0; Wilkinson 3b, 1-1, walk;
INN H ER BB SO
Gahan 4 6 4 2 1 loss
Domhoff 2 0 0 0 1

Santa Cruz Beats Aptos By A Field Goal 17-14. It was a game for the ages, or at least for growing old at Aptos. The final score was 21-14, Er, make that 17-14 SC. In a scorekeeper’s nightmare, with the score more suited to football than baseball, one seemingly endless inning blended into another.
Errors were compounded upon errors and the base paths were rutted from traffic. — A grand slam home run scored no runs.– Pitchers appeared to enter the game from a revolving door and home runs sailed out of the park likes so many helium balloons.
The Mariners hit five home runs and the Cards only one officially, though they should have had a second. The strangest play of the game happened with Bytheal Ratliff at bat with two out and the bases loaded in the fifth inning. He hit a towering home run over the center field fence, but as he neared home plate he removed his helmet and was declared out, nullifying all four runs.
The loss of the runs seemed to galvanize the Cards with a desire to win, as they bore down and played good baseball the final two innings. Especially relief pitcher Gahan, who only allowed one hit in the last three innings. Each team is now 3-3 in league. The Cards had six errors each by a different player. Cards pitchers gave up five home runs, but in a small yard. RBI’s were Bytheal Ratliff 6, Gahan 5, Darryl Ratliff 2 and those with one Harrell, Tuck, Fernandez and Keathley. Doubles: Gahan two, Darryl Ratliff and Wilkinson one each. Gahan hit a home run. Steals: Darryl Ratliff and Fernandez three each. Tuck and Wilkinson one each. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 4-1, five runs, two walks; Harrell SS, 4-1, two runs, walk; Gahan LF/P, 5-3, two runs, walk; Tuck 2B, 5-1, run, walk; Bytheal Ratliff P/1B, 5-2, walk; Fernandez RF/LF, 5-2, run, walk; Keathley C, 6-2, two runs; Wilkinson 3B, 4-1, two runs, walk; Kingdom 1B, 2-0 and Domhoff P/RF, 1-0, two runs, two walks.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 2.1 1 4 4 1
Domhoff 1 4 6 5 1
Gahan 4.2 3 2 1 5 win

North Monterey 5, SC 4. Victory can be sweet. Especially for North County, who had never beaten SC in baseball, until Tuesday. SC went up 4-2 in the top of the sixth on a two run single by Wilkinson. NMC came right back with three runs in the bottom of the sixth. The inning started with a strike out that got away from the catcher and three Card pitchers attempted to quell the rally. Harrell handled the first three outs of the game at shortstop and made all the other plays he needed too. RBI’s Wilkinson two and Gahan and Keathley one each. One steal each for Darryl Ratliff, Harrell, Gahan and Fernandez. All but one Cardinal had a base hit. There were runners on base in every inning but one. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff, CF, 4-1; Harrell SS, 3-2, run, walk; Gahan RF, 4-1; Tuck 2B, 4-1; Bytheal Ratliff P, 3-1, run; Fernandez 1B, 3-2, two runs; Wilkinson 3B, 3-1; Keathley C, 3-1; Domhoff DH, 3-0 and Stange LF, defense.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 5+ 7 2 1 3
Kingdom .1 1 1 0 0 loss
Gahan .2 1 0 0 1

Cards Gahan Brings Pirates To Their Knees. Sean Gahan. It rhymes. The accent is on the second syllable of the surname. A person could look for weeks for a better name for a baseball player and not come up with one. He is alive and well as he pitched and batted the Cards to a 7-2 upset win over Harbor, which went into the game ranked as the number one team in Division II in the state.
For SC 4-4 in league, the win was like a cool breeze on a heated face, which is exactly what the Cards got in the chilly night air. Thanks mainly to Gahan’s three hitter and five RBI’s. Harbor coach, Nick Adams said, “That’s as well as I’ve ever seen Sean pitch. He had a great fastball tonight.” The owner of the fastball agreed. “You can’t let up on anybody on Harbor’s team, But they couldn’t hit the fastball, so I threw it most of the time, My curve was all right, but not nearly as effective as the fastball.”
Pitching was not the only manner in which Gahan aided his team. With the score tied 2-2 in the top of the fifth, Darryl Ratliff reached first on a one out error. Sean Harrell singled him to third and took second on the throw to third. With the infield in, Gahan looped a pitch into shallow right field to drive in two runs. In the top of the seventh, SC blew the game open. With one out, Domhoff, Darryl Ratliff and Harrell all singled to load the bases. In came the ace of the Pirate staff to face the mighty Casey …er, Gahan. But Gahan did not strike out. No, Gahan ripped a curveball up the alley in left center and all the way to the fence for a three run double and a 7-2 lead.
A five run lead in the seventh inning was cause enough for celebration for the Cards, even against and intimidating Pirate club. Said Gahan, “We finally played like we’re capable of playing. We’re still one of the best teams in the league. Gahan struck out seven and walked four. Three times he fanned the league’s leading hitter, Tom Urbani, who has a .500 average. Lead off batter Darryl Ratliff went 1 for 3 and scored three runs. Second batter in the lineup, Sean Harrell went 2 for 4 and scored two runs. Cards had one error. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 3-1, walk, three runs; Harrell SS, 4-2, two runs; Gahan P, 3-2, walk; Fernandez RF, 4-1, run, steal; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 4-0; Tuck 2B, 2-1, walk, RBI; Wilkinson 3B, 3-1, walk; Keathley C, 2-0; Rainey PH, 1-0; Domhoff DH, 2-1, walk, run and Stange LF, defense.
Sentinel Athlete of the Week of April 29 was Sean Gahan for his pitching against Harbor.

SLV 9, SC 7. The defeat couldn’t have come at a worse time for SC after upsetting Harbor 7-2 last Friday they were upset by SLV with a 2-7 league record. The Cards are now 4-5. Starter Bytheal Ratliff gave up 11 hits and only walked one, but was victimized by two errors in the second inning, when the Cougars scored four runs and again in the sixth, two more errors allowed SLV to score four more runs to come from behind to win.
The only Cougar earned run came in the first inning. SLV had a 5-0 lead going into the fourth inning when the Cards scored three runs. In the fifth inning Tuck doubled in Bytheal Ratliff. The Cards went ahead in the sixth inning on walks to Keathley and Darryl Ratliff. Gahan doubled off the left field fence driving both of them in. Fernandez drove in Gahan to make the score 7-5. SLV came right back to score four none of which were earned to win. Doubles by Darryl Ratliff, Gahan and Tuck. RBI’s by Gahan two and one each for Fernandez, Tuck, Keathley and Domhoff. Cards had four errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 4-1, run walk; Harrell SS, 4-0; Gahan LF, 4-1, run; Fernandez RF, 4-1; Bytheal Ratliff P, 4-1; Tuck 2B, 4-1, run; Wilkinson 3B, 4-2, run; Keathley C, 3-2, run, walk; Domhoff DH/P, 4-1 and Kingdom 1B, defense.
INN H ER BB SO
B, Ratliff 6.2 11 1 1 2 loss on errors
Domhoff . 1 2 0 0 0

Wildcats Alone In Second Place. They are near their first trip to CCS since 1980. SC was not about to go down gently against Watsonville at Harvey West in their 5-7 loss to the Cats. On the surface, it was a perfunctory game. The pitchers mumbled to themselves, the managers complained about umpires calls, rallies soared and died on fly balls. There were occasional hits and intermittent errors. The Cards despite falling behind 7-2 after four and a half innings, chipped away at the Wildcats lead and had the tying run at the plate in the seventh inning when the final out went into the books.
But under the calm surface of the game emotions were starting to boil. It was at second base that the fireworks and mistakes occurred. The teams exchanged takeouts of the second basemen, when potential double plays were broken up by aggressive sliding. The collisions may have brought the emotions out, but it was series of errors that gave the Wildcats their winning runs. With Watsonville leading 4-2 and two down in the fifth an infielder was distracted by a passing Cat runner and made his second error of the inning, that led to three unearned runs.
The errors marred a capable relief job by Joel Domhoff, who took over from starter Sean Gahan with two out in the fourth and gave up only two hits and no earned runs in three and one third innings of relief. He struck out four. “They could have given up when we were down 7-2, but they stayed in the game. That’s all you can ask.” RBI’ were Gahan two and one each for Fernandez and Keathley. Steals were Gahan two and Darrly Ratliff and Sean Harrell one each. The Cards runs were spread out over five innings. They didn’t score in the second and third inning. Watsonville scored in each of the first five innings. Watsonville had two earned runs in the game. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 4-1, run; Harrell SS, 4-1, run, sacrifice fly; Gahan P/LF, 3-2, two runs; Fernandez LF/RF, 4-1; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 2-2, run, walk; Tuck DH, 3-0, walk; Stange 2B, defense; Wilkinson 3B, 4-0; Keathley C, 2-1, walk and Domhoff RF/P, 2-0, walk.
INN H ER BB SO
Gahan 3.2 6 3 5 1 loss
Domhoff 3.1 2 0 3 4

SC 9, Marello 2. Darryl Ratliff did what a leadoff batter is supposed to do, going 3 for 4, scoring four runs, stole two bases, tripled and then pitching the final inning of relief. SC broke the game open with four runs in the top of the fifth inning, to stake winning pitcher Gahan to a 7-0 lead. Cardinal clean up hitter Richie Fernandez also did what he’s supposed to do, driving in four runs, one each time at bat and went 2 for 4. Others with RBI’s were sophomore Scott Wilkinson with three and Bytheal Ratliff drove in one with a double. Gahan pitched the first six innings for the win as SC improved to 5-6 in league and 13-10 overall. Gahan stole two bases, Harrell and Wilkinson one each. Cards committed two errors. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 4-3; Wilkinson SS/3B, 4-1, run; Gahan P, 4-3, two runs; Fernandez RF/CF, 4-2; Bytheal Ratliff 1B, 4-2, run; Keathley C, 2-0, walk; Domhoff DH 2-0, walk; Mellis 2B, defense; Tuck 2B, 0-0, walk; Kingdom 3B, 3-0; Stange LF, 1-0; Harrell SS, 3-0, run; Rainey LF, 1-0; Cooper PH, 1-0 and Ulwelling RF, 1-0.
INN H ER BB SO
Gahan 6 4 1 3 5 win
D. Ratliff 1 1 0 0 0

Soquel Clinches Tie For First Title Since 1978 as they shut out SC 6-0. Verduzco, the Knight pitcher is 10-0 for the season, gave up only two hits and struck out 11 Cards. But the Cardinals are no slouches. The score was 1-0 going into the sixth inning as the Cards pitcher Bytheal Ratliff was also pitching a fine game. He had three innings of three up three down and allowing only one earned run.
In the top of the sixth the Cards committed three errors and none of the five runs scored were earned. “We played a hell of a game tonight. Better than we usually play. If we catch one fly ball in the sixth inning, it’s still a one run ball game.” The SCHS prom Thursday night did not appear to affect the Cards on Friday. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF/P, 3-0; Harrell SS, 2-0, walk, steal; Gahan LF/RF, 3-0; Fernandez RF/1B, 3-0; Batheal Ratliff P/1B, 3-0; Tuck PH, 1-0, walk, steal; Wilkinson 3B, 1-0; Keathley C, 2-0, walk; Domhoff DH, 3-1; Mellis 2B, defense and Kingdom 1B/3B, 3-1.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 6 9 1 0 2 loss
D. Ratliff 1 0 0 0 0

Cards Throw Aptos a Curve. Gahan Ends Aptos’ CCS Hopes. Sean Gahan hurled a six hitter and went the distance, as the Cards shut out free swing Aptos 5-0, ruining Aptos’ dream of a a spot in the CCS playoffs. “We were just trying to win,” said Gahan, who threw only 78 pitches in the game, while walking only two and striking out three. “We’re not trying to knock anybody out of it or anything.”
Coach Barrington of Aptos, “We wanted to go at them with our best curveball pitcher. Last time we played SC, we went with fastballs and they just killed us.” In the first inning, Darryl Ratliff and Sean Harrell walked, Gahan flew out. Fernandez drove in Ratliff and stole second. Harrell scored on Bytheal Ratliff’s ground out. Scott Wilkinson tripled to score Fernandez. Leading off the second inning Don Keathley and Joel Domhoff walked and moved up on a pass ball. Harrell drove them both in. With a five run lead going into the third inning, Gahan smelled victory. He scattered the Aptos hits, walked two and struck out three. “It just makes you relax with a little bit of a lead,” said Gahan.
“The team also played good defense and that helped. In the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, Gahan did not allow a hit. In the fifth, he threw only three pitches and got three fly outs. “That was kind of different,” said Gahan, who was backed by a defense that made no errors and also turned in some outstanding plays. “He threw strikes and they played good defense,” Barrington said. “We hit the ball hard, but he kept us off balance.” A key to Gahan’s success was he did not allow any hits to the core of the Aptos batting order. (three, four and five batters)
The SC coach wishes he could have bottled the Cards performance and saved it for other games. “The guys played the way they can play today. They played like they should have been playing all year. I think we could have beaten almost anybody today.” Wilkinson tripled and Gahan doubled. Each of the following stole a base: Darryl Ratliff, Harrell, Gahan, Fernandez, Keathley and Domhoff. Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF, 3-1, run, walk; Harrell SS, 3-1, run, walk; Gahan P, 4-2; Fernandez LF, 4-1, run; Wilkinson 3B, 3-1; Tuck DH, 3-0; Mellis 2B, defense; Keathley C, 1-1, run, two walks and Domhoff RF, 0-0, run, three walks.

SC 13, North Monterey 3. SC’ version of “All In The Family” was a hit show Thursday. The Ratliff cousins split the pitching duty with Darryl getting the win in relief, working the final three and one-third innings in the Cards 13-3 victory over NMC in a SCCAL finale at Harvey West. Each Ratliff struck out two batters. Bytheal went an easy three innings, but then ran into trouble in the fourth inning. Darryl, a sophomore, came in with two RBI singles having been posted by NMV, two runners on and the score tied 2-2 in the fourth inning. He struck out the next batter for the third out. Darryl also shone on offense going 2 for 3, hitting a triple, stole a base, scored three runs, drove in a run and walked once. “That was the second game in a row we went without any errors. The defense has been really good. Billy Mellis up from JV’s at second base was strong for the second game in a row. He had four outs in two innings.” Don Keathley had perhaps his best day of the season. He went 3 for 3, scored twice with an RBI single to add to the Cards seven run explosion in the fourth inning. Others with RBI’s: Harrell, Fernandez and Wilkinson two each, one each for Darryl Ratliff, Bytheal Ratliff, Kingdom and Keathley.
Gahan picked up his thirtieth RBI of the season to go along with his 2 for 4 at the plate and three RBI’s. The thirty RBI’s is a pretty significant figure for high school. (Gahan was selected to try out for the Northern California squad to play against the Southern California team right after the end of school. It is an honor to be chosen and work out at Cal) Lineup: Darryl Ratliff CF/P, 3-2; Harrell SS, 4-2, two runs, steal; Gahan RF, 4-2, two runs, walk; Fernandez LF/CF, 4-3, two runs, two steals; Bytheal Ratliff P/1B, 4-0; Wilkinson 3b, 3-0, two sacrifices, one for an RBI; Keathley C, 3-3, two runs, walk; Domhoff DH, 3-1, run, sacrifice; Mellis 2B, defense; Kingdom 1B, 1-1; Stange LF, 3-1, run; Tuck PH, 1-0 and Ulwelling PH, 1-0.
INN H ER BB SO
B. Ratliff 3.2 3 2 3 2
D, Ratliff 3.1 3 1 2 2 win

By team vote
Most valuable player, best hitter, best overall player — Sean Gahan
Captain– Bytheal Ratliff
Best defensive — Darryl Ratliff
Most improved– Brian Kingdom and Scott Wilkinson
Mr. Hustle– Bytheal Ratliff and Richie Fernandez
Cardinal Club Sportsmanship award Bytheal Ratliff

BEST BIRDS FOR THE SEASON
Average– Gahan 408, Darryl Ratliff 329 and Fernandez 296
RBI’s– Gahan 30, Bytheal Ratliff 22 and Fernandez 20
Total bases– Gahan 56, Darrell Ratliff 34 and Fernandez 29
Runs– Gahan 32, Darrell Ratliff 31, Harrell 22 and Fernandez 21
Stolen bases– Gahan 28, Darrell Ratliff 23 and Fernandez 15. Gahan led the league in steals, Darryl was third and Fernandez were fourth in league.
Walks– Keathley and Fernandez 15
Least number of strike outs– Darrell Ratliff 3, Gahan 6 and Harrell 7
Home runs–Gahan 2, Bytheal Ratliff and Sean Harrell one each.
Gahan led the league in doubles with 10 and Tuck was fifth with 7.

SEASON STATS
AB R H AVE 2B 3B RBI SAC BB SB
Gahan 98 32 40 408 10 0 30 2 9 28
D, Ratliff 76 31 25 329 5 2 10 2 10 23
Fernandez 81 21 24 296 3 1 20 2 15 15
B. Ratliff 86 10 23 267 2 0 22 1 5 0
Harrell 75 22 20 267 2 1 9 0 9 13
Tuck 80 9 21 263 7 0 9 2 6 3
Keathley 69 14 18 261 2 1 13 0 15 2
Wilkinson 73 12 19 260 4 1 12 3 10 7
Domhoff 42 7 9 214 0 0 5 3 12 3
Kingdom 48 6 9 188 1 1 4 1 10 0
Stange 21 3 5 238 0 0 3 2 2 1
Rainey 22 2 5 227 0 1 3 0 4 0
Ulwelling 27 1 6 222 2 0 3 1 1 1
Cooper 15 1 2 133 0 0 0 0 2 0
Oxford 6 1 2 333 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mellis 0 0 0 000 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 798 172 226 283 38 8 147 19 110 96

INN R H ERA 2B 3B HR BB SO W L SV
B. Ratliff 61 38 60 1.95 1 0 0 21 40 5 4 2
Gahan 56 26 38 2.13 3 0 2 31 50 5 5 1
Kingdom 35 22 39 2.60 6 0 1 4 30 2 1 2
Domhoff 29 21 28 3.23 2 1 3 23 17 2 1 1
D. Ratliff 10 2 6 0.70 0 0 0 4 6 1 0 0
Wilkinson 4 4 4 3.50 0 0 0 6 2 0 0 0
Rainey 2 0 0 0.00 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0
Total 197 113 175 2.24 12 1 6 90 148 15 11 6

In league games
W L S
B. Ratliff 3 3 0
Gahan 3 3 1
Kingdom 0 1 0
D. Ratliff 1 0 0
Domhoff 0 0 1
Totals 7 7 2

From Trident. Through out the year, Gahan’s pitching and hitting was the key for SC. He ended up getting 40 hits, 28 stolen bases, 30 RBI’s and scored 26 runs. Bytheal Ratliff contributed on the mound and at the plate. Other hitters were sophomore Darryl Ratliff, senior Rich Fernandez and juniors Scotty Wilkinson and Sean Harrell.
Fernandez believes the victory over Harbor was the highlight of the season. “We were fired up to beat them because they were cocky and number one in the state and all that. We just played with nothing to lose and everything to gain. I just wish we could have played like that all year.”
The Cards season will be remembered as “What Happened?” and with the talent on the club, it’s a shame they couldn’t put it together.

June 4. SENTINEL ALL COUNTY — Sean Gahan first team. Richie Fernandez, second team. Darrell Ratliff, Sophomore of the Year. One Sentinel writer had Gahan and Ratliff on his All County team.
Sometimes coaches don’t mind a little complaining from a player. Coach Bill Dodge was happy to hear outfielder-pitcher Sean Gahan sounded off earlier this year after the Cards blew a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning and lost to Watsonville 3-2. Gahan was angry at his teammates, who he felt let up a little before the game and allowed Watsonville to rebound. Gahan in a post-game meeting, let the Cardinals know he wasn’t happy to lose. “He wanted to win. Usually it’s the coach, who gets all over the team for a situation like that, not a player. That took guts.” Gahan is probably headed to Cabrillo next fall, took out his frustrations at the plate, compiling MVP like stats at the expense of opposing pitchers: .408 average, 32 runs scored and 30 RBI’s. He led the area in RBI’s, doubles with ten, at bats 98 and stolen bases 28. On the mound he was tough as well, compiling a 2.13 ERA, striking out 50 and walking only 30 in 56 innings.
Senior right fielder Richie Fernandez was a steady player for the Cards and hit for a .296 average with 20 RBI’s and stole 14 bases.
Sophomore of the year, center fielder Darryl Ratliff may be a fixture in center field for the next two years. He out ran fly balls and made a number of diving catches in addition to hitting .329 with 10 RBI’s and 23 stolen bases. He also score 38 runs, the most in the county.

ALL SCCAL — Sean Gahan, unanimous choice, first team. Honorable mention: Richie Fernandez and Darrell Ratliff.

JV BASEBALL
Team members were Billy Mellis, Tom Mills, David Kemp, Carlos Norena, Mathew Zwerling, Peter Maestas, Jeff Neuman, Scott Simons, Dylan Steinberg, Dan Kline, David Kardon, Donald Bartelo, Scott Lowe, Steve Mitchell, Jon Koch, Sandor LeBarre and Andrew Danner.
Head coach Mark Hodges, assistants were Mike DiTano and Rich Castillo.

GIRLS SOFTBALL
Practice games: Seaside 15-7, Pacific Grove 35-2, Live Oak 8-7 Hollister 12-4, Monterey loss, Carmel loss, North Salinas loss.
League: Soquel 11-2, 9-11; SLV 22-2, Watsonville 14-7, North Monterey 7-2, 4-3. (no scores for Aptos and one game each from SLV and Watsonville. League record 6-6 tied for fourth place with Soquel. Overall record 11-12.

Yearbook. Team members were Annissa Ratliff, Jana Burr, Rhonda Lyon, Tami King, Renee Alvado, Julie Judkins, Mary Moses, Amber Lasciak, Dina Avila, Debbie Chavez, Valerie Holman, Kim Park, Lisa Chavez, Molly Ball and Lori Schultz. Coach Vic Miguel.

Sentinel preseason review Feb. 23. The Rich Keep Getting Richer. A combination of bad weather, school vacations and an overlapping of the winter and spring sports seasons leaves most coaches wondering not about winning strategies and comparative strengths, but who and how many varsity players will show up. A coach said, “It seems like everybody is doing something else, soccer or basketball. It’s possible we might have one day of practice before the first game. it’s a common complaint around the league. The name of the game is returning players and leading the list are last seasons co-champions Soquel and Harbor.
Santa Cruz should be tough. Last years team went 8-4 for second place in league, one game back from the champions. SC is rebuilding around a solid core of players. Coach Vic Miguel,” It’s going to take awhile to develop. We’re not going to dominate other teams, but we’ll take pride in our defense.” Senior catcher Jana Burr hit .300 with 19 RBI’s last year. Three other seniors are Rene Alvado a threat on the bases, Dina Avila and Rhonda Lyon.

Sentinel preseason write up. Speed is the main ingredient for SC this year. Lori Schultz and Mary Moses can flat out fly. If they can get on base consistently, the Cards could make some noise this year. Both of them have been timed in just over 11 seconds around the bases. Coach Miguel is looking for good things from sophomore pitcher Debbie Chavez. “She has increased her speed and her variety of pitches. I think she was one of the most consistent pitchers in the league last year. Catcher and power hitting junior Tami King is coming off a good year. “She directs the team really well and has a good arm and she can hit too,” said Miguel.

Sentinel. Feb. 28. Card Girls Get Breaks. Getting some help along the way SC downed Seaside 15-7. SC took advantage of ten walks and eight errors. SC scored five runs in the top of the seventh to take a commanding eight run lead. Renee Alvado led SC going 3 for 4, while Jana Burr was 2 for 4 with 4 RBI’s. Lisa Chavez and Annissa Ratliff each drove in two runs.

Trident April 11. SC destroys Pacific Grove 35-2. SC scored 26 runs in the third and fourth innings. In the third it was 14 and in the fourth 12. PG committed eleven errors and walked 15. Senior Jana Burr had two hits and five RBI’s. Winning pitcher Debbie Chavez doubled and drove in four runs.
Winning pitcher was freshman Debbie Chavez, who contributed 4 RBI’s and hit a double. In their next game the Cards beat Live Oak of Morgan Hill 8-7.
Their were three losses to Monterey, Carmel and North Salinas.

In a 12-4 win over the Hollister Haybalers, senior Jan Burr pitched a two hitter in six innings. A seven run scoring spree in the top of the second inning helped seal the victory. SC had a total of eight runs batted in: one each from Jana Burr, Rhonda Lyon, Lisa Chavez, Lori Schultz, Val Holman and Dina Avila, who also had a triple. Tami King had two RBI’s.

Sentinel. Santa Cruz Whips Soquel 11-2. The winning formula was as simple as A-B-C for SC in their league opener against Soquel. A. Get great pitching. B. Play solid defense. C. Score more runs than the other team. SC behind the pitching of Debbie Chavez made alphabet soup of Soquel. “It was nice,” said Coach Vic Miguel. “A good uplifting way to start off league.” Chavez was in control throughout out the game, holding Soquel to only three hits, while walking one and striking out two. Soquel was without their starting pitcher. SC took control of the game by scoring five times in the bottom of the third inning, with out a base hit for a 6-2 lead. Julie Judkins went 3 for 5, while Lori Schultz and Jennifer Posey were both 2 for 3 with two RBI’s.

Sentinel. SC 22, SLV 2. Seven runs without a base hit got the Cards off and walking in the first inning, as SLV issued ten walks in the inning forcing home seven runs. SC added nine runs on five hits and four Cougar errors in the third inning. Renee Alvado, Valerie Holman and Tami King each had two hits. Rhonda Lyon and Dina Avila each had three RBI’s.

Sentinel. SC 14, Watsonville 7. The Cards reached double figures for the eighth time this season. They scored at least ten runs in seven of their ten wins and in doing so took over sole possession of second place in the SCCAL with a 5-3 record. SC scored four runs in the first inning and two in the second, without the aid of a hit, to take a 6-2 lead. SC received 11 walks in the first two innings, including bases loaded walks to Tami King and Rhonda Lyons. SC scored five times in the fourth inning on three hits, including Lyons two run single, for a 11-3 lead. Lyons finished the game with four RBI’s and Julie Judkins had three. The game ended with a spectacular catch by left fielder Renee Alvado, who hauled in a line drive in front of the fence and then crashed into the cyclone barrier, putting a gash in her forehead that required seven stitches to close. “She held onto the ball,” said an impressed Coach Vic Miguel. For her effort Alvado got the game ball.

Trident May 2. SC Posts Win. SC ran its SCCAL record to 3-2 and 8-7 overall with a 7-2 victory over North Monterey. Errors were a big problem in the game with SC committing seven and North Monterey four. Tami King’s triple in the second inning to set up the first SC score. Dina Avila also contributed a two run double in the fifth inning. In the sixth inning, Val Holman smacked an RBI triple that put the game out of reach for the Condors. Pitcher Debbie Chavez pitched a five hitter and struck out three.

Sentinel. May 9. Soquel 11, SC 9. Soquel 5-4 in league, rallied for three runs in the top of the seventh to pull into a two way tie with SC for fourth place. “We couldn’t do it.” said coach Miguel, whose team rallied for seven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. The key hit was Dina Avila’s three run double, to take the lead 9-8. After falling behind in the bottom of the seventh 11-9, got the tying run on base, but couldn’t score. SC left 14 runners on base.

SC 4, North Monterey 3. Molly Ball’s four hit pitching and the hitting punch of Debbie Chavez sparked the Cards, who finished the SCCAL season 6-6 to tie Soquel for fourth place. Chavez hit a two run single in the fourth inning and Ball had an RBI, when she was walked with the bases load in the same inning. The winning run scored courtesy of an error in the fifth inning. Two of North Monterey’s runs scored on an error. Annissa Ratliff gunned down a runner at the plate to keep North Monterey from tying the score.

Sentinel softball stats as of June 9 for the compete season, by position on the list, name, at bats, runs, hits, runs batted in and average.
PO NAME AB R H RBI AV
3 Burr 56 23 25 28 .446
4 Ball 28 12 12 14 .429
5 Avila 65 29 27 26 .415
6 King 63 23 24 21 .381
7 Ratliff 55 34 20 13 .364
8 Schultz 22 6 8 5 .364
11 Lyon 34 22 12 16 .353
18 Holman 57 22 18 18 .316
21 Moses 69 23 21 20 .304
22 Alvavo 66 27 20 14 .303

In hitting
Doubles, Barr was second with 7 and Avila was third with 6.
Triples were Avila and Moses where tied for second with 2.
Home runs were King and Alvado tied for second with 3. Avila and Moses each had 2.
Stolen bases were Ratliff fourth with 23 and Alvado fifth with 21.
SC was the top hitting team in the league with a .368 average. SC was also first in runs with 256, hits 186 and RBI’s 199.

Pitching by place, name, won-loss record, innings pitched, hits, walks, struck out and earned run average.
PO NAME W/L IP H BB SO ERA
6 Burr 3-1 33 25 38 16 2.33
10 Chavez 8-11 118 131 73 54 5.04
6 SC team 11-12 151 156 111 70 4.45

Sentinel Softball Stats for league only. by position on the list, name, at bats, runs, hits, runs batted in and average.
Individual batting
PO NAME AB R H RBI AV
1 King 26 16 14 14 .538
2 Avila 29 15 15 15 .517
7 Burr 35 14 06 22 .457
9 Alvado 32 16 13 8 .404
11 Moses 37 13 12 13 .391
18 Ratliff 26 22 9 9 .346
21 Holman 28 14 9 11 .321
22 Lyon 19 16 14 7 .316
25 Chavez 22 9 6 5 .273

Other hitting
Doubles: Burr tops with six. King tied for third with two.
Triples: Moses second with two. Alvado, Holman and Lyon tied for third with one.
Home runs: King second with two and Alvado, Wenger and Moses tied for third with one.
Steals: Ratliff first with 19 and Alvado second with 14.

SCCAL pitching by place, name, won-loss record, innings pitched, hits, walks, struck out and earned run average.
PO NAME W/L IP H BB SO ERA
6 Burr 2-0 26 18 27 12 2.42
11 Chavez 4-5 48 55 43 28 7.08

In league, SC was fifth in pitching with and ERA of 5.29.
In team batting SC was first with a .446 average. The next highest average was .297.

June 4. Two Cardinals were selected to the Sentinel ALL COUNTY first team: senior second baseman Dina Avila, who hit .415 and had 26 RBI’s was an all-around good player. She has an excellent attitude and was very dependable. (come back later to help coach). Senior short stop Jana Burr hit .446 with 28 RBI’s and a four year player.
On the second team were senior left fielder Renee Alvado with a .303 average with 14 RBI’s, 21 stolen bases had a good on base percentage and was one of the top run scorers for SC. Junior right fielder Annissa Ratliff a .364 hitter with 13 RBI’s and 23 stolen bases, is one of the fastest players in the league. At the plate, she has a good eye and has one of the strongest arms in the outfield, said coach Vic Miguel.
A picture in the Sentinel of nine softball players said, “The jury has reached a verdict. Guilty of being the best are: with two Cardinals Jana Burr and Dina Avila sitting in the jury box.

May 21. SCCAL all league team included two Cardinals on the 15 member team. They were seniors Dina Avila at second base with a .413 batting average and Rene Alvado in left field with a .303 batting average. Honorable mention were Debbie Chavez, Val Holman and Tammy King.

TRACK
Yearbook. Team members were Kurt Ferber, June Vitug, Tom Morrione, Kurt Hodges, Billy Payne, Steve Mead, Jeremy Varneski, Laura Shumate, Gwen Vilches, Beth Burns, Larkin Ferber, Mike Price, Jessie Britain, John Baran, Dino Scoppetone, Shawn Foregaard, Jennifer Houser, Pat Sullivan, Lynette Mungai, Shanon Litz, Matt Moore, Prakash Patel, Jove Shapiro, Courtney, Vonnie LeBer, Charles Howard and Justin Marc.

Sentinel preseason write up on March 19. Coach Brian Wall doesn’t want to go over board when it comes to predicting what his team will do. “Anyone can pull a surprise. This is one of the nicest bunch of kids I’ve ever worked with,” said Wall. But the question is can they run? Wall won’t say, but he will admit that the Cards have talent. “This years competition will be very close,” he says. Leading the boys will be Kurt Hodges in the sprints, John Baran in the field events and Brandon Smith in the distances. The girls are versatile and well balanced, if a little young. With 36 girls out, the Cards should be able to field a strong team. Maria Shanle will lead the runners, while Lynette Mungai will run the distance events and compete in the field events.

June 1. Kurt Hodges lingered around the finish line at Independence High a little longer than usual Friday night. He was waiting to get his official time following the boys 100 dash finals at the CCS Track and Field Championships. Hodges knew he hadn’t won the race and he knew his finish wasn’t even among the top three, which would have qualified him for the State meet. What Hodges was doing was extending his season, if only for a few more minutes. “I was really happy the way the season went,” said Hodges, who in his first season of track finished fifth at the CCS Championship meet in a race that was electronically timed 10.98 seconds. “And I was happy that I got this far. I never really expected it.” No SCCAL athletes qualified for the State meet. Of the seven who finished among the top six in their events, only three are graduating. Three others including Hodges are juniors and the other a sophomore, which means at least four league athletes will be favored to compete among the CCS elite for anther year.

Sentinel May 29 pre write up for the CCS championship finals. On local athlete, who could surprise the field is sprinter Kurt Hodges. Last week at the CCS Region IV meet, he ran a 10.8 to win the boys 100 and a 21.9 in qualifying for the 200. Card assistant Marty Kruger said, “He’s been looking real good in workouts. He may be able to pop one,”

Sentinel May 16. Condors Favored In Boys and Girls Track Title More Up In The Air for the SCCAL titles. Beyond the team standings, the SCCAL championships are primarily an individual qualifying event for the CCS Region IV Championships, which is a stepping stone to the CCS Championship finals and then to the State meet. The league is really up this year. Some of the better performers in CCS are right here in the SCCAL. The fastest high schooler in the county in the 100 meters is Kurt Hodge with a time of 10.8. The competition heats up in the 200 where Hodges and an Aptos runner are dead even at 22.6. For the SC boys, in addition to Hodges, Bill Payne and Brandon Smith are expected to gain some points. The girls will be led by Laura Shumate in the long jump and Lynette Mungai in the middle distances.

May 18. North Monterey won both the boys and girls SCCAL titles for the second consecutive year. Kurt Hodges running track for the first time this year on the high school level, won the 100 in 10.9, the 200 in a personal best 22.3 and anchored the 400 meter relay team of Bill Payne, Cory Petric and Matt Henry to a season best time of 43.8 for first place in one of the meets rare upsets. “The key to most races at this time of the season is to be at your peak,” said Hodges, who is junior class president. “I feel I’m just reaching my peak and I can cut some more time next week.”

May 5. Kurt Hodges was fifth in the 100 meters in 11.02 and Brandon Smith was eleventh in the two mile in 9:57 at the CCS Top meet at Los Gatos, which invites the top eight athletes in the section to go against each other, let them see the competition, before the meets to go through to qualify eventually for the State meet.
In frosh-soph competition, Cori Petric was fourth in the 200 meters in 24.12, seventh in the 400 meter in 54.0 and seventh in the 100 in 11.74. Matt Henry was second in the 200 in 23.85.

Trident April 11. Track Routs Pacific Grove. The boys posted a 93-28 victory and the girls were equally tough winning 95-24. For the boys John Baran won the shot put with an impressive toss of 43 feet. He also won the discus with a throw of 108-6 and took second in the high jump clearing 5-7. Kurt Hodges won the 100 meters in 11.2 and Matt Henry won the 200 in 24 seconds. Both were on the winning 400 relay team.
For the girls, Maria Shanle won the 110 meter hurdles at 17.7 and the two mile in 12:59. Carrie Kreppel won the shot put at 25 feet and the discus at 69-10. Lynette Mungai was also a double winner in the mile in 6:06 and the triple jump at 27-9.

June 3. Sentinel area prep bests in the SCCAL in boys track and field for the first five places.
By place, name, time or distance
100 meters
PL NAME TIME
1 Hodges 10.8
4 Payne 11.3

200 meters
1 Hodges 22.0
4 Henry 23.0

Two mile
3 Smith 9:57.0

400 meter relay
2 SC team 43.8

Mile relay
5 SC team 3:42.6

Girls
800 meters
2 Mungai 2:27.2

Mile
2 Mungai 5:34.0

Two mile
3 Mungai 12:43.5
4 Shanle 12:59.0

Mile relay
4 SC team 4:33.0

Long Jump
5 Shumate 15-9

High Jump
3 Cordes 4-8

BOYS SWIMMING
Dual meets: RLS 98-72, Salinas 91-74 in practice meets. League meets: Watsonville 100-67, Soquel 100-22, Aptos won, Gilroy won, Harbor loss. SCCAL dual meet standings: Harbor 5-0, SC 4-1, Aptos 3-2, Watsonville 2-3, Soquel 0-5.

Yearbook. SC had a great season this year as new coach Mike Bennett led the team to victory time and time again. The nucleus of the team were juniors Bill Hackbarth, Jon Melton, Chris Shumate, Mike Palla and Mike Peralta, who tore through the league leaving a wake of broken records in their path. Also senior aces Jim Murphy, Charlie Scibetta, Mike Frick, David Meyberg and Jim Herbert provided valuable leadership and kept the underclassmen in line.

Team members were Jacob Austin, Noah Ark, Joey Meyer, Chris Shumate, Mike Peralta, Matt Getty, Scott Tenedo, Eric Van Tassel, Brian Herbert, Nick Thayer, Chris Urich, Jim Herbert, Leif Kubina, Jim Murphy, Mike Frick, Joe Bentley, David Meyberg, Cameron Forrester, Peter Moutanos, Richard, Joel Griggs, Charles Scibetta, Seb Sussman, Jason, Wilkerson, Mike Palla, Ben Smith and Tim Mockus.

Trident February 14. Boys Swim Preview. SC is prepared to challenge Harbor for the SCCAL championship, but it won’t be easy. Although SC should capture almost all of the top finishes behind the powerhouse swimming of juniors Bill Hackbarth, Jon Melton and Chris Shumate along with senior aces Jim Murphy and Mike Frick. Harbor can dominate, because of their superior numbers. In any given heat, Harbor can stack as many as three swimmers to SC’s one or two, consequently they rack up the points. SC in an effort to stem the tide has been putting in overtime in the preseason to get their times up. The guys have been getting up before school and swimming at Harvey West pool for the last three months and lifting weights. This dedication will definitely help come league, but for SC to have a chance of dethroning archrival Harbor it must get more swimmers out! Even if you’ve never swam before.

Sentinel May 8. Pirates Might Have Lock On Another Swim Title. With first place all but conceded to Harbor, the real battle falls between SC and Aptos for second place. SC’s Bill Hackbarth and Chris Shumate are expected to take first places. “This is a building year for us,” SC coach Mike Bennett said. SC built up to a second place finish in dual meets with a 4-1 record. Their only loss was to Harbor by a scant 15 points, 13 of which were taken by Harbor in diving.
SC has a chance to win the title outright. The league championship is decided by a point system, with each dual meet victory worth one point and two points for each team beaten in the league meet. The finals winner gets ten points, followed in two point increments downward 8, 6, 4. If SC finished first, it would have 14 point overall, while Harbor would end up with 13. SC lost senior standout Jon Melton, who suffered a knee injury in a trampoline mishap. Advancement to the CCS finals is determined by individual times over the course of the season. Watsonville has a swimmer, who has already qualified for six events. Bill Hackbarth also has done well.

May 11. Harbor wins Title — Again. Sixth Championship In A Row. Scoring: Harbor 365, Aptos 214, SC 206, Watsonville 132, Soquel 98, Gilroy 56. Bill Hackbarth just missed winning the 500 freestyle, but came right back in the next event to break his own record in the 100 backstroke in 56.26. Hackbarth, a junior, set the record as a freshman and has broken it each year since. “I only swam the 500 because our other swimmer, broke his leg. My normal events are the 200 individual medley and backstroke,” said Hackbarth. Swimmers are allowed to enter only enter two individual events and one relay. Chris Shumate won the 100 freestyle.
Frosh-soph scoring: Harbor 441, SC 193, Soquel 162, Aptos 146.

Melton Has A Big Day In Santa Cruz Victory over RLS 98-72. It may have been SC’s first dual meet of the season, but that didn’t keep the Cards crème from rising to the top. Led by Jon Melton, the Cards hit four individual and one relay CCS qualifying times. Melton won the 200 free in 1:45.57 and the 500 free in 4:52.86, beating CCS times in both events. He also combined with Bill Hackbarth, Chris Shumate and Jim Murphy to win the 400 free relay in CCS qualify time of 3:31.97. Hackbarth won the 100 back in 58.13, while Mike Frick was second in the 100 breast in 1:06.82, both CCS qualifying times. Shumate was another double winner taking first in both the 50 free in 23.88 and the 100 free in 52.42.

Sentinel. Cards Dunk Salinas 91-74, swiping nine of 11 events. Chris Shumate led the Cards in key individual wins by taking the 200 freestyle in 1:53.09, Bill Hackbarth won the 200 individual medley in 2:04.89, Jon Melton took the 100 butterfly in 55.55 and Jim Murphy won the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.01. SC is 1-1 in dual meets. Hackbarth won the 100 back in 57.40 and the 200 free in 1:51.90. Shumate won the 50 free in 232.42 and the 100 free in 52.07.

SC 100, Soquel 22. Soquel showed up with just three swimmers on varsity, so SC won all but one event on varsity. Hackbarth and Shumate were double winners. Hackbarth won the 200 free in 1:51.35 and the 100 back in 55.72. Shumate won the 100 free in 54.07 and the 200 IM in 2:20.46.

SC 100, Watsonville 67. Led by double winners Bill Hackbarth and Chris Shumate, SC finished its SCCAL dual meet season 4-1. Watsonville coach, ”SC certainly has a far better team this year than last year. First year coach Mike Bennett has done a wonderful job for them. They have a lot more people out there this year.” SC won seven of the 11 events. Hackbarth won both the 100 back in 57.40 and the 200 free in 1:51.92. Shumate won the 50 free in 23.42 and the 100 free in 52.07.

Trident May 2. The Cards won most of the battles with Harbor, but lost the war. SC started the meet off right by beating the Pirates in the 200 medley relay in CCS qualifying time of 1:48.33. Bill Hackbarth started off the relay with a great 50 backstroke, followed by outstanding performances by Jim Murphy doing the breaststroke, Mike Peralta the butterfly and Charlie Scibetta anchoring the relay with the freestyle. Started off the individual events, Chris Shumate took the 200 freestyle, John Melton destroyed the field in both the 100 butterfly and 50 freestyle. Bill Hackbarth was a double winner also winning the 100 backstroke and 100 freestyle.
SC finished the meet on a winning note blowing out Harbor’s 400 free relay team on the strength of Tim Mockus, Jason Wilkerson, Chris Shumate and Jon Melton. Harbor took first in three events. SC got so many firsts in swimming, but Harbor’s overall depth taking countless seconds, thirds and fourths to give the Pirates enough points to win the meet. “We were more pumped up for this meet than any other I can remember,” said Jim Murphy. SC indeed had been looking down the road to this meet for many weeks and was ready.
Had the meet just been scored on swimming events, SC would have won, but diving is considered an event and Harbor has many talented divers and SC has only one. Therefore Harbor took 13 diving points to SC’s 2 and that proved the margin of victory. SC had the biggest turnout of fans that it has had in recent years to cheer and support the swimmers and their presence was greatly appreciated by the team.

Sentinel May 27. Sentinel Prep Swim statistics two week before the end of the season. Only the first five swimmers are in the paper.
Listed by the event, place in stats, name of individual and time.
200 Freestyle
PL NAME TIME
1 Melton 1:45.57
4 Schumate 1:50.66
5 Hackbarth 1:51.35

200 Individual Medley
2 Hackbarth 1:59.01

50 Freestyle
1 Melton 22.61
3 Schumate 23.31

100 Butterfly
3 Melton 55.63

100 Freestyle
1 Schumate 49.62
3 Hackbarth 50.29

500 Freestyle
2 Melton 4:55.06

100 Backstroke
1 Hackbarth 55.45

100 Breaststroke
4 Murphy 1:05.99
Diving
none

Sentinel. Big Day For Hackbarth, who Breaks Two School Records and set an All American consideration time at the CCS Swimming Championships at Stanford. Hackbarth finished sixth in the 100 backstroke, the highest finish by any SC county swimmer, with a time of 54.45 that broke his own school record and set an All American consideration time. “That was a really good accomplishment,” said coach Bennett. The 200 medley relay team, on which Hackbarth swam the first leg was tenth in a school record time of 1:45.07. Jim Murphy, Chris Shimate and Mike Peralta completed the foursome. Hackbarth was eleventh in the 200 individual medley in 1:58.16 and ninth in the 100 butterfly in 53.81. Chris Shumate was thirteenth in the 100 free in 49.84 and 49.76 in the trials.

Team honors
CO-MVP — Billy Hackbarth and Chris Shumate
Most Improved — Brian Herbert
Coaches Award — Jim Murphy

ALL SCCAL Jon Melton, Chris Shumate and the 200 medley relay team of Bill Hackbarth, Shumate, Jim Murphy and Mike Peralta. CCS and ALL AMERICAN Bill Hackbarth

BOYS TENNIS SCCAL CHAMPIONS
1986, Eddie Marcum won the SCCAL singles title. ( In 1990 is now a California Golden Bear tennis player)
Cort Blackburn and Davey Ransom were SCCAL doubles champions.

Yearbook. Team members were Eddy Marcum, Kevin Smith, Benji Goldfrank, Cort Blackbum, Adam Gersick, Steve Carniglia, Jimmy Ulwelling, David Mullen, Tim Lara, Danny Aldridge, Andrew Kwan, Ronny Dong and Davy Ransom. Coach Dennis Mullen.

Sentinel. The team is off to a good start with two wins. They defeated always tough Robert Louis Stevenson 4-3. In the number one singles, Eddy Marcum won 6-4, 6-1. Both doubles teams lost. Steve Carniglia and Jim Ulwelling lost 3-6, 6-3, 3-6. Other matches were not listed.

Trident April 11. SC raised its record to 3-2 defeating Monta Vista of Cupertino normally a top team 7-0. Eddie Marcus at number one singles won 6-1, 6-0. In number four singles, Dave Ransom came away with a narrow win 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4). In number one doubles Steve Carniglia and Jim Ulwelling won 7-5, 2-6, 7-5.

SC 7, SLV 0. SC is 4-0 in league and 8-2 overall. Eddie Marcum cruised to a 6-0, 6-0 win over his opponent, who had not lost in league play in the number one singles. In number one doubles, Davey Ransom and Dan Aldrich won 6-0, 6-1. Other singles winners were Cort Blackburn, David Mellon, Ron Dong and Steve Carniglia.

“Best’ SC Triumph. Led by Eddie Marcum’s hard fought victory in a three hour, number one singles match against a highly ranked opponent, leading to the topping of powerful Leland of San Jose 5-2. “That was our best victory of the year,” said coach Mullen, whose Cards are 12-2 this season. “Leland’s in first place in its league and they beat us last year in the CCS tournament. They’re a real powerhouse.” Marcum won 7-5, 5-7, 6-4. Cort Blackburn won his number two match against the number thirty-seventh ranked NorCal 16 under opponent. Jim Ulwelling at number four singles won 6-7, 6-3, 6-3. At number five, Dave Ransom won 7-6, 1-6, 6-1.

Cards String Ends. Seven straight times, SC has swept its opponents by 7-0 scores. That streak ended with one long, dramatic match. SC had enough strength to post a 6-1 win over Harbor, running their league record to 7-0 and overall mark to 11-2. In the number three singles match, which was a thriller that featured two straight tiebreakers, Harbor outlasted David Mellon 7-6 (10-8), 7-6, (8-6). The last time the two opponents meet Mellon won 6-2, 6-2.

Cardinals Clinch Tie For Title. Santa Cruz Blanks Aptos, 7-0, For The Second Time This Season. “It was a lot closer this time,” coach Mullen said. “A lot closer.” SC is 8-0 in league and 13-2 overall. Like last time their were two three set matches and like last time SC won them both. The difference this time was in the number one singles, where defending SCCAL champion Eddy Marcum, suffering from a sprained wrist, barely held on to win 7-5, 6-4. “That was the first time in two years that anyone in league has won nine games off Eddie,” said Mullen. “Not to take anything away from his opponent, but the wrist was really bothering Eddie. After the match X-rays were taken and were negative. Marcum is not expected to miss any matches,” said Mullen. Davey Ransom won his match 6-4, 5-7, 6-3. Cort Blackburn, David Mellon and Jim Ulwelling won their singles matches. Steve Carniglia and Ron Dong won the number one doubles. Andrew Kwan and Dan Aldrich won the number two doubles 6-4 5-7, 6-2.

It’ll Be Hard For SC To Top This Season. SC coach Dennis Mullen has won more than his share of league tennis championships. This season, even Mullen has to stand back and take notice at one particular statistic. Following a 7-0 victory over Soquel in the SCCAL finale, SC has won 69 out of a possible 70 individual matches in league and went 10-0. “Nobody’s ever done that here,” said Mullen, whose teams have won league championships in 11 of the last 12 seasons, including two co-championships. “Even with all the good teams we’ve had, we’ve never had anything like that.”
Mullen was surprised by the Cards dominance, especially at the teams play against the better CCS competition in non league matches. “They have really come through. I thought we could do okay, but I didn’t realize they would could do that well. I think teams in the league are just as good as they’ve always been,” said Mullen. “What impresses me is how well we have done against really good teams. This year, we played one of out toughest practice schedules and we were 7-3 against those good teams.”
“I’m going to miss all the seniors, because they’ve been around a long time. We lose Eddie Marcum, Jim Ulwelling and Steve Carniglia to graduation. They’ve been really hard workers,’ Mullen said.
Eddy Marcum has been playing number one for all four years and posted a 39-1 record. His one loss came as a freshman. Marcum has been outstanding, as always, going 17-2 this season. But so has number two singles player Cori Blackburn, a sophomore, who is 18-1.
Against Soquel, Marcum won 6-1, 6-1 and the number one doubles team of Steve Carniglia and Ron Dong won 6-2, 6-0

Master Of The SCCAL. No Question: Marcum’s No. 10. Eddy Marcum is only the second player to win back-to-back SCCAL tournament singles titles, the other being Santa Cruz’s Paul Daniel. Eddie Marcum has so thoroughly dominated tennis in the SCCAL the last two years, the senior is rated as one of the best all-time high school players in the area. He won three matches to take the SCCAL single championship, winning in the finals 6-3, 6-4 at the Imperial courts, even with a sore left wrist. Marcum has made the SCCAL tournament all four years.
SC made it a league sweep when, in an all SC final Cort Blackburn and Davy Ransom beat Steve Carniglia and Ron Dong 6-4, 6-3 for the doubles title. The in seeded Carniglia and Dong advanced to the finals with an upset win over a top seeded Harbor team 6-4, 0-6, 6-4.
At the CCS seeding meeting there were 8 out of the 16 teams in the CCS championships that SC had beaten this year.
Marcum and the Blackbur-Randsom team qualified for the CCS championships. Santa Cruz the SCCAL Champion is to play in the CCS team tournament against number one seeded Bellarmne.

GOLF No information

FORMER PLAYERS
John Wilson class of 1982 made the All Northern California Athletic Conference team as a pitcher. He went 11-0 with and ERA of 2.84 on the season and 10-0 in the NCAC play and was voted the league Pitcher of the Year. Wilson won a cupboard full of post season honors, including first team All NCAC, first team All Western Region –NCAA Division II and NCAA Division II All American. John played a vital role in the San Francisco States 27-15 record this season. The Gators won the NCAC championship by six games. It included a upset win over Stanford, an entrant in the College Baseball World Series this year. (Later he would be inducted into the SFS Hall of Fame) Other Cards on the team were Bill Domhoff, Steve Glass and David D’Esposito.

Steve Glass a 1983 grad .was also honored by being selected to the SFS Hall of Fame for his play at shortstop.

INDIVIDUALS

Sean Gahan, a transfer from Texas, who plays wide receiver and cornerback, caught six passes for 85 yards, including an incredible over the shoulder catch for 34 yards while leaning backward and falling down, had two interceptions returning one for a touchdown and the other set up a score. He set up a TD march with a 49 yard kickoff return and had 10 solo tackles and two assists. “Gahan had a terrific game,” said Mehuron. “He blocked well amd had that super catch to pull us out of a hole in the second quarter and of course he played great defense.

Chris Lovato, the unheralded quarterback had his best day as a Cardinal, completing 13 of 19 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns; he also ran eight times for 40 yards.

Fernandez, the blocking fullback who never played football before this year, caught eight passes for 107 yards, including three off the option from Johnson and scored two touchdowns.

Darryl Ratliff, the sophomore cornerback, returned an interception 80 yards for a touchdown and had five solo tackles.

Johnson against Soquel was a key force in the 59-27 win for the first time in 18 years. He plays free safety on defense, ran 24 times for 177 yards and three touchdowns, caught two passes for 67 yards, completed four of five passes on option plays for 71 yards with one going for a touchdown, a 23 yard TD strike to Fernandez and had six solo tackles and one assist. Coach Mehuron added a new play for this game. A halfback option pass designed to put a new weapon in Johnson’s hands. “It’s a great play,” Johnson said. It opens up the offense and spreads the defense. Teams have been keying on me with a lot of coverage. But with this play, if they cover me close I can pass it and if they stay back, I can run it and keep going.”
Johnny Johnson SC Routs Aptos 27-7. SC rode the 199 yards on 26 carries, three touchdown performance of Johnny Johnson. Leading the D were Johnson with two fumbles forced and recovered and one interception. Johnson put the Cards ahead 14-0 on runs of one yard and two yards. Johnson made a juggling as he was falling down interception, giving SC possession on its own ten. Two plays later, Johnson broke a tackle and raced 84 yards for the clinching TD. Against Harbor, Tailback Johnny Johnson was limited to 104 yards on 20 carries against Harbor, but pushed his county rushing lead to 1,563 yards. In basketball, while the other four players were playing man to man center Johnny Johnson was able to patrol the paint as he would in a zone defense. “Johnny dominates the inside. His presence in the middle discourages someone like the Condors speedy driving point guard from penetrating. Johnny does so many things you can’t measure. A lot of things don’t happen, simply because he is there,” Coach Newell. There are some things you can measure. Against the Condors, Johnson grabbed 20 rebounds and scored 15 points to lead all players in both categories. Johnson was first in league rebounding with a total of 411 rebounds. He had a high game of 21 and averaged 14.2 rebounds a game. Johnson was selected for the Dads Club ALL Tourney team. For the second year in a row Johnny was named the Carmel tourneys Most Valuable Player. He was also a All SCCAL player.

Sean Harrell first team of five players on the ALL SCCAL TEAM.

Eddy Marcum on the second five of the ALL SCCAL TEAM.

With Aptos on there own three yard line, they attempted an option pitch and Chris Lovato picked up the ball and went in for the score.

Trevor McPherson had one interception and numerous tackles in the game.

Sean Gahan one interception, good coverage as well as the hit of the year on an Aptos receiver in a 27-7 win over Aptos.

Other top defenders Against Aptos were Rich Fernandez, Darryl Ratliff, Booth Wainscoat, Lovato, Bytheal Ratliff and Jon Nield.

Brandy Smith led the cross country team to a second place finish in league and CCS Region IV meets and qualified for the CCS finals. Brandy finished first in the league and second in the region to qualify for CCS finals. Brandy was voted MVP of the Cards.

Anna Locks was a top Card girl runner and continued to the Region meet where she finished well among the field of 120 runners. She was named team MVP.

Once again the Cardinal’s Volleyball team earned third place in the SCCAL with two players named to the all-county team. They were senior setter-hitter Amy Ball and senior middle-hitter Angie Work. The varsity finished third in the Gilroy Invitational Tournament at the beginning of the season, with Work named to the All-tourney team. They were both three year starters.

Senior Jana Burr’s diving expertise also earned the Cards many points. She has been a three year starter.