Sep 4, 2008

Prep Lookout: New school year brings new fields

Gunn, Aragon, Hillsdale all turn to FieldTurf

By John Reid / Daily News Staff Writer

Ready or not, the 2008-09 school year is upon us. OK, it has been here for a week or two, but Prep Lookout is finally going to acknowledge it. Grab your Michael Phelps lunch box and get in the swing, kids - or in the pool, for that matter. Who is going to be this year's breakout athlete or upstart team? Was that offseason regimen worth it? Is your mental game sharp or did you forget the combination to your locker already?

No time to think about it. It's on with the Prep Lookout show. Ta-da!

Gunn students found out when they arrived for their first day that the school's athletic facilities have completely changed. The football field is now widened with FieldTurf instead of grass. The pool is undergoing a complete replacement and the baseball and softball venues have literally switched places, fully equipped with new backstops. The baseball diamond will have artificial turf on the infield, grass in the outfield; the softball diamond is all dirt with a grass outfield. A new soccer/lacrosse field is all grass, though most matches will be played on the football field.

"I've never seen so many new fields on a school that wasn't brand new," Gunn Assistant Principal Tom Jacoubowsky said. "It's unbelievable."

"This is a huge shot in the arm," Gunn Athletic Director Chris Horpel said. "The whole athletic and physical education programs will benefit immeasurably. It should create more interest for prospective student-athletes. The numbers for the football team should grow after students see the new field."

The Titans' boys and girls water polo teams will play all away games this fall for the pool isn't expected to be ready until late spring.

"The pool was built in 1964," Jacoubowsky said. "It's old and antiquated. Our aquatics programs have outgrown it. The pool was chipping and falling apart."

The Titans are dedicating the field before Friday night's 7:30 p.m. game with Lincoln-San Francisco. The ceremonies are expected to commence at 7:15 p.m.

"We'll have someone throw out the first pass," Jacoubowsky said. "We'll have dignitaries. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony."

At Palo Alto High, a new FieldTurf for football will be officially baptized when Mitty-San Jose visits on Sept. 19 for a 7:30 p.m. non-league tilt. Horpel estimated costs for both football fields at $3 million, $1.5 million each.

"The cost for the lower fields is about $2 million," Horpel said.

Horpel was a champion wrestler at Stanford in the early '70s.

"Gunn reminds me of when I first got to Stanford in 1970," Horpel said. "The facilities at Stanford used to be horrible, but now they're the best facilities in the world. Gunn is like a mini-version of Stanford."

And schools in the San Mateo Union High School District are also reveling in new football fields - with either real or fake grass. At Aragon, Dons football coach and Athletic Director Steve Sell said his players are happy overall with the FieldTurf, which replaced a beat-up grass field.

"Except when it gets hot," Sell said. "The field gets hot and the kids do kind of a fire dance. The heat will be in only a couple of stretches. It's a big difference. The old field was hard to maintain, especially when it rained and got too wet. This is nice the way the field is lined out. It will be easier to chart yardage stats."

Hillsdale is another San Mateo County school that has a new FieldTurf football field, while Capuchino and Mills installed new grass fields.

"They tore everything out and redid the drainage," said Sell of the Cap and Mills pitches.

All SMUSD high schools should have all-weather tracks before track season starts, Sell said.



SENIOR-LADEN LANCERS: St. Francis boys water polo coach Terry O'Donnell could field nearly a first and second string with all seniors in the water. The Lancers return four key seniors from last year's team which fell in the Central Coast Section Div. II title game to Sacred Heart Prep 10-8. O'Donnell, in his 14th season, has 11 seniors on his roster, all told.

The top three scorers could be a trio of talented seniors - southpaw driver Tom Cole and utility players Miguel Martin de Bustamante and Evan Dellinger, also the team's hole defender. O'Donnell has a veteran in goal in senior Tony Dito.

"All those players are good enough to play in college," O'Donnell said. "They don't know where, yet. It depends on the fit."

The Lancers' hole set on offense is 6-foot-3 senior Matt Goodenough. Senior John Sample, younger brother of ex-Lancer star Mike Sample (now at 2-time NCAA champ Cal) is another whom O'Donnell is counting on.

"That's the thing with this program," O'Donnell said. "I graduate some really good seniors, but then bring in other seniors to take their place. I have a few sophomores and a freshman on this team whom I think will be good in the future."

The Lancers compete in the most rugged league in the CCS - the West Catholic Athletic League. Sacred Heart Prep is the defending champion.

"Sacred Heart Prep is the team to beat until someone beats them," O'Donnell said. "They have some real good players returning and are awfully good. Bellarmine, as usual, returns a lot of talent. Mitty, Serra, the league is loaded."

O'Donnell, class of '87 at St. Francis, held his annual alumni match this past week, with the alumni winning 15-12. Former St. Francis star Steve Lipinski had five goals.

St. Francis is scrimmaging some East Bay teams in Campolindo Saturday. It won't officially play a match until the Scott Roche Tournament at Menlo School on Sept. 19-20.



DONS' LONG TRIP WORTH IT: Aragon took the long trip to Watsonville to play in the Don Bosco Invitational, a six-team girls volleyball tourney with St. Francis-CCC as the host site. The Dons went 6-0, with two wins over Anzar-San Juan Bautista, two wins over St. Francis, a win over Calvary Christian-Pacific Grove and another victory over Pacific Collegiate-Santa Cruz. Aragon moves up from Div. III to Div. II of the Central Coast Section playoffs this fall, while the other five schools, with much smaller enrollment, will play in Div. V of CCS.

"I'm extremely happy," Dons first-year coach Julie Suess said. "We never got down, played as a team and lifted each other up. If we called a timeout, we said, 'We can do this!' Then we went out and got the point. We had a great attitude."

The Dons won a doozy of a title match against St. Francis-CCC - surviving with a wild 24-26, 34-32, 15-8 victory.

"I've never coached in any game that went into the 30s," Suess said. "It was exciting."

The Sharks were led by athletic 6-foot-2 middle blocker Katherine Brown, while one of the Dons' best middles - Meisi Haupeakui - did not make the trip to Watsonville.

In the title match, freshman outside hitter Steffi Miller paced the Dons with 13 kills. Miller's older sister, Samantha, was a standout player for the Dons in recent years. Junior Missy Loeser, who was named tournament MVP, added nine kills. Suess had high praise for senior libero Alexa McDonnell, who was selected to the all-tournament team, and junior setter Kristyn Ikeda.

"Alexa had multi-digs," Suess said. "They had her for 30, but she had more than that. She was amazing. Most of her digs were on Brown, their top player. Kristyn was phenomenal setting. We had great passing as a team."

The only drawback, besides some unhappy Sharks fans who witnessed the Dons besting their favorite team twice, was that it was a very long day.

"We got there at 8 a.m. and didn't leave until 8:30 p.m.," Suess said. "We had some breaks, but it was tiring. I don't think we'll be going back next year."

The Dons host Hillsdale in a non-league match Sept. 11 at 5:45 p.m. The first Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division match for the Dons is Sept. 18 at Burlingame at 4:30 p.m.



NAVY SEALS DROP IN AT SF: Don't be late for Friday night's 7:30 p.m. football game between Oak Grove-San Jose and St. Francis. If you are, you might miss the landing of the Navy Seals parachutists before the game. Hopefully, they'll find the right stadium. In a college game Saturday, North Carolina was supposed to receive the game ball from an aerial team before its game with McNeese State. The two parachutists landed in Wallace Wade Stadium, where Duke was readying for its game with James Madison, instead.

Just look for the brown, white and gold, boys, and you'll be fine.



E-mail John Reid at jreid@dailynewsgroup.com.