It has been confirmed by Miramonte AD Vince Dell’Aquila that Kelly Sopak has been hired as Miramonte High’s new girls baskeball coach. Sopak lives in Orinda and has been involved with youth basketball in the city for years. He took Northgate to the North Coast Section Division II championship game the past two seasons, compiling a 49-9 record in that span.

A parent of a University of Houston baseball player makes a website to trash his son’s coach.

Feel free to click on the link and learn about what a great Little League baseball player Jimmy Raviele was. (According to his dad, you must know Jimmy’s complete background to understand the scope of the problem at Houston).

It’s impossible to finish, but if you skim through it, there are quite a few laughs to be had.

http://www.houstoncougarbaseball.com/

The defending state champion Salesian High boys basketball team won’t have its leading scorer when it looks to defend its title next season.
The Pride’s 6-foot-3 sophomore guard Jabari Brown is leaving Salesian and will transfer to Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nev., a highly-competive program that won the inaugural National High School Invitational this season.
“It’s hard to leave, but sometimes you’ve got to make tough decisions like that,” Brown said. “It’s tougher competition that will make me work harder in practice every day.”
Read the rest of this entry »

List of guys with East Bay high school connections (chime in if we’ve missed anyone):

Brett Jackson, CF, (Miramonte/Cal). 1st Round — Chicago Cubs

Jeff Kobersnus, 2B, (Bishop O’Dowd/Cal). 2nd round — Washington

Adam Buschini, 2B, (Cal High/Cal Poly). 4th Round — Philadelphia

Erik Stavert, P, (Livermore/Oregon). 7th round — Colorado.

Charles Ruiz, P, (Arroyo/Chabot/Long Beach State). 10th Round — Colorado.

Mark Appel, P, (Monte Vista High). 15th round — Detroit

Tyler Gagnon, P, (Libert/Diablo Valley C). 15th round — Colorado

Anthony Allioti, 1B, (De La Salle/Saint Mary’s College.) 15th Round — Oakland

Tillman Pugh, CF, (De La Salle/Gateway CC) 16th Round — Seattle

Ryan Palsha, P, (San Ramon Valley/Diablo Valley CC). 16th round — Baltimore

Mario Hollands, P, (El Cerrito/UCSB). 24th round — Minnesota

Eric Massingham, P, (De La Salle/Cal Poly). 25th round — Philadelphia

Kevin Castner, P, (Acalanes/Cal Poly). 26th round — Texas

Derek Poppert, SS, (Acalanes/USF). 28th round — Cincinnati

Scott Griggs, P, (San Ramon Valley), 34th round — Seattle

David Hurlbut, P, (Concord/Diablo Valley College), 35th round — Minnesota

Dylan Tonneson, C, (Cal High/Cal), 36th round — San Diego

Trevon Prince, P, (University Prep-Oakland), 38th round — Arizona

Noah Perio, SS, (De La Salle). 39th round — Florida

Joe Lewis, 1B, (Pittsburg). 44th round — San Francisco

Stephen Piscotty, SS, (Amador Valley). 45th round — Los Angeles Dodgers video

Aaron Oates, 3B, (Skyline). 46th round — Tampa Bay.

Former De La Salle quarterback and son of Joe, Oaks Christian-Westlake Village QB Nick Montana orally committed last night to play at the University of Washington. Rivals.com has a story on it here.

Montana picked the Huskies from a list that included almost any school you’ve ever thought of as being a college football power. Rivals says the list included “Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford, Washington, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, South Carolina, Florida State, Maryland, Nebraska, Notre Dame and Ohio State.”

Montana’s brother Nate is a quarterback at Notre Dame.

Wanted to pass along some information for a football combine coming up on June 27 at Chabot College in Hayward. The event is Max Emfinger’s All-American Bowl Game Classic Super Combine Series and it’s an NFL-style combine for junior and senior football players. The event is presented by FAM1LY F1RST Athlete Services, which is run by AJ Jackson, a Tennyson High graduate who has coached at Tennyson, Hayward High, Chabot and Laney and has repeatedly played an integral role in developing talent and helping players move on to collegiate football. Check out his web site to see the type of talent he’s worked with.

The event is Saturday, June 27 at Chabot (25555 Hesperian Blvd, Hayward) from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Pre-registration cost is $40 and walk-up cost is $60 and includes a free Super Combine t-shirt and free Asset Rating on the Super Scout Max Emfinger’s Recruiting web site. Up to five participants from the combine will be invited to play in the Max Emfinger Sixth Annual All-American Bowl Game Classic on Jan. 2, 2010 at SMU’s Gerald Ford Stadium in Dallas. Awards will also be given to the All-Combine team at the end of the day.

Sign up online at www.famf1rst.com or www.maxemfingerrecruiting.com and send payment to FAM1LY F1RST Athlete Services, P.O. Box 1037, Newark, CA 94560 or pay online at www.maxemfingerrecruiting.com. For more information, call AJ Jackson at 510-695-1476.

Doug Vanderhorst, who compiled a 135-57 record in seven years at Amador Valley, was named the new varsity girls basketball coach at Dougherty Valley according to Athletic Director Brian Freitas.

The Dons won four EBAL championships and an NCS title during his tenure.

Dougherty Valley went 18-10 this year with a team made up solely of freshmen and sophomores.

By all accounts, the SRV job came down to two in-house candidates in Kessler and JV coach Aaron Becker. Kessler was notified on Friday that he was the new coach it was officially released to the public today.

Here is the press release released this morning:

San Ramon Valley High School, Home of Champions, is pleased to announce the selection of Mark Kessler as the Wolves Head Football Coach/Program Coordinator. Mark has served as Assistant Varsity Coach for the past four years.

Mark has been in education for 16 years and is currently teaching Health and PE at San Ramon Valley. He has 17 years of coaching experience including Head Football Coach at both Las Lomas High School and Benicia High School; he was also the Quarterback and Running Back Coach at Solano College. Mark brings a wealth of football experience, a passion for the game, a creative mind, and a strong desire to work with our San Ramon Valley High School community.

Please join us in congratulating Mark Kessler as he accepts his new position.

The field event finals begin today at 4:30 p.m. and the running finals with start at 6 p.m. We will have all the action on the blog starting around 5 p.m. I will keep my eye on local athletes and try to grab some comments from the athletes and put them on the blog. I will do my best to get some pictures up here. Here are some links you will want to know.

Schedule of Events. Go to page 10.
Live results
List of events and athletes competing in them

Read the rest of this entry »

This will be the post to find updates from the first day of the California Interscholastic Federation Track and Field Championships from Buchanan High School in Clovis just outside of Fresno. I will be bringing you updates as best as I can. I will try to get some live interviews with a few of the athletes. I won’t be allowed to broadcast the meet live, but can share some periodic updates via video. 

Click here and go to page 9 for a schedule of today’s field events and running qualifiers. All finals will be Saturday.

Click here for a running results page. This will be able to get you updated results on the fly. I will have results of the running as it happends, but to check all the official times I suggest using the before mentioned link.  Finally, here is a list of events and all the athletes competing in them. 

The top 9 in each event advance to the finals on Saturday.

Read the rest of this entry »