Hacienda League: February 2012 Archives

Most of the winter sports' league races have been decided, but there are a few with unfinished business heading into the final two days of the regular season.

After the Claremont girls soccer team's 2-0 victory over Ayala on Tuesday broke a tie for first place between the two, the Wolfpack needs to defeat West Covina South Hills tonight to secure an outright Sierra League championship.

The Ontario Christian boys basketball team will face Aquinas in a de facto Ambassador League championship game tonight in San Bernardino a year after the Knights broke a first-place tie with Aquinas with a win in the penultimate game of last year's regular season.

The Hacienda League girls soccer race took a turn on Tuesday when Diamond Bar's win over Bonita pulled the Brahmas into a first-place tie. Bonita needs a win over a struggling Rowland team to earn its share of the league title while Diamond Bar's road to at least a share of the league championship requires it to defeat a Los Altos team that won their first meeting, 3-2, on Jan. 23.

Through the eyes of a teenager, football typically is viewed as the destination, not the vehicle. Football sometimes begets a free college education courtesy of the small number of lucrative scholarships, but in the case of the four captains of the Diamond Ranch High School football team, it's quite the opposite.

Whether it's congressmen or Ivy League school officials in the meeting room, game film never is a request, but football might be the most appealing extracurricular activity available. Jacob Ardron believes he likely wouldn't have been admitted to Columbia without the football prowess that made him an all-CIF middle linebacker. Andrew Fischer, a track-star receiver, was on the radar of Pacific-12 Conference schools but physics programs don't get much better than those he'll be in at Harvard next year. Blake Benjamin and Peter Neise will head off to Navy and Army, respectively, next year after completing rigorous application processes that required more time than they devoted to football.

Each of the four Diamond Ranch captains will sign with their respective schools Wednesday, national signing day, but their all-expenses paid educations are what they are most happy to be cementing. Each of the seniors maintain grade-point averages greater than 4.5 on a four-point scale, literally off the charts for your average high school student but fairly pedestrian in the Ivy League.