Category Archives: Mesa Grande Academy

All CIF-Southern Section boys and girls basketball teams

Posted on by
Reply


As it turned out, the Etiwanda and Santa Ana Mater Dei boys basketball teams each ended the season with a championship. Perhaps it’s only fitting that the teams’ star players share Southern California’s top individual award.

After leading the team to the school’s first CIF title in eight years, Etiwanda’s Jordan McLaughlin (right) was named the CIF-SS Division 1AA co-Player of the Year along with Mater Dei’s Stanley Johnson on Monday.

Etiwanda defeated Mater Dei in the CIF-SS championship game only to lose two weeks later in the CIF State tournament semifinals to a Mater Dei team on the way to its third straight state title. Etiwanda’s Dave Kleckner was granted sole possession of the CIF-SS Coach of the Year award after leading the No. 6 seed to the first championship since current NBA players Darren Collison and Jeff Pendergraph helped the Eagles to the 2005 CIF title.

Etiwanda boys wasn’t the only county program with top honors in its division, Division 5A girls champion Mesa Grande Academy got Coach of the year and co-Players of the Year in its division.

ALL-CIF BOYS BASKETBALL TEAMS
DIVISION 1AA
Co-Players of the Year – Jordan McLaughlin, Etiwanda (11); Stanley Johnson, Mater Dei (11)
Coach of the Year – Dave Kleckner, Etiwanda
First Team
Roschon Prince, 12, Long Beach Poly
Brandon Randolph, 12, Inglewood
Evan Zellar, 12, Mission Viejo
Jordan Bell, 12, Long Beach Poly
Sheldon Blackwell, 12, Etiwanda
Jordan Strawberry, 12, Mater Dei
Peyton Banks, 12, Orange Lutheran
Sedrick Barefield, 10, Corona Centennial

Continue reading →

Mesa Grande Academy girls basketball: my first impressions

Posted on by
Reply

I knew Mesa Grande Academy’s marquee athletic team for some time has been their  girls basketball team. But unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to cover the Cardinals. In fact, I had covered a Mesa Grande softball game and written a Mesa Grande cross country feature before my first Mesa Grande girls basketball team.

I came away from my first Mesa Grande girls basketball game, Wednesday’s 45-24 win over San Diego Ocean View Christian in the State Division V first round, as very impressed.

Mesa Grande has an extremely talented ball handler in Michaela Garcia. They don’t have a ton of size. But they do have other players who are pretty decent at handling the ball, and most importantly, they have players who play great team defense and rebound. On offense, they tend to be  very patient but have players who can finish around the basket.

I have no idea if 5th-seeded Mesa Grande (28-3, winners of 21 straight) can beat its next opponent, No. 4 Sun Valley Village Christian, a road game on Saturday night. Just from talking to coach Bob Walker in recent years, I had respect for how he runs his program, but after watching the Cardinals on Wednesday, I have respect for how they play the game.

Mesa Grande cross country wins league, misses on CIF

Posted on by
1

I enjoyed going to Mesa Grande Academy today, to interview the cross country team about winning league but not being able to compete at CIF.

I enjoyed talking to the coaches and athletes about how strongly they feel about their Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. Because they celebrate the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, they can’t compete at CIF-SS cross country prelims because those are during the day Saturday. And CIF won’t change any of them to another day.

It was great to talk to coaches Juli and Robert Simmons as well as boys runners juniors Eli Gorton, Pablo Orozco and Beau Darkens and senior Austin Mock and girls runners sophomores Kaylene Lopez and Lauren Tomas and seniors Morgan Johnson and Emily Thornton. Unfortunately, they weren’t all quoted or mentioned in the story, but I appreciated talking to them as well as I appreciate the other runners who showed up for the photo but had to take off shortly thereafter. Also unfortunately, I had to cut my story short because of space and time constraints.

Story is at http://www.sbsun.com/sports/ci_21954157/mesa-grande-hurt-by-religious-conflict  and will also run in Thursday’s paper.

Here is the portion that was cut from the bottom of my story:

The hope is that sometime in the future CIF-SS might change its stance.
“We hope in the next two or three years, we can compete at CIF,” Robert Simmons said. “Right now, we just want to compete at Prelims. Then, if we get good enough, maybe at finals.”

CIF-SS girls basketball polls

Posted on by
Reply

The county has two No. 1s this week, with Rialto topping the Division 2-AA poll, Mesa Grande Academy getting No. 1 in D6-AA and Redlands Adventist grabbing the top spot in D6-A.

Division 1-AA
1. Brea Olinda
2. Long Beach Poly
3. Mater Dei
4. Cajon
5. Canyon Springs
6. Etiwanda
7. Summit
8. Corona Santiago
9. Santa Monica
10. Lynwood
11. Jordan
12. Laguna Hills
13. Chaparral
14. Redondo Union
15. Roosevelt
16. Warren

Division 1-A
1. Edison
2. Troy
3. Rancho Cucamonga
4. Villa Park
5. Woodbridge
6. Corona Centennial
7. Dana Hills
8. El Toro
9. Riverside Poly
10. Chino Hills
11. Ventura
12. Valencia
13. Capistrano Valley
14. Los Alamitos
15. Arcadia
16. Walnut

Continue reading →