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The 2018 Stasnford Invite produced several national leading marks

Photo by Eric Taylor

I know the Arcadia Relays is up next, but the Stanford Invite had several outstanding performances.

From the field to the track it went down on a sunny weekend on the Farm.

Vista Del Lago high jumper, senior Jake Grimsman hopped over 7'3" on his second attempt to capture the Stanbford Invite title.

He went for 7'5' but hurt his calf on the 1st try.

Clayton Valley's Aiden Jackman had himself a a meet and he put the state on notice that he is ready to do it big this year. He started the meet of with a 52.09 in the 400m hurdles.

It's a race preps don't get to run that often and his is the best in teh bation right now. It's still early in the outdoor season, bt it's a great start. Jackman would also win the 110m hurdles (14.03) tops in California at the momnent.

Claudia Lane decided to make the Stanford Invite her opening race of the outdoor season. The outstanding runner from Maulibu High stretched her legs out, winning the 3200m run in a Cali #2 time of 10.24:72.

St. Mary's Berkeley sophomore Malcolm Clemons stepped out onto the scene in a major way at Stanford with a long jump of 24'5.5" (tops in the nation) to win the Stanford Invite.

Jett Carvet (Heritage High), Liam Anderson (Redwood High) and Alex Scales (Bellermine) ran an entertaining 1600m at Stanford. Scales (4:13.87) fell back as far as 5th place before out running Carvet (4:14.31) and Liam (4:14.98) to the finish line. More click here

Congrats to the 2017 California state high school football champions

Photo by Eric Taylor

It did not matter if you were at Sac St. or spread out over SoCal the second week of December going home with a state championships was like having your cake and eating it to.

An early Christmas present for sure.

Mater Dei finally got back over the hump and easily knocked off De La Salle 52-21 in the Open Championship.

It was the first state championship for the school who has dominated in girls and boys basketball over the years.

It is hard getting out of SoCal and it takes years to build a program strong enough to handle it.

It was 21-0 Mater Dei in the 1st quarter. There is not a team that can force De La Salle to pass the ball in their playoff bracket so the Spartans have to wait until they face the LA team in the state finals to see that.

Yeah De La plays a top schedule in Sept. but they pretty much walk thru the NCS playoffs with as little a passing game as you can have and be a dominate team.

With that being said the North had a pretty good state bowl series winning 7 of 13 title games this year.

The WCAL, St. Francis and Serra, had two winners while the much milighned San Francisco public school league (The AAA) got on the board when Galileo beat Vincent Memorial (Calexico) in the 6A game 38-20.

Public schools also represented themselves pretty well winning 8 championships in 2017.

Next year the CIF flips the script and the big boys head down south to play while the school schools get to host state championship games for the next couple of years up north.

The first few weeks of prep football has been exciting

Photo by Eric Taylor

Teams like Kennedy (Richmond), St. Francis (Mountain View), McClymonds and De La Salle the season has the makings of something special.

Of course there are a lot more teams out there that are having great starts, but how can you name them all.

Richmond's Kennedy High is 2-0 after putting up 89pts and only giving up 12 in wins over Bethel (Vallejo) and Oakland Tech. Kennedy is looking to build on their 10-2 season from a year ago.

They should not get tested until they play at El Cerrito 9/29.

St. Francis gets their first real test of the season this Friday night when a date with De La Salle is on the docket. St. Francis has blown out Oak Grove (San Jose) 35-0 and Palma (Salinas) 40-6 to start the season.

Both are good teams with winning records from a year ago. The Lancers get De La Salle fresh off the Spartans come from behind 35-31 win over St. John's (DC) in front of a nationally televised audience.

It is one of many great games coming up this weekend.

Piedmont hosts Menlo (Atherton) 9/8 in what should be a very good game. Menlo lost 16-9 to East Nicolaus (13-1 last year) before beating Stevenson (Pebble Beach) 56-6. Piedmont has big victory's against Justin-Siena (Napa) 41-17 and Healdsburg 57-0.

McClymonds (Oakland) heads down to take on the only team to beat them last year, Paso Robles (CA) a southern section small school power. Mack is 2-0 after beating Kings Academy (Sunnyvale) 56-19 and Moreau Catholic (Hayward) 30-7.

Fremont is another school out of the OAL that has looked good early on The Tigers have posted wins of 54-7 over Gonzales (CA) and Brookside Christian (Stockton) 70-0.

The Tigers will get tested this week when they travel to play 2-0 Delhi (CA), a squad that was 9-3 last year.

Several teams play big early season games

Photo by Eric Taylor

There will be no tune up game for squads such as Pittsburg High who hits the road to help So Cal power Centennial (Corona) open their season.

Campolindo (Moraga, CA) at Marin Catholic (Kentfield, CA) is another match up between teams that could win a state championship in football this season. After the CIF opened up the chance for more then the original ten teams playing for 5 titles.

The Central Coast Section will not be left out on opening week. Bellermine (San Jose, CA) at Menlo-Atherton (Atherton, CA) will highlight the first weekend of football down on the Peninsula.

St. Francis (Mountain View, CA) at Oak Grove (San Jose, CA) could be a good one and Serra ventures out to Stockton to face St. Mary's in a early season test.

Each should know a little about themselves after week one. Somebody's got to lose. Sometimes a loss can make you a better team and with the new playoff format one loss is not going to dump truck your season.

Up in the Sacramento area Grant High (Sac) plays at Rocklin in a good opening week match up.

Two top teams from that area to watch will be Folsom, once again, and Oak Ridge (El Dorado Hills).

It's that time again, but if U ain't in shape it might be too late

Photo by Eric Taylor

Yeah football season is back.

No games yet but if you are not in shape at this point it might be too late for you to compete for a starting job.

Coaches can tell if a player is in shape or not in the summer.

You do not want to be that player who is better then somebody but he is getting the first team reps.

In most cases that is because that player has come into camp in better shape.

It will be interesting to see how this season plays out. The east San Francisco bay area had three teams win a state title in football last year and not one of them were De La Salle.

McClymonds (Oakland), Campolindo (Moraga) and Bishop O'Dowd (Oakland) won state. It was Campo's 2nd in three years but Mack and O'Dowd were first time winners.

De La Salle lost in the state championship game to a very talented St. John Bosco (Bellflower, LA) squad and they are looking to continue their streak of making every state championship finals since it's re-start in 2006.

California high school football schedules