Several Central Section coaches are to be applauded for stepping out and scheduling tough in nonleague play this season.
The plums:
** It all begins tonight with Bakersfield going to Long Beach Poly in a 5-star matchup involving the winningest programs in state history. Bakersfield, which played its first game in 1897, has 692 wins; Poly, which opened in 1904, has 691.
** The Central Section has begun to look more north, which is appropriate because that's where it belongs anyway. Bullard (Saturday on the road) and Clovis West (Sept. 11 at home) are both playing Del Oro-Loomis, the Sac-Joaquin Section's
The Fresno State women's basketball team will try to make their fourth straight NCAA tournament in what could be their final season in the Western Athletic Conference.
If the Bulldogs do, they could be playing at Stanford in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament. Stanford is one of three sites in the West. Spokane, Wash., and Salt Lake City, Utah, are the others.
(For the complete list of sites all the way to the Final Four in Indianapolis click here.)
Last season the Bulldogs qualified for the field of 64 as an at-large team for the first time and played at Cal. The first two trips to the NCAAs, they were sent to Albuquerque, N.M., and USC.
Fresno City got smart this year and scheduled football games to avoid multiple conflicts with Fresno State, so avid fans of the sport have no excuse not to catch some of the best junior college action in Northern California.
The Rams play five home games and only one is at the same time as the Bulldogs. Ticket packages went on sale and it costs only $40 for the five games at Ratcliffe Stadium. Call 499-6009.
Fresno City's home schedule: 7 p.m., Sept. 25 vs. Merced; 1 p.m., Oct. 2 vs. Sacramento City (FSU vs. Cal Poly, 7 p.m.); 7 p.m., conflict Oct. 9, vs. Laney (FSU vs. Hawaii, 7 p.m.); 7 p..m., Oct. 30, vs. COS; 1 p.m., Nov. 13, vs. Reedley (FSU vs. Nevada, 7 p.m.)
The day Adrian Wiggins turned in his baseball spikes for a coach's whistle was the day he began a trek through the ranks that eventually led to Fresno State and changed the fortunes of the Fresno State women's basketball team.
Wiggins (right photo, playing defense from the bench on a New Mexico State player) will tell that story Sept. 7 as guest speaker at the Christian Business Man's Connection luncheon at TorNino's, Blackstone and Shaw avenues. It starts at 11:35 a.m.
Here's a preview of his adventure.
Wiggins was a hot-shot pitcher at Cameron University in Oklahoma in the 1990s and dreamed of playing pro ball. After college he become Cameron's assistant baseball
What kind of difference maker was Curtis Allen (right bottom, photo) counting on from quarterback Ebahn Feathers this season at College of the Sequoias?
"With Feathers, I thought we were going to win the state championship," the Giants' sixth-year coach told me today. "We have a strong defense and only needed somebody to get our offense going."
Feathers planned to enroll at Sequoias and resurrect his football career. The Bee's 2007 Player of the Year out of Washington High spent two unproductive years at Fresno State and left the program after last season. But he never made it into the Sequoias.
Allen said Feathers had a lot of class credits to make up and didn't do it over the
This is in response to Bronco754, who commented on our Sunday story "Some big steps await 'Dogs in MWC." First, thanks for chiming in.
Bronco754 pointed out that the MWC does have an automatic bid for softball into the NCAA tournament. The story said: It's more difficult to get more teams into the playoffs, though, because of no conference tournament and automatic bid.
The story was referring to the MWC's lack of an automatic bid for a conference tournament winner, because it has no conference tournament. The MWC does have an automatic bid. It's the regular-season champion.
The point was that the MWC is losing out on getting more than one team into the tournament.
In the scenario that the MWC had a conference tournament: If Colorado State wins the regular-season title and say New Mexico wins the tournament, then it's a good bet both teams will get into the NCAA. As it stands now, only Colorado State would be assured of an NCAA bid.
Maybe this is silly to revisit, because maybe there really was no choice. That's to be debated. That's the argument Pat Hill makes, that last season he had to choose between two quarterbacks, Ryan Colburn and Derek Carr, and during the preseason, when it was being decided, Colburn was better.
That seems like a reasonable answer. It is difficult to argue with it, especially since the first result is that you have the best possible quarterback playing*. I'm no football expert, but the best player playing is a good thing. I think it would be fair to say that Colburn played well last year, and that fans were slightly surprised. I think the anti-Hill people were loaded and ready to blast him for such an awful decision, and they didn't really get to unload. No, Colburn wasn't perfect, but it was hard to imagine an 18-year-old Carr having a better season.
Big news out of Fresno City football camp is a three-way quarterback battle and coach Tony Caviglia putting the Wildcat offense into his playbook this year.
Morgan Hall, the back-up QB to Emmanuel Lewis last year, is the only returner at the position. Incoming freshmen Caviglia said have a shot are former Buchanan signal caller Lance Orender and Glenn Deary out of Sacramento powerhouse Grant.
For now, it looks like Hall and Orender will duke it out for the starting job for the Sept. 11 season opener at San Mateo, the state runner-up in 2009.
"We're going to play them both," said Caviglia, the dean of Valley Conference coaches in his 12th year.
The Rams have four players, Caviglia said, with potential to make the NorCal All-America team this year: linebackers Alek Taliulu (Tehachapi) and Anthony Elliott (Clovis West), and offensive linemen Stephen Trevino (Putnam City, Okla.) and Adam Crenshaw (Clovis).
For the second consecutive season, senior Joe Bernardi has been named to the watch list for the Rimington Trophy, an award given to the nation's best center.
One of the Bulldogs' top leaders last year, Bernardi has battled multiple knee injuries but returns for his senior year after starting 29 games in the last three seasons. The tough, sixth-year player (greyshirt and redshirt) helped the Bulldog offense finish among the top in the nation as it ranked No. 8 in rushing, No. 14 in scoring and No. 17 in total offense.
Bernardi (pictured with the best beard in Fresno until he shaved the three-month legend a few days ago) will be a part of an offensive line this 2010 season that returns all five starters and could be the best in the Western Athletic Conference.
Bernardi is the only WAC center on the list.
Add all the little things up, and you get a big deal. The Bulldogs football team is working on all the little things today in preparation for the 2010 season.
Today is the day the Bulldogs walk through all their gameday procedures, from the gameday meal to pregame talks and stretching to in-game organization and subbing.
The Bulldogs' day began with team lunch at noon and will continue with meetings and stretching before they hit the field at 7pm for the mock game.
It won't be a full scrimmage, team spokesman Steve Weakland said, but rather the Bulldogs will go through their normal pregame stretching, drills and activities before getting into some in-game situations. Those situations include getting the defense onto the field after a turnover and rare situations like kickoffs after safeties.
The mock game, which also is an opportunity for gaemday operations staff to work on video board advertising and the sort, is closed to the public and media. The Bulldogs will take on Cincinnati at 7pm in a week, Sept. 4.
