Thanksgiving dinner takes planning.
Westmont men’s basketball coach John Moore revealed his holiday dinner plans at Monday’s Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table press luncheon at Harry’s
The Warriors will be taking their big dinner on the road.
“We start with mashed potatoes and gravy,” Moore said. “We start at Redlands, that’s our mashed potatoes and gravy. We come back on Thursday and head to Menlo. We’ve got Cal Maritime on Friday —they’re our heavy lifting, they’re our turkey and ham. Lastly, on Saturday we play Menlo — they’re our pumpkin pie. We have a Thanksgiving feast.”
UCSB women’s basketball assistant coach Natalie Jarrett made her luncheon debut, speaking for head coach Carlene Mitchell.
Jarrett said Mitchell was attending a memorial service in Stillwater, Okla., for Oklahoma State women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke, who was killed in a plane crash last Thursday while on a recruiting trip to Arkansas. Assistant coach Miranda Serna and boosters Olin and Paula Branstetter were also killed.
Mitchell played for Budke at Trinity Valley (Texas) and won a national junior college championship together.
Westmont women’s coach Kirsten Moore said her team’s schedule is front loaded with top 25 teams.
“We have a No. 20 preseason ranking and we play four teams ranked above us,” Moore said.
The 5-0 Warriors have already beaten two of them, Westminister, Utah and Lubbock Christian of Texas. Up next is perennial powerhouse Southern Nazarene of Oklahoma on Friday and top-ranked Azusa Pacific on Tuesday.
The high school winter sports season is days away, and girls water polo coaches Mark Walsh of Santa Barbara and Brian “Chuckie” Roth reported on their teams.
Walsh said his team is ranked third in the CIF Division 1 preseason poll.
“We’re pretty excited people think we’re going to be that good, but as far as I’m concerned we haven’t done anything to earn that,” Walsh said. “Somehow, we’re ahead of Dos Pueblos, whom we haven’t beaten in four years, You’d think you have to beat them once to be ranked ahead of them.”
Roth said he didn’t know how his team was going be this year. “The only two things I know is we have really good kids and we’re smart.”
UCSB swimming coach Gregg Wilson said his teams performed well at the Arena Invitational, which included many of the top teams in the country. The men finished second to Stanford and the women placed seventh.
Wilson brought swimmers Miranda Schneider, Katie Records, Kevin Ferguson and Chris Peterson. Peterson, who swam at the NCAA meet last year, has the second fastest 50 freestyle time in the nation, and he’s the featured athlete in a UCSB promotional video.
Fall sports teams are in their postseason.
Westmont women’s soccer coach Kristi Kiely said her team is headed to Decatur, Ala. to play in the NAIA National Tournament. The Warriors play GSAC rival Point Loma on Tuesday.
“We’re 1-1 against them on the year. This is quite a rubber match,” said Kiely.
Sam Evans, UCSB assistant water polo coach, said the Gauchos have accomplished more than any team in the last four years.
Fifth-ranked UCSB plays No. 4 Stanford in the MPSF Tournament. The Gauchos suffered a one goal loss to the Cardinal earlier in the season.
The season ended too early for Carpinteria’s football team, as the Warriors lost to Templeton in the first round of the CIF Northwest Division playoffs.
“We beat them in the second half, 28-20, but it wasn’t enough to make up for how far we were behind in the first half,” said Hallock.
The coach introduced four seniors, who made huge impacts during the season and in their careers: Jordan Robinson, Jeffrey Moorhouse, Alex Rodriguez and Andrew Sova.
Bishop Diego won its first-round playoff game in the East Valley Division, blanking Brentwood 35-0. The Cardinals will travel more than 250 miles to Twentynine Palms for their second-round game.
“I looked at Twentynine Palms’ roster and they list 15 guys at 235 pounds or larger,” coach Tom Crawford said, “so I brought the biggest guys I have: Joe Salcedo weighs in at 235 pounds and started every game at tackle. John Samson — we call him Cowboy — is a two-way starter.”
Both players are only sophomores.
“The development of these two young players really helped us progress this year, on the line in particular,” said Crawford. “John plays with great enthusiasm and it’s kind of contagious, so it’s fun to be around them.”
On playing Twentynine Palms, Crawford quipped that he called the Round Table to see what was being served for lunch.
“I figured if we can put a few more pounds on these guys it might help us compete on Friday,” he said. “We’re looking forward to the challenge. They’re athletic and big, but I think our guys will be up to the challenge.”
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