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High school notebook: Water polo welcome addition at Garces High
| Friday, Jul 4 2008 11:39 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Jul 7 2008 11:04 AM
Garces is opening a new high school sports frontier for Bakersfield.
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The school will have both boys and girls water polo teams this fall, the first of their kind in Kern County.
“We’re incredibly excited to be able to offer this to our students,” said Lela Steiber, who has recently joined with Vince Fanucchi as Garces’ co-athletic director. “It’s unique and different and certainly one of a kind in our area.”
Adding the new sport was the brainchild of late Garces principal Robert Garcia, who came from Northern California, a water polo hotbed. Garcia died last month, but his idea was approved by the school’s board of directors around the same time.
Steiber acknowledges there will be some scheduling and travel difficulties because no other Kern school offers the sport, but she’s optimistic. The Rams, who will use McMurtrey Aquatic Center as a practice facility, will spend their first season as a freelance team.
That means their games won’t count on other teams’ records, they won’t be eligible for postseason and most games will be on the road.
Garces hopes to join a league with Porterville, Visalia or Tulare schools by 2009.
CITY WELL-REPRESENTED ON ALL-STATE SOFTBALL TEAM
Stockdale ace pitcher Mackenzie Oakes, who’s headed to Fresno State next year, leads a group of six Bakersfield softball players named to various CalHiSports.com all-state teams.
Oakes was on the overall all-state second team. Liberty shortstop Cassidy Bell and Centennial pitcher Ensley Gammel are on the underclassmen all-state first team, with Centennial infielder Brandi Church and North outfielder Brooke Sampson on the second team.
Garces pitcher Shelby Alsup made the “medium schools” all-state team.
All of the players were on The Californian’s All-Area team. Gammel was the Player of the Year.
RIDGEVIEW PINCH-HITS WITH A STAR
With incumbent Ridgeview volleyball coach Heather Graham busy pursuing a master’s degree, the Wolf Pack had to find a replacement quickly.
Good thing RHS didn’t have to look far. Former Cal State Bakersfield standout Brandy Charles took the job on a volunteer basis, the same year her daughter Brooke enters Ridgeview.
“Heather’s done a really good job with building the program,” said Brandy Charles, who coached at Arvin from 1999-2003. “I’m just excited to be back in the volleyball arena, and I’m just hoping that I can sustain as well as build upon what Heather’s started.”
Charles, whose son Art was drafted in the 33rd round of the Major League Baseball draft last month, was an all-California Collegiate Athletic Association player twice and a second-team Division II All-American in 1992. She holds the CSUB single-season record for blocks per game with 1.41 in ’92, and the Roadrunners reached the national title game during her junior and senior seasons, 1993 and ’94.
SAUNDERS EARNS ANOTHER ACCOLADE
Retired Delano coach Gerald Saunders was recognized last month for “outstanding contribution to Valley basketball” with his induction into the Fresno All Star Basketball Hall of Fame.
Saunders is second in the Central Section with 460 victories at Selma, Riverdale and Delano and won section championships in 1982 and ’83. Saunders, who also won a section softball title in 1992, retired after the school year from his coach and athletic director positions at Delano.