LJ winter sports: Scheduling

Senior forward Garrett Brown

drives to the hoop in a

November preseason

tournament game against

Mission Bay Nov. 5.
(Photo Ed Piper, Jr.)

By Ed Piper, Jr.

Looking at the winter schedules for some of the LJHS athletic teams, one thing becomes apparent: the Friday night doubleheaders of boys and girls basketball of the last couple of years are things of the past.

The two-game evenings, with the girls' teams squaring off at 6 p.m. and the boys following at about 7:30 p.m., became a big deal last year, especially with the Viking band under instructor Michael Fiedler playing riffs after every home basket.

Attendance was good, and it boosted what normally would have been a much smaller crowd for the girls games--usually toward the end of the game. The students and parents showing up early for the boys games were treated to a couple of cliffhangers, courtesy Coach Darice Carnaje's girls, who she always gets to play above their ability. (Look at her first tennis team at LJHS this fall after moving over from OLP: a CIF championship.)

Well, no more.

With the re-leaguing taking place in basketball for the first time, based on past performance instead of the historic method of school enrollment, Coach Paul Baranowski's boys will be facing new Eastern League opponents Madison, Hoover, Henry, Serra, and Scripps Ranch.

Meanwhile, on the distaff side, Carnaje will lead her troops against a different array of teams in January and February: Lincoln, Point Loma, Henry, Coronado, Morse, and Mira Mesa. In this reporter's 13 years covering La Jolla, LJHS has never faced Mira Mesa as a league opponent in basketball, unless memory is lapsing.

And to confuse you further, both boys' and girls' leagues--though only La Jolla and Patrick Henry are the teams common to both--are dubbed the Eastern League.

It's a whole new brew of opponents, and so on Friday evening, January 6, 2017--during the first week of league play--the boys will be hosting Hoover in the Big Gym, while the girls will be nowhere to be seen. Carnaje's squad has that night off, after opening league play at Lincoln three days prior, on January 3, with a non-league contest at San Pasqual the next night. The boys will have been facing host Carlsbad Wed. evening, Jan. 4.

The next week further illustrates the impending change: On Friday night, Jan. 13, the Viking girls play against Henry in a 4:30 match, while the boys take the night off. Baranowski's bunch plays the night before, Jan. 12, hosting Madison. Both are league games.

The good to be gained is parity, equity, the mantras of the new league configurations.

The drawback, as mentioned, will be a sparsity of fans for the girls, which in most sports traditionally draw fewer spectators than the boys. That was probably one of the reasons that the girl-boy doubleheaders were instituted in the first place.

Another loss, with the splitting of the schedules, is the division of school spirit and energy, which formerly, on Friday nights during January and February, could be plowed into the teams representing both genders.

One thing I noticed on the title of the wrestling team's new schedule on the school's new website (ljvikings.com) is "Coed Varsity Wrestling Schedule". I don't recall seeing "coed" in the title in previous seasons, though I may have missed it.