SPORTS

Pioneer girls’ water polo looks forward to successful season

Girls’ team moves to Mt. Hamilton division

By Ken Lotich
Times Intern

After a 10-0 season in the Santa Teresa Division last year, the Pioneer girls’ varsity water polo team is moving to greener pastures this year.

Members of the Pioneer High School girls’ varsity water polo team scrimmage at a practice on Aug. 22. Photos by Ken Lotich

The girls will shift from the Santa Teresa B division and move to the Mt. Hamilton A division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League.

The move came after league officials decided to level the playing field by promoting the Pioneer girls’ water polo to a higher level of competition.

Coach Gordy Smith, who returns for his sixth year as coach, said it’s too early to predict how the season may fare for the squad.

“The competition this year should be tough,” Smith said. “There are many big challenges ahead for us.”
Smith said Leland, Independence and Willow Glen high schools will be some of the toughest competition for the team.

The girls’ team has been practicing together only since mid-August, Smith said, because of league rules.
However, many of the girls have been playing together on a club team for the San Jose Aquatics water polo team, Smith said.

“Playing during the summer is really important these kids in order to succeed in this sport,” Smith said.
For now, Smith said the team will focus on fine-tuning their ball handling and defensive skills for the upcoming season.

Although Smith is hesitant to predict this year’s ability of the team, the squad has an advantage against others, with 10 returning players.

Katie Lopiccolo, who’s returning for her fourth year on the varsity team, will be a key contributor to the Mustangs.
Lopiccolo, who plays driver for the Mustangs, said the team is eager to dive into league play.

“I hope we can do as well as we can,” she said. “There are a lot of tough teams out there.”

Lopiccolo is coming back from injuries she suffered this summer. Although the doctors could not diagnose what the injuries were, Lopiccolo said she had soreness in both of her shoulders.

On the defensive side, Becky Pies will guard the opposition’s shots between the posts as goalie for the Mustangs. Rebecca Wallworth, the junior player of the year for the Santa Teresa division, will also be a key contributor. Elyssa Samson, the freshman player of the year, also returns.

The Mustangs will do battle against other girls’ varsity water polo teams at a tournament on Sept. 9 at Wilcox High School in Santa Clara.

Sports Briefs

Central Valley Edge holds youth soccer tryouts
CV Edge, a Class 3/U-17 girls’ soccer team, is offering Monday/Wednesday tryouts to girls born after 7/31/88 for the fall season for all positions. Contact Patty Rashid (408) 267-2740 or Ary Afsari at (408) 507-7008 for more information.

Almaden Metro holds soccer tryouts
Almaden Metro Class 3, U-17 boys, is holding tryouts for fall season most Sundays. Date of birth after 7/31/88. Contact Jeff Earl at (408) 268-5125 or jesvo11@yahoo.com.

Bret Harte seeks boys junior lacrosse coaches
Bret Harte Middle School in San Jose is looking for boys’ junior lacrosse coaches for the 2005-2006 season. Multiple positions are available for both head coaches and assistants. Previous lacrosse coaching experience strongly recommended; competitive salary. If you are skilled in lacrosse, kid-oriented, and motivated to create a winning team from the ground floor up, we would love to talk with you! This is an exciting, and rapidly growing sport in California, and these Bret Harte boys are ready to go!

For more information, please contact Mike Garcia at 408-590-6949 or emailmgarcia@gmail.com.

BU-12 Select Soccer team is looking for a goalie
Almaden Valley Storm, a Class 1, U-12 boys’ select soccer team, is looking for a full-time goalkeeper. Last year, the Almaden Storm advanced to the round of 16 in state cup and was knocked out by one of the teams that went to the finals. This year, we hope to win the cup.  If you have a son who wants to play goalie full time and has had some comp or select level playing experience, feel free to come to our Tuesday and Thursday practices. The age group for BU12 is 08/01/93 to 7/31/94 (or younger, if he is good goal-keeper).  Contact Mo Bani-Taba for location and times at (408) 221-5377 or mbanitaba@yahoo.com.

U-15 comp girls’ soccer team needs a goalie
Almaden Phoenix, a Class 3, comp U-15 girls soccer team needs a full-time goalie. We have an extremely good team put together for the fall season—two goalie coaches. Must be born after 8/1/90. Please contact Scott Hoyt at 408-323-7803 or shoyt@cinnabarhills.com.

Strikkers softball tryouts for fall
18U Strikkers are holding fall team tryouts Aug. 28 at Oak Grove High School. Pitchers/catchers, 9 a.m., position players at 10:30 am. Contact Frank King (408) 227-8191 or Richard Fangonilo (408) 274-9301 or e-mail rfangonilo@sjm.com.

16U Strikkers’ fall team tryouts are Sept. 21 and 28 at Pioneer High School. Pitchers/catchers 9 a.m., position players, 10:30 am. Contact Ernie Garcia (408) 281-7855.

10U, 12U, 14U Strikkers fall team tryouts are also Sept. 21 and 28 at Pioneer High School. Pitchers/catchers, 12:30 pm.; position players, 2 pm. Contact Ernie Garcia (408) 281-7855.

For more information about the Strikkers, go to www.strikkers.org.

Familiarity breeds success for Leland girls’ volleyball

Team returns all but two players from 2004 CCS playoff squad

By Diego Abeloos
Sports Writer

For the Leland girls’ volleyball team, familiarity is a good thing. After all, bringing back all but two players from last year’s team, which made an appearance in the CCS playoffs, can only be considered a step in the right direction.

The 2005 Leland girls’ volleyball team poses for a team photo before beginning practice on Aug. 18. The Chargers lost only two players, both graduating seniors, from last year’s team. Photo by Diego Abeloos.

“As far as league, which we always focus on, we’d like to finish in the top three,” said Leland Athletic Director Chris Hansen, who serves as the team’s co-head coach along with Trisha Moore. “I think that’s an achievable goal for this group of kids. You know, they’ve all played together now for a few years, so I think it looks good.”

Last year’s squad had a successful run, going 18-10 overall with a 9-5 record in the Mt. Hamilton Division. That success culminated in a CCS Playoff appearance on Nov. 10 in which the Chargers lost 3-2 in the first round to Palo Alto on the road.

The Chargers’ successful season came about with a relatively young roster, featuring only two senior players in Marissa Brehmer and Christy Gillick, coupled with five juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen.

Given the fact that the 2005 Chargers have more experience under their collective belts, Moore said she is hoping the team takes things beyond simply making it to the CCS Playoffs this season.

“Hopefully we’ll get a little further in CCS, maybe the second round,” Moore said. “I don’t know, I mean these kids have been playing together for a little while now, so the expectations are definitely there to improve over last year.”

Still, the two seniors from last year’s team will certainly be missed, both coaches said. Gillick was an anchor for the team last year, providing leadership while also being a stable force as a setter for the offense. The job of setter for the 2005 Chargers will belong to junior Joyce Chang.

“Christy’s been there for three years, so those are some big shoes to fill,” Hansen said of Chang. “ … I think she can do it, if she stays healthy. She knows the challenges ahead of her.”

The 2005 Leland girls’ volleyball team will count heavily on outside hitter Chaulet Scala, left, and setter Joyce Chang. Both players were a part of the 2004 team that went 18-10 overall and made an appearance in the CCS playoffs. Photo courtesy www.mikejanes.com.

Helping matters is the fact that most of the players on the 2005 squad played club volleyball for Moore this summer, giving the coaching staff a decided edge in knowing each player’s strengths and weaknesses on the court.

“I kind of already know what’s going on with them,” Moore said. “They’ve been working really hard to fill those shoes, so I think we’ll be OK.”

One returning player Hansen and Moore will count on throughout the season is outside hitter Chaulet Scala, a junior. Scala played a key role on last year’s squad, earning sophomore of the year honors in the Mt. Hamilton Division.

“She’s going to be a big help to us this year,” Hansen said. “Those two kids (Scala and Chang) are going to be two kids to look at this year.”

So far, Moore said the team has the look of a fairly balanced squad. Above all else, Moore said the team has meshed well and is starting to show the type of team chemistry needed for a winning season.

“They just always seem to put their teammates above themselves and they all work together to somehow win,” Moore said. “ … We’re not the biggest, we’re not the fastest, we’re not the strongest or any of those things, but we somehow end up beating a whole lot of teams that we shouldn’t.”

The Chargers begin their regular season on Sept. 20 with a 6 p.m. road match against Independence High, held at the Evergreen Valley High School gym. For more information on the Chargers’ 2005 schedule, visit www.bval.org.

The family cars

For Almaden’s Cannon family, family-built racecars are living history

By Diego Abeloos
Sports Writer

For the Cannon family, cars and racing go hand in hand.

That’s because Rick Cannon, an Almaden resident, has a long family history with racing and cars that traces back more than 50 years. It all began when Cannon’s uncle, Ted Cannon, decided to building hotrod cars in north Hollywood with his friend and racecar driver Jim Seely.

From left, Baron Cannon, Rick Cannon and Dave Seely at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races on Aug. 20 standing next to the red Cannon Mark 1 built by Ted Cannon and Jim Seely in 1949. Both the Cannon and Seely families have made rebuilding and racing cars a hobby, just like the previous generation. Photo by Diego Abeloos

“My grandfather was the head of all highway construction in Southern California, so my dad and older brothers always had lots of cars, parts and machinery around … so there was a lot of mechanical background there,” Cannon said. “ … They (Jim Seely and Ted Cannon) were all in the same hotrod club called the Throttlers, and they did a lot of drag racing and different kinds of racing.”

Today, Cannon is keeping his family’s legacy and hobby of cars and racing alive. Since 1988, Cannon has participated in the Monterey Historic Automobile Races, held at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey this past weekend. Cannon inherited his uncle’s Cannon Mark IV in the 1986 and took two years restoring the historic automobile before entering it in the annual race. The car was originally built in 1953 and was the first car to use a full roll cage and four-point harness. The car was raced by Jim Seely in California for a handful of years before it eventually found its way, some 30 years later, into Cannon’s garage in Almaden.

“It’s always been a part of the family,” Cannon said of the Cannon Mark IV. “You get somebody’s wrecked car, you chop a couple of feet out of the middle and make a dune buggy out of it or whatever. When we were little kids, we used to sit in it and play like we were racing … it was always a dream to restore it.”

Cannon’s family also extends to the Seely clan, which now has Dave Seely, Jim Seely’s son, as the driver of the Mark IV for the Monterey Historic Automobile Races. Both Cannon and Seely said the cars have served as a common bond for the Seely family and the Cannon family for decades now.

“I’m a long lost uncle to the (Cannon) kids,” said Seely, who resides in St. George, Utah. “ … It’s just a fantastic thing. We’re just extended family, and that’s just how it is. The cars are members of the family too.”

This year, Cannon added one more interesting piece of family history in his garage—the Cannon Mark 1, the first car built by Ted Cannon in 1949. The car, which was also raced by Seely in the early 1950s, was found in a junkyard in the late 1980s by Rick Cannon, who quickly reclaimed a part of his family’s history and took it home.
The car stayed at home, in the side yard for 10 years until this February, when Seely, Cannon and his son, Baron, decided to take on the hefty task of restoring the car in time for the races in Monterey.

Using old pictures as a guide to restoring the vehicle, Cannon and his son spent countless hours restoring the body, first taking the frame to a friend who proceeded to build a replica of the original body, before handing the rest of the work to Baron, who put more than 100 hours in painting, priming, sanding and filling in holes on the aluminum body.

For Cannon, seeing his son take an interest in the cars is equivalent to passing down the family torch. “I’m hoping that he really enjoys it and he carries it on,” Cannon said of his son. “He’s got a lot of his own sweat into this thing.”

For Baron, a junior at Bellarmine College Prep, discovering the family hobby at a young age and learning to build cars with his father has been an enjoyable experience. “It’s something to really pass down to the generations, it’s passing down a real legacy,” said Baron. “It’s a whole lot of fun.”

Cannon also had to reconstruct the engine, sometimes paying others to make original parts to fit in the engine, and at other times, doing the work himself, such as remaking the heads and the engine block.

Although the Mark 1 wasn’t ready in time for racing on Saturday, Aug. 20 in the historic race event, the Mark IV made its usual appearance, finishing 16th overall with Dave Seely behind the wheel.

“It’s a dream come true for me to drive this car,” Seely said of the Mark IV. “It’s the car my dad had the most success in, even though he did more racing in the Mark 1. The Mark IV was called the fastest car in the country and he did quite well with it.”

For Cannon, keeping the family legacy in building cars and racing alive is not considered a duty, but an enjoyable hobby for the family, including the Seely family, to partake in for years to come.

“We like things that go fast, make a lot of noise and scare you,” Cannon said. “Those are all important elements of fun.”

Share your news

Do you have a sports story to share? Contact the sports department at 494-7000 x 217 or by e-mail at diego@timesmediainc.com or fax to Almaden Times Sports at 494-7078.