SD Prep Sports:

2006 Fall Sports Previews
Grossmont Conference

Girls Field Hockey

Vaqueros take aim at repeating girls field hockey title

The El Capitan Vaqueros are the defending Grossmont Conference girls field hockey champions. Head coach Sandy Martinez said the team’s goal is to defend its title this year.

With a 6-2 start to the season, and both losses coming in strokes, the Vaqueros appear on their way to another strong start to the season.

“Both our losses are in strokes and both when we played three games in one week,” Martinez said after El Capitan dropped a 4-2 decision in strokes at Otay Ranch on Sept. 21.

In that game, the Vaqueros led 1-0 on a goal by Carla Boek before the host Mustangs (who improved to 4-0 with the win) tied the game on a goal in the dying minutes. After a scoreless 10-minute overtime period, Otay Ranch claimed the tiebreaker by a 3-1 score.

In strokes, players line up in front of the opposing goaltender and take point-blank shots akin to penalty kicks in soccer.

El Capitan is led this fall by five top returners: senior midfielder/forward Amanda Combs, senior midfielder Heather Swanson, junior forward Julianne Agundes, senior goaltender Stephanie Krych and senior defender Nicole Bailey.

Combs earned First Team All-Grossmont Conference and Second Team San Diego Section Division II honors last season while both Swanson and Agundes were named to last year’s All-Grossmont Conference Second Team and both Krych and Bailey were all-league honorable mentions.

Impact newcomers include senior Crystal Dasaro and junior Alicia Caruso, both up from last year’s junior varsity team.

The Vaqueros opened the season with non-league victories against Cathedral Catholic (2-1), Scripps Ranch, Point Loma (4-1), Hilltop (3-0) and San Marcos (6-0), Patrick Henry (9-2) and Valley Center (3-1). El Capitan’s other loss in its first eight games was in strokes to Poway.

Combs scored twice in the win against Valley Center while registering four goals against Patrick Henry. Agundes and Dasaro each scored two goals in the victory against Patrick Henry while Boek had three goals and Caruso had two goals in the win against San Marcos.

Grossmont Conference play faces off Oct. 11. Besides El Capitan, other league members include Helix, Santana, El Cajon Valley and Valhalla. Teams will play a total of eight league games. The San Diego Section playoffs start Nov. 11.

Preview: Helix Highlanders
The Helix High School girls field hockey team has finished third in league play for the past three years but has plans to better that this season.

“This year we are hoping to finish higher than that and make it into (the) CIF playoffs,” Highlanders head coach Cheryl Tyler said.

This season’s Helix team is bolstered by the return of two first team all-league players — senior Sarah TreviÒo and junior Leigh Rutherford — and a pair of all-league honorable mentions: juniors Lindsay Matteson and Kaycee Gunion. Other top returners include senior Katrine Wilborn and sophomores Carly Sanchez and Taylor Wright.

The team’s impact newcomer this season is junior Himiko Randolph.

Sanchez, Rutherford and Wright had three of the Highlanders’ four goals in a 4-0 win at Chula Vista on Sept. 7 while Gunion recorded the shutout.

Helix won its first three games, also defeating Bonita Vista (2-1) and Patrick Henry (5-1), to earn the No. 6 ranking in the first San Diego Section coaches poll, released Sept. 18. The Highlanders, with a 5-1 record, fell to No. 8 in the poll the following week.

The Highlanders and Vaqueros face off Oct. 11 at 3:15 p.m. at El Capitan in a high profile matchup to open league play.