Parker Sports Wrap—Oct. 22–28

The football team defeated Escondido Charter 43-7 on Friday, Oct. 26 at Orange Glen High School, giving them a 9-1 record for the regular season and a 2nd place finish in the Pacific League.

The Lancer special teams ignited the team’s fast start, as freshman Camden McCormick returned the game’s opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown. After a 3 and out from the Lancer defense, Trevor Brokowski broke through the line of scrimmage to block the Tigers’ punt attempt, giving the Lancers possession on the Charter 10 yard line. Ryan Sanborn connected with Jonathan Gordon for the 10th time this season to put the Lancers up by 2 scores early in the 1st quarter.

Sam Camposeco led the Lancers on both sides of the ball, rushing for 89 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries and making 9 tackles on defense. In addition to his kickoff return, McCormick finished with 3 catches for 26 yards.  Russell Childs added 77 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns.

The win gives the Lancers the #3 seed in the CIF Division 5 Playoffs, and a bye this week into next week’s quarterfinals.  They will host either Vincent Memorial or San Diego Southwest High School in a quarterfinal game on Friday, Nov. 9 at 7 pm.

In only their second season of existence, the Lancer Water Polo program has had a trademark year, finishing the regular season with a record of 17-9 and earning the #6 seed in the CIF Division 3 Playoffs.

After winning only 1 varsity game in the program’s inaugural season, Head Coach Sam Busby led the team to a 2nd place finish in the City Conference, going 8-3 in league matches. Coach Busby was effusive in his praise of the team, stating, “We have great senior leadership on display. Our seniors are showing by doing, and the overall team commitment level has improved tremendously, which has been apparent in the results. It was exciting to win both matches vs Santa Fe Christian and split with La Jolla Country Day.”

Several of those seniors have been huge forces for the Lancer offense, with Matt Bender (122 points) and Andres Heredia (82 points) leading the team in scoring.  Another senior, Adam Nussbaum leads all players with 70 assists. Busby also recognized Junior goalkeeper Spencer Lafferty as being an integral part of the team’s success

According to Heredia, improvements in fundamentals have been the key to the team’s consistency. “Advances in skills and game knowledge from each individual has allowed us to play better together as a team,” Heredia said. “There has been a stark improvement in swimming, ball skills, leg strength, and endurance levels of the entire team.”

The Lancers will begin the playoffs on Tuesday, Oct. 30, when they take on Oceanside High School in a first-round match at 3:30 pm at West Hills High School.  Should they win, they would advance to the quarterfinals on Friday, Nov. 2, where they would face 3rd seeded Bonita Vista. Regardless of how or when the season finishes, the future is incredibly bright for Parker Water Polo.

“My fondest takeaways from this season come from the overall process and journey that our team has gone through,” said Heredia. “We have built a very positive and constructive team culture where everyone is very supportive and is conducive the overall growth of the program. Hopefully, we can end the season by winning CIF and bringing Parker water polo’s first ever title home.”

The 2018 Parker girls volleyball season ended this past Wednesday, with a 3-2 loss to host Escondido HS in the first round of the CIF Division II playoffs. The 13th seeded Lancers led the #5 seed Cougars two sets to one, before Escondido tied the match with a set 4 win and then held off the Lancers 15-13 in the fifth set. Senior OH Sophia Galdamez led the way for Parker GVB with 19 kills and 19 digs, fellow senior OH Berkley Hayes tallied 10 kills and 16 digs, and junior OPP Arrington Jones had 18 kills.  Freshman setter Chloe Hooker was strong all evening with 41 assists, 4 aces, and 14 digs, fellow freshman Laney Wilson had 2 aces and 12 digs, and sophomore MB Jordan Stuart added 5 kills on .444 hitting and also contributed 6 digs.

For the season, Galdamez had 226 kills, 18 aces, and 156 digs, while Hayes racked up 82 kills, 49 aces, and 284 digs. Junior OH/OPP Callie Keating had 152 kills. 37 aces, and 120 digs, Jones totaled 149 kills and 56 digs, and Stuart had 99 kills, 21 aces, and 47 digs. Hooker capped an impressive freshman campaign with 641 assists, 200 digs, and 37 aces. The Lancers finished the season with a 10-19 record.

Sadly, the boys’ team season came to a close on Tuesday after a close loss to Westview, 2-3. Each of our teams fought hard to the final point. Our two wins came from Bijan Sagart and Spencer Thoene, who took care of business in two quick games. Our other was our 5 team with Matthew Fromm and Chris Nawrocki, who made impressive comebacks to also finish their match in two. We are proud of our boys for the progress they made over the season, and for proving time and again what wonderful teammates they are as our pairs were constantly changing.

However, two of our teams lived to play another day. Nick Gustafson and Ben Sheres, and Bijan Sagart and Spencer Thoene all advanced to the individual tournament and competed in pool play on Friday, Oct. 26. Facing the county’s top teams, each pair advanced to playoffs on Tuesday, Oct. 30 at Ocean Beach, with Nick and Ben in the Gold bracket, and Spender and Bijan in Silver. Each team demonstrated how much the quality of their game has improved as they challenged each of their opponents. We are happy to have another chance to see them play.

The boys again send a huge thank you to all the faculty, parents, and fans who have cheered them on throughout the season. It means so much to us, and we hope to see you on the sand again next season!

On Sunday, Oct. 28, the Parker Surf Team had their first contest of the season. It was held at Avalanche in Ocean Beach. Mark Tankersley and Charlie Ogle competed in Men’s Shortboard and Mark Tankersley and Hunter Ryan competed in Men’s Longboard.  Jessica Irving and Sierra James competed in Women’s Shortboard and Maddy Giek competed in Women’s Longboard. Charlie Ogle also competed in Men’s Bodyboard.

Sierra and Jessica made it to the semi-finals and Mark, Charlie, and Maddy made it to the finals.  Maddy finished in 3rd place in Women’s Longboard. Mark finished in 5th place in Men’s Longboard and Charlie finished in 4th place in Men’s Bodyboard.

We are very proud of all our surfer who competed today!