The fall season is now over and it is time for the winter sports to begin. A couple games were played Monday afternoon, but the majority of basketball, soccer, girls water polo and wrestling contests begin in earnest today.

But at the Northern Santa Barbara County Athletic Roundtable luncheon Monday at Giavanni’s Pizza in Orcutt, it seems the teams were not quite ready for their winter debuts.

A small contingent of boys basketball players and one water polo coach showed up for the first winter meeting, which meant there was plenty of pizza for everyone.

Since there were no contests last week, no Athlete of the Week honors were bestowed.

Valley Christian

The best news of the day came from assistant boys basketball coach Randy Stanford.

“First a little update on Aaron Calderon who is the head coach,” Stanford said. “He had open heart surgery last week and everything went well with the surgery.

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“We went over and visited last night and he’s actually supposed to be on his way home today or tomorrow — Praise God for that.”

Stanford introduced two players from the team — junior Michael Calderon, “he’s our starting guard,” and senior forward Jon Colon.

“We have nine guys out for basketball this year,” Stanford explained. “It looks like we are going to be all right.

“Not very big — our tallest kid is 6-2, he’s a sophomore and has never played before but is coming along pretty well.”

St. Joseph

Athletic director John Osborne introduced two seniors from the basketball team, four-year varsity letterman Ryan Smalley and Rodmer Lomboy.

“We only have three seniors on the squad,” Osborne said. “Jacob Cano is recovering from shoulder surgery and will get a late start.

“We are relatively inexperienced this year, but we are looking forward to starting the preseason to get ready for league play.”

Righetti

“It’s good to see a few of you,” joked athletic director Eric Albright about the small turnout.

He presented four players from the boys basketball team — Jason Moreno, Dominik Hitch, Nate Lewis and Garrett Passmore.

“Boys basketball is looking to defend back to back league championships,” Albright said. “So far they are looking good.”

Albright also mentioned girls soccer who started early with an early evening game at Lompoc Monday.

“They are looking to competing in the PAC 7 which is a tough league in soccer,” he said. “But they have a lot of returning girls so they are hoping to do well.”

Second year girls water polo coach Dawn Loveless did not have any players with her at the luncheon, but she can’t wait to get going.

“We are really excited,” Loveless said. “Our goal is to go from sixth place in league to second this year, so the girls have really been working hard the past couple months and are ready to go.

“We have seven solid girls starting and three coming off the bench that are pretty strong as well. So we are looking to throw a lot of people a big surprise this year.”

Allan Hancock

Basketball forward Stephen Faulkner spoke for his fellow Bulldogs. The team lost the third place game at the Bakersfield tournament and Faulkner was named to the all-tournament team.

He was at the luncheon with his father Stephen Jr., who was visiting from Conn. and at one time was a teammate of current Hancock coach Ralph Gorton.

“We won the first game (of the tournament) which was probably our best game of the year,” Faulkner explained. “We are all new and we haven’t played together, so we are still becoming a team.”

Hancock (3-6) plays at Hartnell tonight and will host West Valley on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.

Two guests at the luncheon were Mike Chellson from ESPN radio and Tim Ritchie of Home Motors, the sponsors of the Athlete of the Week award.

Santa Ynez, Santa Maria, Lompoc and Cabrillo were not represented at the luncheon.

Next Monday girls basketball, boys soccer and wrestling will be represented.

December 2, 2008