First came The Championship. Shortly thereafter came The Fallout.

On March 7, St. Joseph High School’s team defeated Gardena Serra 47-40 to win the CIF Southern Section Division IV-A girls basketball championship.

Less than two months later coach Ron Barba was out, let go because of what he and St. Joseph principal Joseph Myers cited as “philosophical differences.”

Neither man elaborated on what those philosophical differences were. Myers said he could not because it was an internal matter. Barba is now an assistant men’s basketball coach at Cuesta College. The Cougars are currently 14-4.

The Knights’ championship, and the Internet furor the dismissal of Barba created, amount to the top Lee Central Coast Newspapers area sports story of 2009.

St. Joseph finished 29-3, with a win in the CIF Southern Regional Tournament, under the hard-driving Barba. Senior forward Ane McPike, the Northern Santa Barbara County Athletic Roundtable Female Athlete of the Year, was the team’s leader.

Not only did she average around 17 points and eight rebounds a game, McPike often directed players as to where to go on the court. She had a fine supporting cast, too.

Knights freshman center Aly Beebe was CalHiPreps.com’s girls Freshman Athlete of the Year. She scored in double figures consistently and usually pulled down at least seven-to-nine rebounds a game. Besides, she averaged more than three blocked shots an outing.

Ball-hawking guards Brianna Bognuda and Kelsi English gave the Knights outside scoring punch. St. Joseph’s other regular starter, Bri Foreman, gave Barba’s team consistent production.

The Knights also had their typical tough, pressing defense. St. Joseph did exceptionally well at turning turnovers into points in transition.

St. Joseph lost just one game in the pre-season. The Knights rolled through the Los Padres League unbeaten.

They scored an average of 75 points a game in league games. They gave up an average of 25.

Their “closest” margin of victory in a league game was 69-52, over Morro Bay. About midway through the season, a brief flap in the media arose after the Knights beat one league team 87-10, then followed that up by routing another 94-8.

A Times columnist weighed in about the final scores, and a short tete’-a-tete followed. The number of letter writers and bloggers who defended, and were critical of, the Knights was about equal.

St. Joseph had never gotten past the divisional quarterfinals in Barba’s previous four seasons, but the Knights won handily there this time. St. Joseph dispatched Cerritos Valley Christian 39-19 in the semifinals.

The Knights got off to a fast start against Serra. Then Serra’s star guard knifed through the St. Joseph defense for a basket.

Bognuda and English gave each other a “That won’t happen again,” look. They checked Serra’s star the rest of the game. St. Joseph staved off Serra’s second-half run and claimed the championship.

The Knights hosted a first-round regional game of the state championship playoffs at Hancock College’s Joe White Gymnasium. They put L.A.C.E.S. of Los Angeles out of contention with what Barba said afterward was “probably our best first half of the season.”

St. Joseph went down to La Jolla the next day to play, ran into a buzzsaw in The Bishop’s School and bowed out of the regional.

Several weeks later, a big flap started.

News broke on a Saturday that Barba had been released as St. Joseph girls basketball coach. Barba held a sometimes rancorous press conference at his home the following Tuesday about his being let go. Barba blamed the firing on some team parents and also criticized Myers. Barba chastised then-athletic director John Osborne, too, saying Osborne should have stood by him.

The Times’ message board lit up during the episode.

Dozens weighed in after the news about Barba ran on a Sunday. There were about 150 blogs about the situation after the press conference, scores more than any previous local sports story had generated. Many bloggers strongly supported Barba. About an equal number rapped him.

“Playing for Barba was pretty much a nightmare every day,” one blogger wrote. Some of his other ex-players, though, supported him in their blogs.

The school named then-boys coach Ed Torres as the new girls coach. The current Knights girls team is 9-5, with wins over highly regarded Etiwanda and Temecula Great Oak.

Osborne retired. The school hired Tom Mott to replace him. That generated more message board activity. Mott, Mission Prep’s former athletic director, parted ways with the school in 2006 after a controversy about players who had come to Mission Prep from overseas. Mott runs the One Dream Foundation, which is designed to help underprivileged overseas students.

The organization’s website states that the Foundation has covered tuition and expenses for four Kenyan girls who are now studying nursing in Kenya.

Mott is also St. Joseph’s first-year boys basketball coach. His hiring, with about an equal number of supporters and detractors, generated a lot of Internet activity, though not nearly as much as the flap surrounding Barba did.

Honorable Mention

St. Joseph junior Teresa Loya and senior John Sua each won CIF Southern Section Division IV shot put and discus championships. Loya became the first St. Joseph student ever to place at the CIF State Meet. Loya finished fifth in the shot put there.

Arroyo Grande winter sports girls teams won PAC-7 League water polo, basketball and soccer championships. Righetti High School graduate Robin Ventura was, for the first time, put on the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Fellow Righetti grad Chris Nicol has risen steadily through the Minor League ranks. The pitcher is now in Triple-A. Los Alamos resident Luke Branquinho finished second on the world steer wrestling money list. Righetti’s new pool opened.

Here’s a synopsis of some of what else happened on the area sports scene during the year.        

Winter

Besides the Arroyo Grande girls squads, other area winter sports league champions included Righetti’s boys soccer team (PAC-7 League), and Santa Ynez’s girls and boys soccer teams (Los Padres League). St. Joseph and Lompoc shared the boys Los Padres League basketball championship.

Righetti’s boys soccer squad was ranked No. 1 most of the year in the CIF Southern Section Division V poll. The Warriors lost 1-0 on the road to eventual champion Los Angeles Salesian in the semifinals.

Matt Correia and Jordan Rubio of Righetti qualified for the state wrestling meet. Correia placed sixth there.

Guard Jordan O’Byrne and coach Sherman Vernon of Lompoc were the Lee Central Coast Newspapers’ Boys All-Area Basketball Team’s MVP and Coach of the Year respectively. McPike and Barba were the Lee Central Coast Newspapers’ Girls All-Area Basketball Team’s MVP and Coach of the Year respectively.     

Spring

McPike (tennis and basketball) and Servando Perez of Righetti (soccer and cross country) were named the Northern Santa Barbara County Athletic Roundtable’s Female and Male Athletes of the Year respectively. Rachel Nelson of Cabrillo (water polo and swimming) and Bryce Small of Santa Ynez (same sports) were the NSBCART’s Female and Male Scholar Athletes of the Year respectively.

McPike is a three-time Los Padres League singles champion in tennis.

She made the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo women’s tennis team. She’s red-shirting this year. Perez earned a soccer scholarship to Cal State Los Angeles.

St. Joseph junior Erica Brannon swam to a CIF Southern Section divisional championship.

Area league champions included Righetti’s and St. Joseph’s softball squads, the Santa Ynez tennis and baseball teams, and the Santa Ynez and St. Joseph boys and girls track teams respectively.

Pitcher Sean Rowan and coach Dave Kuehn of Santa Ynez were the Lee Central Coast Newspapers’ All-Area Baseball Team MVP and Coach of the Year respectively. Pitcher Hayley Davis and coach Richard Cornejo of Righetti earned the same honors on the Lee Central Coast Newspapers’ All-Area Softball Team.

Loya, Mission Prep senior, and Arroyo Grande resident, Jordan Hasay (3,200 meters), Arroyo Grande senior Austin Field (boys shot put), Cabrillo senior Kendall Reynolds (girls triple jump), Pioneer Valley senior Andy Piñon (boys 300 hurdles) and Nipomo junior Kelsie Jarratt (girls pole vault) all qualified for the CIF State Track and Field Meet.

Hasay won an unprecedented fourth state 3,200 championship. Field finished second.

Fall

Area league champions included the St. Joseph and Righetti football teams; Arroyo Grande’s girls and boys cross country teams; and Cabrillo’s boys cross country team. St. Joseph and Santa Ynez shared the girls Los Padres League tennis championship. For the second year in a row, Righetti and Arroyo Grande shared the boys PAC-7 League water polo championship.

Senior Andrew Garcia of Nipomo and junior Quetta Peinado of St. Joseph qualified for the CIF State Cross Country Meet. St. Joseph junior Frankie Eszes won the girls singles championship at the Los Padres League Tournament. Emily Ineman and Alisa Silsbee of Santa Ynez won the girls doubles title there.

The Lee Central Coast Newspapers’ All-Area Football Team’s MVP was senior running back KJ Cusack of St. Joseph. The All-Area team’s Coach of the Year was Gary Wilson of Righetti.              

January 01, 2010