Prep Blog

Question: Can you give me a list of the remaining high school track meets in the area?
-Jesse M. Vasquez, Sacramento

Answer: Three huge meets are upcoming, starting this Thursday (trials) and Friday (finals) with the Masters Meet at Hughes Stadium. Some of the top track athletes from the Sac-Joaquin Section will compete. Hughes also will be the site June 1 and 2 for the CIF state finals, recognized as the top high school meet in the nation. To top it off, will be the Golden West Invitational on June 10 at Folsom High School. That meet features some of the top athletes in the nation.
- Bill Paterson

Question: In your section baseball rankings (May 2) you have Yuba City, Franklin, Woodland, Jesuit, Golden Sierra, Bella Vista, Davis and Elk Grove, in that order. Can you please let me know why Woodland is ranked third with five losses, including two to teams (Davis and Elk Grove) behind them. In their defeats, the losses haven't even been close.

- Robert Muckey, Elk Grove

Answer: The Wolves are 13-3 in their last 16 games, with two losses to No. 1 Yuba City and another to No. 2 Franklin. Their losses to Elk Grove and Davis came early in the season. The Wolves have performed well even though their ace, Mark Laugenour, has only pitched 10 innings. No argument that the Delta Valley Conference with Elk Grove, Davis and Franklin is tougher overall than the Tri-County Conference. But I don't think you should penalize good teams just because their league isn't as strong top to bottom as others. Obviously, someone with a computer would do it differently.

- Bill Paterson

Question: What has happened to Tyler Robertson of Bella Vista? He was with Minnesota organization last year, but I can't find anything about him this year.

- Larry Bain, Citrus Heights

Answer: Tyler, Cal-Hi's state player of the year last season, is still with the Twins and, according to the team's organizational chart, will be pitching for the Elizabethton (Tenn.) Twins of the Appalachian League, a rookie-level team that doesn't start playing games until mid-June. Robertson was a third-round pick last year from out of Bella Vista and the top pitcher taken by the Twins. He pitched well for the Rookie League Gulf Coast League Twins (4-2, 4.25 ERA in 11 games) in Florida last summer. But the Twins aren't about to rush the tall left-hander up the chain. They have one of the better big league pitching staffs and several top prospects in the high minors, so they are likely to give Robertson plenty of time to gain experience and polish his game.

Question: While I'm not a huge sports page reader, I do browse for local information, as I know many of the kids in my town who play sports. In the
Tuesday April 24, 2007, the Preps Plus page listed "Who's Hot?"
showing a look at the area's top performers. In the high school
women's soccer list, there is not one player from Davis High listed
in spite of at least two of this year's DHS players scoring in or
above the range you show. Mari Egan has 25 goals and Julie Gallaudet
has 22 goals. Yet you list players from other area schools such as Vanden, Vacaville and Dixon.

So what's up with that? I find this to be a common problem in the Bee in general. Often local coverage of Rocklin or Lincoln or Placer or Colfax makes the newspaper, but very little from Yolo County. I've never figured out why that is and over the years I have written and asked, but never got a reply. This time it seems particularly bizzare to me because if you really did a
story on the top women's soccer players at local high school, you'd
be hard-pressed to miss these Davis High players. Is there an explanation for this strange pattern?

- Cynthia Goldberg, Davis

Answer: We have a cooperative agreement with Maxpreps.com to provide our spring stats for girls soccer, baseball and softball. Most coaches participate and input their results. However, a few do not, including the girls soccer coach at Davis.

For some coaches it's a philosophical issue. They don't want their players to focus their attention on stats and/or they worry about other coaches scouting them through their statistical reports. In some cases, it's a matter of time constraints. A coach can't find the time or a parent volunteer to do it. As for the coverage of Yolo County schools, we certainly aren't trying to ignore or exclude their accomplishments, and I agree we can always do better. But with limited resources and the growing number of schools and sports, it sometimes comes down to the coaches who are the most proactive in keeping us informed of what's happening with their teams that get the coverage. Also, until this school year, much of the high school sports staff focused its energies in the regional editions, which are published in Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento counties.

At one time, when our regional publications were known as Neighbors, we had a Yolo County edition that extensively covered the sports programs at Davis, Woodland, River City and Winters. But that edition was dropped many years ago as our focus shifted to the heavy growth taking place in Elk Grove and south Placer County.

- Bill Paterson

Question: I've noticed sometimes that you are not putting all the individual results for some high school sports like swimming and tennis, among others. I really miss reading the names of the kids involved, not just the final score. I would like to urge you to bring back all the "fine print." You are robbing these kids of personal scrapbook keepsakes. Even though mine is quite old, it is fun to look at the newspaper clippings, most of which came from the results section.

- Carolyn Marshall, Sacramento

Answer: I know the editors are doing their best to try to accommodate all the results that are called in during a very busy spring high school season. Occasionally, as a last resort, some results have to be trimmed because of a lack of space.

- Bill Paterson

Question: I'm curious as to why I never see anything pertaining to women's high school soccer in The Bee. Other than a few occasional scores in the Scoreboard, there is absolutely nothing printed. As a comparison, there is always a weekly article on high school softball; there's even a Bee's Softball Top 20! Each Tuesday the Bee's Prep page continues to keep us apprised of wrestling, basketball (they're actually finished the last time I checked), golf, fencing, baseball, swimming, track, etc, etc. But nothing pertaining to women's soccer. And then, if there is anything on soccer, you can be pretty much be assured that all the press will be directed to St. Francis. Start opening your eyes to the fastest growing sport in the United States, as much as The Bee doesn't want to admit it.

- Kris Mapes

Answer: As a former girls youth soccer coach for a number of years, I very much enjoy the sport and have always been a big booster. Traditionally, however, baseball and softball are viewed as the most popular spring boys and girls sports. So a decision was made to devote a notebook and a poll each week this spring to those sports. Our Friday Prep Notebook is devoted to the various other spring sports, and we also try to catch up with additional spring coverage in Monday's Prep Notebook and Tuesday's PrepsPlus page. While we try to rotate among all the sports as much as possible. Sometimes our decision on what to run is based on what is the most newsworthy or what we believe will have the widest reader interest. And sorry, we can't ignore St. Francis soccer. After all, the Troubadours are four-time Division I section champions. FYI: Although it doesn't have a high school focus, staff writer Debbie Arrington also is writing Soccer Beat, a recent addition to the section, every Wednesday.

- Bill Paterson

Question: I have a friend that needs to move his high school sophomore to a new school. He's willing to move, but wants to stay in Sacramento. What are the top-20 high school baseball teams within 20 miles of downtown Sac?

- Greg Mathews, Folsom

Answer: I'm not going to go there by asking why your friend needs to "move" his son. But for a quick reference, check out our top 20 baseball poll, which runs on Wednesdays on the sports page.

- Bill Paterson