Claremonters doing big things away from town

Congratulations to former Claremont High School basketball standouts Brandi Brown and Dave Rice as the 2 made history this past Friday and Saturday.

Brown scored her 1000th point in her collegiate career in a win against Loyola Marymount on Friday. The junior on the Youngstown State University women's basketball team has narrowly missed scoring the point on Nov. 21 but reached the milestone by converting a free throw early in Friday's contest in Los Angeles.

In his first year as the head coach of UNLV, Coach Rice picked up the biggest win his career last Saturday as the Runnin' Rebels upset No.1 ranked North Carolina in the championship game of a tournament held in Las Vegas. The win knocked the Tarheels off the mountaintop and improved UNLV to 7-0 on the season.

Be sure to check out tomorrow's COURIER for the full stories on both Brown and Rice's recent accomplishments. Until then, below are YouTube clips featuring both of Claremont's own:

It's crunch time for Claremont High sports

This week was the final week of the regular season for several Claremont High School sports (cross country, girls tennis, girls volleyball, boys water polo). With the exception of football, CHS now has the CIF playoffs to look forward to with Monday being the stay that CIF will release playoff brackets.

This week featured many great highlights with Drew Spinosa and Megan Huang becoming the Sierra League doubles tennis champions and the Frosh/Soph and junior varsity boys cross country teams placing first at the Sierra League Finals. But the varsity girls cross country team stands out due to finishing 2nd at the Sierra League Finals to complete a solid season.

For the past 2 years, a lot of the attention has been on the CHS varsity boys cross country team (and rightfully so) due to finishing in the top 5 in 2009 and 2010. But this year, the girls team has emerged as a highly competitive group and after finishing in 3rd place at the first Sierra League meet, they improved each time the league teams competed against each other. And Megan Renken became the Sierra League champion, beating out all the runners on a very strong Ayala team. The girls have much to be proud of this year and I look forward to seeing what they can do in CIF.

The COURIER will keep an eye on all of the upcoming playoff action. For more thoughts on this year's CHS teams, click HERE.

They're only just getting started

The Claremont High School varsity girls tennis team is on a roll. With a 10-0 record overall and an 8-0 Sierra League record going into today's match against Charter Oak, we could very well be seeing the female rendition of the championship success enjoyed by the CHS varsity boys tennis team in 2009 and 2010.

Interestingly enough, the CHS girls squad has the exact same head coach that the boys team had during its back-to-back years in Tom Spinosa. From there, just as the boys team was led by a Spinosa (Clarke Spinosa) and a Liu (Frank Liu), the varsity girls team is led by their sisters, Drew Spinosa and Cindy Liu. And like their brothers, they are quite good.

Just as the boys team had an incredibly deep team that featured the likes of Trevor James, Carter Hafif, Scott Donaldson and Alan Leahy, the girls team contains Ryley Settles, Chelsea Edirsuriya and Hailey Kayatta. Yet another similarity.

Are we perhaps looking at a girls tennis mini-dynasty in the making at CHS? It's certainly possible.

CHS boys water polo is a contender

What a difference a year can make.

The Claremont High School varsity boys water polo team avenged a pair of defeats suffered at the hands of Ayala last year with a 14-11 win over the Bulldogs on Tuesday.

"It felt so good to beat Ayala," said Stephen Zetterberg. "Last year, I remember that they beat us twice by one goal. But we really won this one and it shows the great heart that we have as a team this year."

Claremont rode the backs of Luke Miller (6 goals), Jonah Dowd (5 goals) and freshman goalie Steven Cable, who recorded several saves and deflections for the Pack in the victory. Remy Ertaud (2 goals) and Zetterberg scored Claremont's other 3 goals.

Personally observing the team, Claremont has made huge strides from 2010. Although the team is younger with just a few seniors, the Wolfpack's underclassmen (led by Cagle) have been playing solid at the varsity level. Along with defeating Ayala for the first time in 3 tries, CHS also played competitive against Damien last week in a match that was decided by just 5 points. Last year's Claremont team lost to the Spartans by 15.

Coach Melissa McKown has gotten her team in prime position to make some noise this year. Like the CHS varsity girls volleyball team, only mistakes will be able to prevent the Wolfpack from advancing a few rounds into CIF this year.

In case you missed it...

Claremont High School head football coach Mike Collins was featured in a segment on the ABC 7 Sports Zone show last Saturday due to being selected as a 2011 ABC 7 - NFL Coach of the Week. Check out the video below to see what was televised on Saturday:



Congratulations to Coach Collins and the entire CHS football program. The 4-1 Wolfpack will host Damien tomorrow tonight to open Sierra League Play at 7 p.m.

Sierra League Cluster Meet allows Claremont to see big picture

The first of 3 Sierra League cross country meets is in the bag. And while the Claremont High School cross country team is currently dissecting the positives and negatives of Tuesday's meet, the occasion afforded the Wolfpack the opportunity to see just what it will take to obtain the league crown.

Without Paul Ross, Henry Falotico, Colin Domonoske and AK Metoyer on this year's team, the varsity boys team will have a tough road to travel to repeat its 3rd place standing in the state from last year. The group finished in 5th place overall.

The CHS girls teams are showing constant improvement with the junior varsity girls taking 2nd place and the varsity girls unit placing 3rd. Ayala took first in both races, making the Bulldogs the team to beat going forward.

Chatting with Claremont coach Rob Lander after the meet, the 2 words he used were "competitive" and "fun." While the coach applauds his team's effort and sees room for improvement, he also believes the challenges his runners will face will ultimately make them better runners.

"The Sierra League is really competitive from top to bottom and it's going to be exciting this year," Coach Lander said. "Our boys finished 3rd last year in CIF and Ayala and Damien are ranked teams. The Ayala and South Hills girls teams are both ranked and our girls are hoping they can get a ranking too. It's fun."

The CHS frosh-soph boys team had the best performance on the day for Claremont, taking first place overall and having 5 of its 7 runners finish in the Top 10 individually. Freshman Adam Johnson led the way by finishing in 2nd with a time of 17:36.3.

The CHS JV boys team earned 2nd place in their respective race with Anthony Modyman crossing the finish line at 17:55.7 for 5th place. Look out for the full article in Saturday's issue of the COURIER and check out the web update HERE.

Coach Collins is the backbone to CHS football program

CHS head football coach Mike Collins

Players come and go. But it is the coaches who were there before and will remain there after the players move on.

After losing several seniors from last year's playoff contending team, CHS head football coach Mike Collins has suddenly guided the Wolfpack to a 3-0 record in 2011. Should we be surprised? Not at all.

When we discuss what is referred to as Claremont's "glory days" in football, it was Coach Collins who was at the helm of those teams that dominated the Baseline League. The fact of the matter is that Coach Collins is a great coach and he has a great staff that supports his vision.

Any great coach at any level will identify years that his or her team struggled and have gone through the experience of having to rebuild their program. Coach Collins experienced this during the latter part of the previous decade. But with 3 wins already under Claremont's belt in 2011, all the Pack has to do to reach the playoffs for the 2nd consecutive year is remain consistent.

Some of us may be shocked that Claremont can rack up 46 points without Daniel Kessler at quarterback, Tyler Kuramata at receiver and Brandon Tuliaupupu on the defensive line. But while some of the players are different, the coach is the same and it looks like the CHS program is continuing on an upward swing.