Seven East County high school football teams participated in last weekend’s 11th annual South County Passing Tournament at Southwestern College.
One of them was still playing when it came time to shift the finals to the main campus stadium, the same field where six San Diego Section championship games were played last December.
Seven East County high school football teams participated in last weekend’s 11th annual South County Passing Tournament at Southwestern College.
One of them was still playing when it came time to shift the finals to the main campus stadium, the same field where six San Diego Section championship games were played last December.
St. Augustine defeated Christian, 31-19, to win the consolation championship in the 24-team tournament while Lincoln out-paced Torrey Pines by a score of 34-12 to win the winners bracket championship.
Southwestern College head coach Ed Carberry, who won seven league championships and two CIF titles during a long stint at Monte Vista High School, said the summer event offers another benchmark for teams to measure their progress as they head into preseason camps in August.
“They started out in the spring with intra-squad scrimmages and now it’s time to get out there and go against other teams,” Carberry said.
The participating teams competed in round-robin play the first day of the tournament on Friday, July 7.
The teams were then seeded for the opening round of single-elimination play on Saturday, July 8.
The winning teams in the opening round continued on in the winners bracket while losing teams in the opening round competed in the consolation bracket.
Mt. Miguel (seeded sixth), Helix’s junior varsity team (seeded ninth) and Valhalla (seeded 10th) advanced to compete in the winners bracket playoffs.
Valhalla defeated seventh-seeded Morse to advance to the quarterfinals before being eliminated by second-seeded Lincoln.
Olympian (seeded 11th) defeated Mt. Miguel while Westview (seeded eighth) eliminated Helix.
Mountain Empire (seeded first), El Cajon Valley (seeded third), Christian (seeded fourth) and El Capitan (seeded 10th) competed in the consolation playoff bracket.
Christian and El Cajon Valley won their first games to advance to the quarterfinals.
Christian defeated Bonita Vista (seeded fifth) while ECV defeated Southwest (seeded 11th) in a pair of quarterfinal-round matchups.
Only Christian would remain standing from the four East County teams in the bracket after defeating Chula Vista (seeded eighth) in the semifinals.
St. Augustine (seeded seventh) eliminated El Cajon Valley in the other semifinal game while El Capitan lost to St. Augustine and Mountain Empire lost to Chula Vista in earlier rounds.
The winners of each bracket received commemorative T-shirts.
St. Augustine lost its three round-robin games on the first day and lost its opening game on the second day before posting four consecutive wins to end the tournament.
“It’s not often you start out 0-4 and come out with something,” St. Augustine head coach Richard Sanchez said. “We’re a work in progress. We’re slowly getting better.
“Tournaments like this offer a chance to compete –- to see if the quarterback can read defenses and if the wide receivers can catch the ball. That’s really it.
“We didn’t have one of our staring cornerbacks the first day and our quarterbacks (J.R. Justice and Ryan Thomas) both didn’t play well. The second day both quarterbacks played well and we were more consistent catching the ball.”
Lincoln finished the tournament with a 7-0 record while top-seeded Torrey Pines finished 6-1.
Six teams finished with 3-0 records on the first day: Torrey Pines, Lincoln, Madison, Hilltop, Mountain Empire and Mt. Miguel.
Lincoln defeated third-seeded Madison in the semifinals while Torrey Pines defeated fourth-seeded Hilltop.
The 2017 high school football season kicks off with regular season play on Aug. 25.
