Christopher High School

Sobrato established a three-score first-half advantage and held off host Christopher High 38-19 in front of a spirited crowd at Garcia-Elder Sports Complex on Friday night in Gilroy.

Visiting Harbor upended Gilroy High’s girls varsity water polo team 9-4 in the team’s Monterey Bay League Pacific Division opener Thursday in Gilroy.

Expectations. Three years ago, head coach Tim Pierleoni gathered a bunch of bright-eyed freshmen and sophomores for a meeting at Brownell Middle School and laid out an extensive list of goals. The Christopher High football team's 2011 league championship season – in year three – may have taken everyone on the opposite sideline by surprise. But among the CHS players and coaching staff, it was exactly what was envisioned when the program opened in 2009.

Eleven days separate this very moment from the opening bell of the 2012 high school football regular season. Other fall sports will get under way if not one or two days before, then a few days after. Nevertheless, the buzz is getting louder.

Jogging in formation, the click of their cleats on the pavement audible as 47 Christopher High varsity football players, hidden under matte black helmets, moved through the darkness of the campus' corridors.

The calm before the ... Well, that sentence can’t be completed, because the storm that is the start of the high school sports fall season is upon us.

Jourdan Soares said statistics could have been tossed out the window. That coming from a guy who shredded defenses in amassing more than 1,400 receiving yards last fall. But as candid as ever, the Gilroy High speedster astutely stated that the only thing on the minds of the 45 players suited up for the South prior to the 38th annual Charlie Wedemeyer Silicon Valley Youth Classic All-Star football game was finding a way to carve out a win.

Earlier this year, former Gilroy High School quarterback Niko Fortino had a message on his phone. On the other end of the voicemail, Independence High School head coach Norm Brown relayed the news Fortino had wanted to hear for quite some time. He had been chosen to be a member on the South squad in the Silicon Valley Youth Classic Charlie Wedemeyer All-Star football game – the annual exhibition that showcases the upper-echelon of outgoing senior football players in Santa Clara County.

The 2012 high school sports season will be a little different for schools in Gilroy and Hollister. After more than two years of discussion, the 2012 season will be the first in an equity league between the former members of the Tri-County Athletic League and the Monterey Bay League.

Dear Reader, So, I thought, ‘Hey, why don’t I set up an online vote for Senior Athletes of the Year?’ It isn’t unheard of. However, I did not contemplate the energetic response the endeavor received.