High School Sports

It's a season anew in more ways that one for the Gilroy High boys varsity soccer team. 

Crosstown foes Gilroy High and Christopher High opened the 2011-12 girls soccer season against each other Monday with the Mustangs prevailing, 7-0. 

Newly hired Gilroy High baseball manager Jared Gamble won't lead the Mustangs onto the diamond until spring, however his stint with the team will begin with replacing equipment that was stolen from the teams' clubhouse.

Christopher High's 2011 football season will be classified as nothing less than historic. Taking most by surprise, and catching the rest off guard – themselves excluded – the third-year program, equipped with its first senior class, stingy defense and balanced offense, earned a share of the Monterey Bay League title and its first playoff win last week.

If you ever lost track of Gilroy High water polo player Michelle Shields in the pool, the first place to look might be all alone in front of an opponents' cage, waiting for a pass after she out-swam the rest of the field.

Football coaches from the Monterey Bay League and the Tri-County Athletic League met Wednesday and voted on the placement of the leagues' teams in next year's equity league.

Bridget Denzel dissolved a 1-1 tie midway through the second half with a nifty back-handed shot that not only found the back of the cage, but also held up as the eventual game winner in a St. Francis 2-1 defeat of Gilroy High in the Central Coast Section field hockey finals Saturday in San Jose.

Casey Lester has watched a fair share of fellow teammates and friends sign their names on the dotted line, finalizing their commitment to four-year institutions to continue their athletic careers. Lester said she cried at every one of them.

The Christopher High football team played up to its billing as the No. 1-seed in a 55-0 drubbing of No. 8 Del Mar in the opening round of the Central Coast Section Division III playoffs Friday night in Gilroy.

Talk about an instant classic. Faint of heart need not apply.