El Capitan

El Capitan High School coach Dave Storm said it was only a matter of time before thrower Brian Boggess did in a meet what he had done so often in practice. Storm said Boggess has been throwing the shotput about 59-feet all year in practice, but before Thursday the senior's best throw was a county-leading 57-feet 11 3/4-inches. Thursday in a meet Grosmont League dual meet against Grossmont, Boggess threw a state-best 59-2, as the Vaqueros beat the Foothillers, 96-40.

An 85-yard scoring drive to open the second half, capped by a 34-yard field goal, was exactly what the San Marcos High School offense needed as the Knights beat El Capitan, 24-9, in the second round of the San Diego Section 2-A playoffs at El Capitan Saturday night. "That big drive put the momentum back in our pocket," San Marcos Coach Ken Broach said. "That was the swing point of the ballgame for us." San Marcos (6-4-2) will play La Jolla next week in the semifinal.

El Capitan never needs much motivation to play rival Santana, which is located less than five miles away. But it got some any way. "I'd be lying if Santana's 10-0 record didn't get our kids a little more fired up than usual," El Capitan Coach Steve Vickery said. Sufficiently motivated, El Capitan put on its hitting and running shoes and walked away with an easy 11-4 nonleague victory Friday over visiting Santana. "We were glad we had a shot at getting them," Vickery said.

Helix Coach John Singer has been waiting to see his basketball team play the kind of defense that made the Highlanders top in the county last year. And what better time for the Highlanders (11-4, 1-0) to do it than in the Grossmont 3-A League opener Friday, when they defeated El Capitan, 56-41, at Helix. And what better person to control the defense than Jason Falconer, Helix's 6-11 center, whose playing ability has drawn some skepticism. "He dominated on the game on defense," Singer said.

The big play helped El Capitan (7-2-1, 4-0) clinch the Grossmont 2-A League title at Santana (4-5-1, 2-1-1). Two long runs in El Capitan's 34-16 victory fulfilled the players' preseason vow to win seven games this year. Juniors Eric Rockhold and James Hopkins combined for 254 yards rushing, and each had dazzling scoring runs. In the second quarter, Rockhold took advantage of a big hole for a 49-yard touchdown run on the second play after a Santana touchdown.

Monte Vista High School's Barney Laffitte scored just two of his 18 points in the fourth quarter. But those two points enabled the Monarchs to send their game against El Capitan into overtime, where they eventually beat the Vaqueros, 69-64, in a Grossmont League game Tuesday at El Capitan. Trailing 62-60 and trying to ignore a screaming El Capitan crowd, Laffitte made two free throws with 14 seconds left to send the game into overtime.

The last time Melisa Hadfield played a girls' basketball game against El Cajon Valley, she finished without one of her front teeth. This time, the El Capitan forward finished with all her teeth and 40 points. For El Cajon Valley, Hadfield and the absence of Debbie Duhaney, the Grossmont Conference's leading scorer, were just too much to overcome. Fifth-ranked El Capitan finally pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 61-44 nonleague victory at El Cajon Valley.

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the El Capitan office building on Hollywood Boulevard was left red-tagged and uninhabitable. The quake's brute force had compromised the building's frame. Sprinklers flooded the structure's interiors. El Capitan's owner walked away, leaving Iowa-based CUNA Mutual Life Insurance Co. holding a very unpromising mortgage. But CUNA's officers decided they would not only keep the property, but give it a $9.8-million face lift.

Warren J. Harding, a pioneer rock climber who made the first ascent of Yosemite's towering El Capitan in 1958, a breakthrough that ushered in "big wall" climbing in America, has died. He was 77. Harding died of liver failure Feb. 27 in his home in Happy Valley, near Anderson in Shasta County.

Speed and some extra special special teams play Friday night helped Helix High turn a stale first half into a 35-21 victory over El Capitan in a nonleague football game at El Capitan. And if this was the matchup of the year in the East County--as many people believe it was--the rest of Helix's opponents could be in for a long run. Helix, ranked second in the county, improved to 2-0 in front of 3,500. Tenth-ranked El Capitan, winner in 10 of its last 11 games coming in, fell to 1-1.