Sports

The Aptos High Mariners have been the cream of the crop in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League all season long. That trend continued at April 25's league championships. Senior Kourosh Safari repeated as the SCCAL singles champ with a grueling 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 win over Santa Cruz High’s Jack Tierney, while the Mariners’ duo of Carter Bond and Jake Kluger breezed through Soquel High’s pair of Lincoln Cooley and Casey Valcarcel, 6-1, 6-3, for the doubles title at the Seascape Sports Club.

Over the last nine years as the head coach of the Cabrillo College baseball team, Bob Kittle has had numerous student-athletes from all over Santa Cruz County pour into his program. Just last spring, Kittle had at least one player from all but one public school in the county on his roster. Bringing in the best of the best, and watching the talent and personalities from various backgrounds mesh into a powerhouse representation of the county has been one of his favorite aspects of the job. “Santa Cruz County is unique,” Kittle said in a recent phone interview. “There’s a sense of pride in this county… It’s connected.”

To say Aptos High senior Hunter Matys was on top of his game at the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League boys track and field championships would probably a real understatement.

The Aptos football team was on the ropes throughout the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Central Coast Section Open Division III championship game. But whenever the Mariners needed a play — big or small — someone answered.

The Cabrillo College men’s soccer team pushed its unbeaten streak to three games with a 2-1 win against West Valley College on Friday in Coast-South Conference action.  The Seahawks continue to roll in October with a 3-1-2 record in conference play. They currently sit in...

The former head coach and general manager of the four-time Arena Football League-champion San Jose SaberCats, Arbet didn’t promise to break his foot off in his player’s “John Brown hind parts,” as Denzel Washington so eloquently said while playing Boone in the 2000 football flick. But the Seahawks’ heavyweight offseason hire does expect his players to be as close to perfect as possible.

Marcos Reyes, Hunter Matys and Josh Powell all rushed for more than 100 yards, the defense recorded four takeaways and No. 5 Aptos rolled into the Central Coast Section Open Division III semifinals with a 62-37 win over No. 4 Terra Nova on Saturday night.

Abby Pardue has scored in double figures in only two of 18 games this season.

Top-seeded Aptos won its second Central Coast Section Division III crown in the last three years, and the Mariners made it look easy with a 58-37 redemption win over No. 2 South San Francisco on Feb. 23 at Palo Alto High.

Alex Austen, a senior offensive lineman for the Aptos High football team, stands at a towering 6-foot-5-inches and 311 pounds. Standing next to his fellow lineman, the starting left tackle makes them all look like members of the freshman squad. Six-foot-2, 283-pound senior tackle Joseph Gutierrez-Lee might as well be 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds.