Sports

Marea Zlatunich could have had a very different high school experience. Now a league, section and state champion runner for the Aptos High Mariners, Zlatunich didn’t show up to the first day of cross country practice during her freshman year. “I honestly didn’t want to do cross country,” Zlatunich said. “I did it as an eighth grader and I wanted to quit after the first day, but my family didn’t let me.” But when her friend, Annika Niles, begged her to come out for the second day of practice because “she didn’t have any friends on the team,” Zlatunich reluctantly obliged. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of her young life.

APTOS—It almost feels like an eternity since the Cabrillo College football team last saw some action on the field.  But two years after they were placed on probation due to a violation for housing out-of-area players, the Seahawks are back and ready to take on...

Aptos High senior Max Meltzer, pictured during the 2017 Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League Individual Golf Championships at DeLaveaga Golf Club in Santa Cruz, won the Central Coast Section Golf Championship on May 16 at the Laguna Seca Golf Ranch in Montere

Aptos, ranked 35th in the state by maxpreps.com as of Thursday afternoon, isn’t the only team around the area that is determined to accomplish some history this winter.

Grieves, a 2009 Aptos graduate, has been hired as the new girls basketball coach, he confirmed with this newspaper on Monday evening. Grieves spent the last three seasons with the school’s boys junior varsity team, and is well acquainted with the talent-rich squad he will inherit for the upcoming 2018-19 winter season. His junior varsity team often scrimmaged with the girls varsity team over the years, and his family is ingrained in the Aptos youth basketball scene.

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.

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.

Sophomore shortstop Shea Garcia capped a 10-run explosion with a monster grand slam over the centerfield fence, and Aptos High cruised to a 10-6 victory over San Lorenzo Valley High on Friday to clinch its first Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League title since 2011. “It took us some time,” said Aptos head coach Phil Rojas, “but it’s rewarding now.” Early on, it looked like the Mariners (13-9, 11-1) would have to wait until next season to end their league title drought.

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.

The Seahawks knocked off the defending California Community College Athletic Association champion MiraCosta College, 3-0, on May 10 at West Valley College to become the first team from Northern California to win the state beach volleyball championship.