We're beginning to hand out the first batch of Central Section titles of the fall, beginning tomorrow with the girls golf team championships in Tulare and then a couple of team tennis finals later in the afternoon. One of those is Division V, where Bakersfield Christian will host Fowler in what will be basically a formality for the Eagles.

Anyway, I thought it would be a fine time for a non-football sports update before we get into regular gridiron coverage with tomorrow's Week 9 rankings.

Girls golf
The section finals set up as a battle of Clovis West from the north and Frontier from the south, but that can't be exactly right because technically, the Titans are Division II. Those are your heavy favorites in each division, then, but all eyes will be on the overall crown as well. Two teams go to the Southern Cal Regional Tournament from all divisions, and those should be your two for the second straight year, though last year we thought that about CW and Garces, and Frontier came in and stole the second bid.
So who will take it? Clovis West lowered its own section record for a round by shooting 378 at last week's North Area tournament, while Frontier also set a school record by shooting 395 at the South Area finals. This tournament is at Tulare Golf Course, so that's neutral ground, so to speak, but Clovis West sure looks like the team to beat. Frontier is very balanced, but so are the Golden Eagles, and they've also got Asia Odell at the top of their lineup to keep scores even lower.
As for individuals, that title will be decided next week at Rio Bravo Country Club east of Bakersfield. Odell is the favorite there, though any of those Frontier girls is capable of going low, as are Stockdale's Abby Marina, Garces' Jasmine Rodriguez and a few other locals.

Volleyball
Still a week to go in the regular season here, with all three major league title in Kern County still up for grabs. Well, technically speaking anyway; Centennial is 10-0 has wrapped up a share of the SWYL crown and can win it outright with a Tuesday victory against Ridgeview or a loss by 8-2 Frontier against West. In the SEYL, Bakersfield is unbeaten and Liberty is 9-1 with only a loss to BHS. The Patriots visit the Drillers on Thursday, and assuming both win Tuesday, the result will determine if Bakersfield will share the title with Liberty or win it outright. That's basically the situation in the SSL, too, where 7-1 Bakersfield Christian needs to win at 7-0 Tehachapi on Tuesday to force a tie atop that league.
The bigger story on the horizon, of course, is the playoffs. Centennial still is line for a No. 3 or maybe even a No. 2 seed in the Division I playoffs, with Bakersfield and Liberty looking like pretty good 4 and 5 candidates — meaning, of course, that they could play each other again at BHS just a week after their meeting to decide league. Garces and Frontier will probably be the top Division II seeds, and I'd think Tehachapi would be a prime candidate for the top seed in D-III, especially if it can complete the sweep of BCHS. Centennial, Garces, Bakersfield and Liberty all spent the weekend at tough tournaments on the coast that gave each a pretty good pre-playoffs measuring stick: In Redondo Beach, Centennial went an impressive 5-1 before losing in the tournament semifinals to Placentia-El Dorado, Frontier went 3-3 and Garces went 2-3; and in Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, which had been charging hard late in the year, went 0-2 while Liberty went 0-1 against some primo competition.

Girls tennis
Bakersfield Christian will win that section-title match tomorrow, you can bet the mortgage on that. The Eagles are too deep and too strong at the top of their ladder for any team in the section and almost any in the state, so forget poor Fowler, It'd be ecstatic just to earn a set.
No, the real intrigue tomorrow comes not at the BCHS coronation but in the semifinals of other divisions. Stockdale, seeded fourth, could see its run of six consecutive Division I championships come to an end at top-seeded Buchanan, which beat the Mustangs 8-1 back in the first match of the year. Certainly things have changed since then, but have they changed that much? Garces and Visalia-Redwood in Division II are trying to get to a Thursday title match, where they might duke it out for title of second-best team in the Valley. In Garces' way is third-seeded Frontier, which played the Rams reasonably close in a Lewis Cup match earlier this year. But the playoff format allows Garces to flex even more depth. Tehachapi also will try to keep its year going when it hosts Clovis North in the Division III semis.
As for individuals, all of the upsets came in doubles in the first two rounds of the singles and doubles tournament Saturday. Six seeded singles players — BCHS' Lyndsay and Chelby Cooke, Garces' Gracie Jacobs and Abby Wattenbarger, Frontier's Danisa Hromadkova and East's Nancy Ramirez — are still in it as the round of 16 begins Friday. The semifinals and finals are Saturday. In the doubles bracket, there are four local teams left, two from BCHS and two from Garces. All three of Stockdale's teams, two of them seeded, didn't survive the first day.

Cross country
The Kern County Championships gave us a great glimpse at some local showdowns — Ridgeview beat McFarland in the boys team race after the teams had split two earlier meetings. Robbie Baker and Alex Garcia finished 1-2 individually. For the girls, Ridgeview's Tijerra Lynch won the Wolf Pack another title, holding off Bakersfield's Sarah Baker by five seconds in the first race those two had ran against each other. Stockdale, though, beat the Wolf Pack in the team race after upsetting them in the regular season, too. This was a more dominant victory, aided, I think, by a shorthanded Wolf Pack lineup.
As for league titles, they'll be decided Wednesday (SSL) and Thursday (SEYL and SWYL). The smaller league will run at North Kern Golf Course, and the other two at Hart Park. More showdowns await at Woodward Park in Fresno, where the section meet is held Nov. 12 and the state meet Nov. 28.

Water polo
This is a one-school update, obviously, because Garces is the only Kern school that carries the sport. But it's carrying it mighty well in just the second year for the program. The boys had won nine games in a row before losing to Clovis in the Clovis West Tournament this past weekend. The Rams are 10-8 overall heading into next week's Division III section playoffs.
As for the girls, the news is even better. They're 12-3, with a victory in the Tulare Tournament early in the season and a third-place finish in the Clovis West tourney this past weekend. The Fresno Bee, whose rankings I'll trust because all of the section's teams are out of this area but one, has Garces ranked 10th in the section overall and second in D-III, behind Visalia-Redwood. Could be another Valley title to add to the Rams' list.