The calendar is yet to turn to the second month of the year, and I'm already pumped about basketball in Bakersfield. I watched an entertaining game end with Ridgeview holding on to a 70-68 victory at Stockdale tonight, throwing both city leagues into three-way races.

A Stockdale win tonight would have all but clinched the Southwest Yosemite League title for the Mustangs, but Ridgeview's effort means it and the Mustangs both have a loss. Centennial has two but gets Stockdale and Ridgeview each at home in the season's final two weeks.

Over in the Southeast Yosemite League, Golden Valley did Garces and Bakersfield High a big favor by knocking off East last night. Now, unless East can earn another surprising victory in its remaining games against Garces and BHS, the Rams and Drillers would share the title. Garces, of course, has beat BHS twice. And don't forget, Golden Valley is still sitting there with just three losses.

It should be great fun to watch from here on out. The next big game is tomorrow night, with BHS visiting East. I saw the first meeting between these two, and the Blades led, I believe, into the fourth quarter. So don't count 'em out.

One final note on tonight's game at Stockdale. You'll read in my game story that Stockdale coach Terence Hubbert had a few (veiled) complaints about the officiating. Here's my take: This was a very tightly called contest. Ridgeview indeed built its lead partly from the free-throw line, and included were some questionable calls. But I thought that late in the game, Stockdale got the benefit of a few calls during its comeback. Like most games, it probably evened out. Ridgeview was definitely more aggressive, and so the Wolf Pack benefitted from the tight calls a little more.

Made for a great game though. Man, the next month should be fun.

Ah well. In this business we usually root for the great stories: The athlete who overcame adversity to triumph, the buzzer-beating shot to cap a great performance, the coach who's mad at the officials. But you know what? Sometimes it just doesn't happen.

Wednesday is Ladies Night here at SHZ, and I was hoping to spotlight a Frontier wrestler named Alex Gomez. Yeah, a wrestler on Ladies Night. That's because Alex is the No. 10-ranked female wrestler at 103 pounds in the country. She's a freshman and hasn't lost in duals this season. So I was hoping she would come up with an impressive performance tonight against Stockdale to make it look like I knew what I was talking about. Well, she didn't even wrestle. Accepted a forfeit from the Mustangs. Oh well. Alex is a great story going forward anyway. You don't see too many girls wrestling in the high school ranks, and it's great to see a very successful one.

Looking forward to tomorrow's boys basketball game between Ridgeview and Stockdale that's for the Southwest Yosemite League lead. Ridgeview has been playing without two key sophomores for most of the month — and has won five in a row. Stockdale went 8-18 last year and is two big wins away — this one and later at Centennial — from likely making an unbeaten run through the rock-solid SWYL. Should be fun. Maybe I'll even get a great story out of it.

Let's put the spotlight on a couple of girls basketball games that took place earlier this evening. The first, which those of you who read the Preps Planner I posted over the weekend would have kept an eye out for, was a Southwest Yosemite League battle between Ridgeview and North.

Ridgeview is generally seen, I would say, as third in the SWYL pecking order, behind Stockdale and Centennial. But the Wolf Pack were surprised tonight by a resilient North team that erased a 10-point first-half deficit and kept coming back and hanging in there during some moments that would have made other teams fold. North won 64-62 with some big shots in the final minute. But no matter who won, it was nice to see a high school game decided by playmakers and not miscues in the final minute. Congratulations to both North and Ridgeview on a game well-played.

A few miles south, Garces and Bakersfield's girls staged a bit of a surprise makeup game. Friday's scheduled game was postponed because of fights on the BHS campus earlier that day, and it was promptly rescheduled for Tuesday night. Thing is, they didn't announce the new date until Tuesday morning. So it caught me a little off-guard, I'll admit. Anyway, BHS solidified its lead on the Southeast Yosemite League race with a 56-42 home victory. The Drillers should cruise to the league title now, I would think.

With so many schools playing so many sports, one of the most difficult parts of my job is to figure where to be when and what else to pay attention to. With that in mind, I'm going to start a weekly feature here at SHZ that is basically my plan for the week.

I usually make one up every weekend and figure out where I'll go for the next week and who I can do stories on. I can't make it to every big game, obviously, but I will put more than one down per day here. Some weeks there will be more to watch than others, but you can always expect to find something here on the weekend. We'll call it What to Watch For.

What to Watch For, Jan. 28-Feb. 3

Tuesday, Jan. 29 — Girls basketball, Ridgeview at North. In the Southwest Yosemite League, Stockdale is king and everybody else is battling for second. But these two, along with Centennial, are the three most dangerous challengers to the Mustangs. League positioning and section seeding on the line here.

Wednesday, Jan. 30 — Girls soccer, Highland at Liberty. Another game that's basically a battle for second place (BHS has a good grip on the SEYL in girls soccer). Right now, the Drillers are 7-0, Liberty 6-1 and Highland 6-2, with Garces lurking at 5-3-1.
Wednesday's other notable games: Boys basketball, East at Golden Valley; Boys soccer, East at Golden Valley.

Thursday, Jan. 31 — Boys basketball, Ridgeview at Stockdale. Now this one is probably for first place. Centennial certainly is in the mix here too, but Ridgeview, without super sophomores Kaylin Evans and Robert Roberts for the rest of the season, is on a five-game winning streak that includes a victory over Centennial. If the Wolf Pack can't stop unbeaten Stockdale, I'm not sure anyone can. The Mustangs won the first meeting between these teams easily.
Thursday's other notable game: Girls basketball, Stockdale at Ridgeview.

Friday, Feb. 1 — Boys soccer, Golden Valley at Liberty. The Bulldogs have been playing at a high level ever since soccer re-started for the second semester. They have yet to lose in 2008 and bombed Liberty 4-1 in the teams' first game back from the break. The Patriots probably feel they were a bit rusty in that match, and here's their chance to prove it. It's also a Valley semifinalist from Div. III last year at a finalist from Div. I.
Friday's other notable game: Boys basketball, Bakersfield at East.

Saturday, Feb. 2 — Wrestling, Highland Tournament. A good chance to see some Kern County teams that haven't had high-profile matches yet like BHS, Centennial and Frontier have. The list includes Highland, Foothill, Ridgeview and South.

Sunday, Feb. 3 — Nobody's playing. Watch the Super Bowl, for heaven's sake.

As promised, Friday will be Guys Day here at School House Zach. Today, that actually turned out to be the case anyway. A couple of wild fights at BHS this afternoon forced the BHS-Garces girls basketball and soccer games to be postponed. Garces AD Vince Fanucchi told me tonight he thinks they might be made up Monday of the last regular-season week, but nothing's definite yet.

That left the focus tonight squarely on Garces, where the Rams and the Drillers staged a boys basketball rematch. Garces took BHS' best shot, a 21-6 run to end the first half, and still won 75-61. Stephon Carter scored 19 of his 30 points in the second half. I say that when healthy, Garces is the best team in Kern County by a comfortable margin.

Now on to the main post. We've covered all of the winter sports teams to watch except for wrestling, which takes the spotlight tonight. Bet you can guess who holds the top spot:

1. Bakersfield High — Surprise, surprise. The Drillers are simply too good for any team this side of Clovis to compete with in the Valley. 145-pounder Travis Rasmussen is a heavy favorite to win the state title, and 140-pounder Jonah Cruz, 171-pounder Brad Carls and several others will be threats to place at state.

2. Centennial — The Golden Hawks can dominate the upper weights in most duals, with 160-pounder Dalton Endes, 171-pounder John Musquez, 189-pounder Glenn Ryder and 215-pounder Mike Castillo all capable of pins on any given night. Expect a couple of those guys to find the podium at Rabobank Arena too.

3. Frontier — This spot easily could have gone to East, which has the best lightweights in the county (103-pounder Julio Gonzalez and 112-pounder Marc Collier) and the best heavyweight (Antonio Hernandez) but isn't as deep as Frontier. Pretty amazing, but the Titans likely will win the SWYL in their second season. They beat Centennial in a league dual earlier, only to have Centennial win a rematch last weekend in the Kern County duals tournament. Funny thing here is that Frontier doesn't have a single wrestler ranked in the Central Section. Just a bunch of solid, not spectacular, kids.

Somewhat surprising news today out of Stockdale High School, which announced that it will hire Mike Snow as third head football coach in school history. Snow is, by all accounts, a good coach and teacher and a guy who had some success up at North, but it's a little strange that he would leave Frontier so soon.

Coaches who take jobs at new schools normally know they're in for the long haul. They all talk about building the program and leaving their legacy. They definitely don't talk about leaving after just one varsity season.

I'm not going to hang Snow out to dry on this blog for making his decision; after all, we're talking about his career and his family. But I can't imagine Frontier is too happy about having to hire another coach and begin all over again. I couldn't get a hold of FHS athletic director Ryan Geivet despite several attempts today to catch his thoughts.

The people I did manage to talk to, Snow and Stockdale principal Ramon Hendrix, both seemed pretty uncomfortable talking about the situation. There's a news conference scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday where we might learn more (though normally those things are pretty politically correct).

The whole thing makes me wonder if there was some problem between Snow and the Frontier administration. I've heard rumblings about stadium lights and assistant coaches, but nothing definite. All Snow would say when I broached the subject is, "There is no smoking gun." Not exactly sure what that means, but I think it suffices to say that there might have been some tension in this decision.

What does everybody else think? Did Snow think he was in a bad situation at Frontier? Or did he just jump on a better opportunity? And, perhaps the only question we'll ever actually get an answer to: How will Stockdale fare with Snow at the helm?

So here's my thought: I'm afraid this blog will get too much on a boys-sports track, especially come football season next fall. In the interest of fairness, I'd like to avoid that before it even becomes a problem. With that in mind, I'm designating Wednesdays as Ladies Day here at School House Zach.

Will there be a Guys Day too? Eh, OK. We'll make that Fridays (see, I've got that football thing in mind again). So if you want to hear about girls sports, Wednesday's your day. Boys sports fans, you've got Friday. And those who want to read and comment about both (and really, who doesn't?), you can be happy every day.

All right, now that we've got that out of the way, the inaugural Ladies Day will focus on girls soccer. As in, my three girls soccer teams to watch this season. To reiterate from earlier in the week, yes, this is a bit late. But playoffs are coming up, so this is all still relevant.

1. Bakersfield High (14-2-3, 6-0-0 SEYL) — Coming up with the top two girls soccer teams in Kern County isn't exactly tough. What is difficult is determining which of them should be No. 1. I'm giving the edge to the Drillers for now, but it's by a razor-thin margin. Both BHS and Stockdale have navigated well through a tough schedule, but the Drillers have a little more name recognition, perhaps. We won't find out for sure until the Central Section playoffs, because the teams don't meet in the regular season.

2. Stockdale (18-4-1, 7-0-0 SWYL) — One of my first experiences with high school sports in California was the Garces Memorial Holiday Soccer Festival. There I met Stockdale coach Janien McGowan and BHS coach Brian Walker. They talked a bit after the game, as cordial rivals, about the championship game in that tourney — surprising that neither was coaching in it, too.
Anyway, they had gotten to the point where they were trying to figure out who was better based on common opponents' results. Pretty tough way to do things. Stockdale has a complete team and can really put the hammer down on opponents with high-pressure offense. So why aren't the Mustangs No. 1 on this list? Well, I'm not sure. But I don't know why BHS shouldn't be No. 1 either. Let's just see how it plays out, shall we?

3. Liberty (11-4-1, 5-1-0 SEYL) — Here's one of those common opponents. The Patriots beat Stockdale at the Liberty Tournament early in the season, then lost 3-0 to SHS in the Garces Festival. The third scheduled game between the teams was supposed to be next week, but it's been cancelled.
That's too bad, because it would have given Stockdale a chance to impress against a team from the (I think) tougher SEYL.
Making matters worse is that Liberty lost a tight 1-0 game to BHS in the teams' league meeting, and there's no return game scheduled. What's going on here? Are they making us all wait for playoff time?

They start the week of Feb. 10. Mark those calendars, everybody.

So I'm continuing my long, drawn-out process of naming three Kern County teams to watch in each winter sport. Heck, at this rate, I might get through them all by the time the playoffs start!

But seriously, folks — I'll try to wrap these up this week. Then it really will be time to start taking a really close look at league races, of which there are some hotly contested, some runaways and some surprises.

Anyway, here are my three boys soccer teams to watch this year:

1. Golden Valley (18-4, 6-0 SEYL) — The Southeast Yosemite League seemed like it was a wide, wide-open race this year, with Liberty, Golden Valley, Garces and East all with legitimate title hopes and Highland, Foothill and Bakersfield High not exactly dragging the conference down.
But the Bulldogs have ran away with the league so far, notching victories over each of the aformentioned teams. All but one (a 4-1 victory against Liberty) was a shutout, so Golden Valley has been pretty dominating. I'm headed up to Garces tomorrow night to watch the Bulldogs try to continue their run and to find out why they've been so successful for a young school.

2. Liberty (13-3, 5-1 SEYL) — Yeah, the Patriots gave up four goals against Golden Valley the last time the teams played, but Liberty actually won the teams' first meeting, 1-0 at the Garces Holiday Soccer Festival. The Patriots finished second in the Division I Central Section tournament last season and could make a run again. They're very organized and so shouldn't make a lot of mistakes. A big match to circle is the rubber match, Golden Valley at Liberty on Feb. 1.

3. Arvin (11-6-2, 3-1 SSL) — Don't scoff at a team from a smaller league. The Bears beat BHS and Clovis-Buchanan at the Garces tournament and own victories against Foothill and Golden Valley to boot. Arvin would be right in the mix in the SEYL or especially in the SWYL, which is a bit down right now. And the rest of the SSL is no slouch. Tehachapi is just 1-3 in the league but has a victory against Liberty.
This spot also could have gone to Wasco, which beat Arvin 3-2 in their first league meeting and also is 3-1 in the league. The rematch is Feb. 1 (seem like a big day in soccer to you?). Or it could have gone to Garces, which is just seeking a little consistency.

One bit of news to pass along before I say goodbye: BHS wrestling finished seventh at the Five Counties Tournament, probably the toughest pre-state event in California. That tells me that the Drillers likely won't be able to manage a top-five finish at state but that 145-pound senior Travis Rasmussen will be his weight's favorite to win it all. Rasmussen won the Five Counties, won the Doc Buchanan Invitational in early January and has just one loss, to the state's No. 2 152-pounder.

A week ago, Bakersfield High's boys basketball team beat Liberty in overtime despite an off shooting night from star guard Ricky Wofford, who turned it around to light it up in the extra session that night.
Tonight, the Drillers did it to Golden Valley, a game team that held a second-half lead of as much as eight points. BHS got 23 points each from Wofford and Dijon Henry, but it was the little things that I think decided this one. The Drillers seemed to get to more loose balls and grab more offensive rebounds — not for the whole game, because there was a stretch where Golden Valley did it too, but at the end.
That's five straight Southeast Yosemite League victories for Bakersfield, which is now one of three SEYL teams with one loss — Garces and East are the others.
I think East is probably a notch below the other two, assuming Stephon Carter
stays healthy. It'd be easy to say the league title comes down to next Friday, when BHS goes to Garces, which handed the Drillers their only league loss back in December. But I'm not so sure that's the case. BHS and Garces are both battling key injuries and other attritions, so there's no guarantee East — or even Liberty or Golden Valley, a couple of quality three-loss teams — won't stay in the mix.
With that said, I'll fulfill a long overdue promise: Here are my three Kern County boys teams to watch come Central Section playoff time:

1. Garces (12-5, 3-1 SEYL) — That record is pending the Rams' game at Highland on Friday night. Garces is ranked No. 2 in the section and has defeated some quality teams — BHS and Fresno-Central, to name a couple in the Valley. But the Rams lost their game with Clovis West by eight early in the season. They'll have to avenge that to win it, and they can't do it without Stephon Carter's knee staying strong.

2. Bakersfield (10-11, 5-1 SEYL) — Nobody has played a tougher schedule, and we're seeing the Drillers reap the benefits of that now. They could have folded late in tough games against East, Liberty or Golden Valley, but they found a way to win. Now the question is, can they do against Garces it without Alfonso Jackson — who's gone for the season — and possibly Emmanuel Ojeriakhi, a key addition who wasn't at Friday's game? Eventually, of course, other tough teams from Fresno and Clovis await.

3. Stockdale (11-6, 5-0 SWYL) — It's pretty amazing to say it, but the Mustangs, completely turned around from last season's 8-18 finish, are the team to beat now in the Southwest Yosemite League. They nipped Centennial at home and beat Ridgeview handily; the Wolf Pack then turned around and beat Centennial. All that means that Stockdale can probably afford to split with the two teams the second time through. That improvement probably has to do with the maturation of sophomore Jordan Burris, who's one of the county's best players.

Lots of deliberation needed on this one, folks, but Stockdale has done it against Ridgeview and Centennial, who would probably be the other teams considered. Any thoughts?

If you thought the Doc Buchanan was tough, you should check out the lineup for this weekend's Five Counties wrestling tournament in Fountain Valley.
BHS is headed down tonight for the event, which has most of the tough teams from the Doc B (with the notable exception of Clovis, which won that event) plus some L.A., San Diego and Southern Section teams like Poway, who has taken second place in state each of the past two years.
BHS isn't going to be totally out-classed or anything, though. It's just another opportunity for the Drillers to see where they sit compared to some teams around the state. Bakersfield took fourth at the Doc B but was within a few points either way of being as high as second or as low as sixth.
In all, 22 of California's top 27 teams will be at Five Counties. So it'll be interesting.
“It’s definitely a good marker to see where you’re at as far as state competition goes,” BHS coach Andy Varner said.
Also, 145-pounder Travis Rasmussen has a good chance at making himself the prohibitive state favorite in his weight. The senior won the Doc B and is ranked No. 1 right now.
For wrestling fans who can't make it down to Fountain Valley, there should be some pretty good wrestling in town this weekend too. Centennial, which seems to be getting better and better, hosts the Kern County duals tournament Friday and Saturday. It's six Bakersfield teams (of which CHS is probably the best) plus a couple of Clovis teams that won't bring their full lineups.

Some news out of the Bakersfield High basketball program — sophomore Alfonso Jackson, a budding star on both the football and basketball teams at the school, is being sent to another school and has been kicked off the basketball team for disciplinary reasons.
I talked to BHS coach Greg Burt and athletic director Jeff Scott, and neither was willing to give any more information than the "disciplinary reasons" line. That's understandable, of course. We're talking about a 16-year-old kid here, and if he has problems, he should have some privacy to work them out. No word on where he transferred, either, though I've heard North and Ridgeview. He also might be coming back to BHS in the future.
"It's possible," Scott said.
A fairly big blow for BHS, though the Drillers have won three straight since Jackson has been off the roster. They try again tonight against Highland before a big one against Golden Valley on Friday.
Meanwhile, at fellow SEYL power Garces, it appears that Stephon Carter still is battling a knee injury. He missed both of the Rams' games last week and likely won't play tonight against LIberty. Garces is 1-1 without him, and if he doesn't come back soon, the team can probably forget about competing for the Central Section championship.
So, if BHS and Garces are each down a significant player, who does that leave the door open for? Liberty, for one, though the Patriots lost in overtime to the Drillers last week (look in Thursday's PrepPlus section for some details on that wild affair). I'd also keep my eye out for Golden Valley. The Bulldogs could be the sleeper in all of this.

Being new to the area, I don't have much authority to comment on Liberty's hire of Tony Mills as its football coach. But from what I can tell, Mills will be a good fit. Here's why:
— He's already proven he can take a successful program and not miss a beat. After all, he did it with the Patriots baseball team. Liberty went 12-0 this past year in Mills' first year as head coach.
— He's a local guy who understands Kern County. Mills was a star at Taft who went on to play baseball at Wichita State and in the Blue Jays organization.
— Perhaps most important, Mills has a track record in both sports -- and he'll coach both at Liberty -- from his days coaching in Kansas. He made Wichita-Collegiate Academy into a state power in football (one state title) and baseball (three).

We'll see what Mills can do in a very competitive SEYL (don't forget, there's a pretty good team at Bakersfield High), but I'd expect the Patriots to continue to contend.

Don't look now, but here come the Stockdale boys. A school long known for its girls basketball success now has two teams to hang its hat on after the boys team took the SWYL lead with a 67-66 victory at home against Centennial on Thursday night.
Taylor Kelly hit a loooong 3-pointer for CHS in the final two seconds to bring the Golden Hawks within one, but time ran out before the ball was inbounded again.
Both of these teams are fun to watch and have great chances to make noise in the Central Section playoffs. They'll meet again Feb. 5 (Super-duper Tuesday for those of you into politics, so get your primary voting done early), likely with the SWYL title on the line. Right now, Stockdale is 3-0 and Centennial 3-1, so the Mustangs have a margin for error.
I talked to Stockdale assistant Michael Avery after the game, and he said this is a game the Mustangs wouldn't have won a year ago, when they finished 8-18.
"We've matured," Avery said. "We've learned not to make mistakes at a pivotal time."
Later, he said, "Last year, a game like this would have slipped away. This year, we're not making those mistakes. We're capitalizing on other team's mistakes. We're taking care of the ball a lot better."
Definitely a statement victory for Stockdale.
But here's a thought. Stockdale already lost to Bakersfield High, 77-74, earlier this season, and to Garces, 79-69. The Drillers have gone up and down California and lost quite a few Central Section showdowns. So how good is the SWYL? Stockdale, Centennial and Ridgeview are all solid teams, but how far can they go in the playoffs? Or is just a "depth" year for hoops in Bakersfield, by which I mean that there a lot of good teams but not any great ones? That remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure. There's an awful lot of youth in town right now, and the next couple of years should get better.

I mentioned the Centennial-Stockdale girls hoops showdown tonight, a game between the two undefeated Southwest Yosemite League teams. That one's at Centennial. Over at Stockdale, there's a boys showdown going on at the same time. Same schools, same situation. The winner stays undefeated and has a leg up on the SWYL title; the loser falls into a second-place tie with Ridgeview, whom Stockdale has already defeated, with one loss.
I'm withholding my list of teams to watch in boys basketball until after this game. The winner just might get a spot in my top three.

A couple of items to note before moving on to the main post:
— Checked out Independence High School, the new school in Bakersfield's southwest corner, on Monday to attend a press conference for incoming football coach Sean McKeown, the Bakersfield High offensive coordinator. School looks great (or looks like it will be, once it's done sometime this summer), and I think McKeown should be a fantastic fit for the job. I'll try to check out the other new school, Mira Monte, in southeast Bakersfield within the next week.
— The Californian's PrepsPlus page returns Thursday for winter sports. We've got a slew of basketball and soccer stats, wrestling rankings to go with bball standings, plus a feature story and a notebook full of news. Be sure to check it out. One additional note on that: if you don't see your school/team's stats on PrepsPlus, it's because the stats aren't up on MaxPreps, which is where we get all of our info from.

Now here's three Kern County teams to watch in girls basketball. We'll go through all of the winter sports like this in the next couple of weeks, as I get to know them.

1. Stockdale (12-2, 2-0 SWYL) — Girls hoops in the area starts and ends with the Mustangs, who have proven that despite their youth (only one senior and six sophomores and a freshman on the roster), their press will cause fits for anyone. That includes BHS, Centennial, Garces and any other challengers. Stockdale beat Bakersfield by 27 in the finals of the Lady Mustang Shootout and hasn't even played a close game since losing to San Clemente and San Diego-Mt. Carmel in the season-opening La Jolla Country Day tournament.

2. Bakersfield (13-4, 2-0 SEYL) — The Drillers are a very good team — as evidenced by their victory against Fresno-Edison last week, but might not be ready to crack the upper echelon of Central Section teams. They were routed by Stockdale in the team's only meeting and were beat even worse when they traveled to Clovis West in December. But this is a good shooting team that can challenge anybody when it's on.

3. Centennial (11-4, 2-0 SWYL) — Results will tell you that Stockdale is on a higher level than the Golden Hawks, but we all know the transitive property can be a dangerous way to predict games. Centennial, a defensive team led by Nicki Villalobos and Jasmine Noldon, gets a chance to prove itself against Stockdale on Thursday night. This is a big one to watch. The key will be whether Centennial is able to slow the game to its pace or whether Stockdale forces it to run.

I spent Saturday at the Doc Buchanan Wrestling Invitational up in Clovis. It was my first look at California wrestling, and one thing I was really looking for was how the sport compares in this state to the wrestling in New Mexico (I wrestled four years there) and Missouri (I've covered it extensively there).
My take? California has more good wrestlers than the other two states combined. I guess that's not too surprising, considering that there are more people here than those two states combined, but it was still impressive. I don't know that the best wrestlers here are any better than the best wrestlers in other states, but the depth is incredible. Of course, the Doc Buchanan had 15 of the state's top 25 teams participating, including seven of the top 10. So I was bound to see some good wrestlers. But the number was truly impressive.
Now a bit of bad news. Last year was the first year in a while that Bakersfield didn't crown at least one state champion (didn't even have a finalist, actually), and I think it might be a bit of a down year again. That's not to say there isn't quality wrestling to be seen. Bakersfield High is still one of the state's top 10 teams, and I think Centennial is a legitimate top 25. But on an individual level, there might not be a real state-title threat beyond BHS 145-pounder Travis Rasmussen, who won the Doc B in pretty dominating fashion. Anybody who wins that sucker could easily be crowned a champ in Rabobank Arena in about seven weeks.
Read my story about Rasmussen and the Doc B here: http://www.bakersfield.com/...
There were three other Kern County finalists: BHS 135-pounder Javier Sanchez and 171-pounder Brad Carls and Centennial 160-pounder Dalton Endes. All three should be around come state-tournament time.
One more note of interest: The PrepsPlus page will return to the Californian this week, complete with features, notebooks and stats for basketball and soccer. From what I hear, it's always an ongoing process to improve the page, so if you have any suggestions (for PrepsPlus or anything else), please drop 'em below.

If you've been paying attention to the Californian's prep coverage in the past couple of days, you might notice it's been heavy on Frontier. Don't worry; no bias here. There's a couple of good reasons for it.
On Thursday, I was going to watch Bakersfield High take on Fresno-Edison in a matchup of high-profile Central Section teams. But somehow, BHS changed the starting time of the game, and by the time I got there, the game was long over. (BHS got a big victory, by the way). So it was back over to Garces, where Frontier was the only game still going. Then, tonight, Frontier upset Ridgeview in a thriller to get to the finals. So I had to write about the Titans again.
The other thing is, this is a really good story. It's Frontier's first year as a varsity program (the school opened in 2006), and you don't expect first-year teams made up entirely of freshmen and sophomores to compete. You expect them to be like the FHS boys team, which is 0-13.
Frontier has some players, to be sure. Freshman Megan Sweet was on fire in the third quarter tonight, and sophomore post Gabi Morales uses her length like a veteran. But it was incredible to watch such an inexperienced team go toe-to-toe with athletic, experienced Ridgeview — and come out on top. Kudos to Frontier coach Taylor Seay, assistant Christine Kessler and all of the Titans. They'll take on Garces in the touranment's championship at 7:30 Saturday; if you're not busy, it might be worth checking out.
I won't be there, actually. I'm headed up to Clovis tomorrow to watch the Doc Buchanan Wrestling Invitational, one of the best high school wrestling events in the country. Bakersfield, Centennial, Foothill, Liberty and Arvin are all involved. Should be a good time, and I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

OK, so one thing about me you all should know is that I like alliterations. If you see a headline in the Californian's sports section that has that nice, "Roadrunners romp" feel to it, I might have had something to do with it. If you think it's cheesy, sorry. You might be getting some of that here.
Anyway, I've been making an indentation on my couch all day watching college football bowl games. If there's two things I love, it's baseball and college sports. And New Year's Day is the pinnacle for college football. Yeah, yeah, the national championship game isn't until next Monday, but I love the channel-flipping, momentum-swinging fun you can have on Jan. 1. And my school, Missouri, was dominant in the Cotton Bowl this morning, so that's good. Southern Cal also dominated illinois in the Rose Bowl this afternoon, which probably made  a lot of people around here happy too. So a good day all around.
Anyway, as the blog title indicates, tomorrow it'll be time to get off the couch and back to work. Most Kern County schools don't get back to school until next week (or maybe even the week after?) but sports teams are all in action this week. Here's what's on my radar:
— The Garces girls tournament will showcase some of the basketball teams we didn't get to see in last week's Stockdale tournament (the young Mustangs dominated BHS for their fifth straight title in that one, by the way). It's a round-robin style tournament with all local teams, including Garces, East, North, Highland, Foothill, Ridgeview, Bakersfield Christian, West and South. Should be fun.
— The Clovis Doc-Buchanan wrestling tournament. I'm an old high school wrestler, so I've got a sweet spot for the sport. And, in case anyone isn't aware, the California Wrestling Championships are at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield. This tournament up in Clovis will give us a good barometer of which Central Section teams might make an appearance in Rabobank. I'll try to make it up there at least one day.

I'll report back with some impressions on the weekend. If you think you know what I'll see, send a message below and I'll keep an eye out for it.
Happy New Year everybody. It should be a great 2008 for local sports.