First home game of season Sept. 3.

Ask any football coach and he will emphatically state that “Nobody ever wins a scrimmage.” Ask anybody who witnessed last Friday’s scrimmage between Ramona High School and Del Norte High School and they will tell you that Ramona won.

The Dawgs outscored the Night Hawks seven touchdowns to one. It wasn’t that close. Ramona played its number twos and threes against the Del Norte first string because of the new school’s lack of depth.

The final Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup race of the season at Misano on Saturday sees a showdown for the Cup title between Jake Gagne and Danny Kent. Gagne turned 17 on Aug. 27 and the Ramonan leads the 16-year-old Briton by 11 points with 25 still at stake for the single remaining race.

Kent has a fine record this season as he backed up victory in the first race of the year at Jerez with three second places and two thirds. Gagne started slower and did not win until Race 4 at Assen, but he has been on the podium four times and only on the top spot. Gagne needs third in Misano to take the Cup if Kent wins.

The Ramona Intra FC Girls Under 13 soccer team traveled to Orange County to play in the Orange County Kickoff Classic and returned late Sunday as winners.

In Saturday’s opening round of the Silver Division, the Intra girls defeated Gold Coast Xtreme 2-1 followed by a 6-0 win over Ladera Ranch. On Sunday morning the girls faced the Encinitas Express and walked away with a 5-0 win, giving them a spot in the finals versus Fram Soccer Club of Los Angeles.

The opening minutes of the championship game brought out a red card for Ramona goalkeeper Taylor Stacy for rough play. Fram took a 1-0 lead on a penalty kick from the red card. It also meant that the Intra girls were without their main goalkeeper and had to play a player short for the remainder of the game.

Connelly finishes 22nd, Elston is 34th at finals.

Ramona’s two qualifiers for the National High School Rodeo Association national finals had top-ten go-rounds at the finals in Gilette, Wyo.

Paige Connelly placed eighth in the second Pole Bending go-round and finished 22nd in the average (aggregate) while Cameron Elston was 10th in the second Tie-Down Roping go-round and was 34th in the average.

Connelly and Elston were seniors at Ramona High School during the 2009-10 California High School Rodeo Association District 8 season. During her initial run in the national contest, Connelly had a run of 21.395 seconds, which placed 69th in the go-round.

Approximately 30 boys are seeking berths on Ramona High School’s varsity, junior varsity and novice water polo squads.

Despite a 5:45 a.m. start time on the first day of practice on Aug. 16, none of the players have dropped out of the program and casualties consist of only a couple of minor injuries.

“By far it’s been the best first week of practice I’ve had,” said varsity coach Donnie Williams.

Williams and his players finished the last season with a 15-14-1 record, including a loss to La Jolla in the first round of the CIF Division II playoffs. Ramona’s 7-5 record in Valley League play was worth third place in the league standings.

Scrimmage with Del Norte Friday

Ramona High football program’s off-season strength and conditioning program is over. Spring football is over. Summer passing games and tournaments are over. The 2010 Ramona Bulldog team is officially preparing for its toughest schedule in Damon Baldwin’s tenure as coach.

Baldwin is starting his sixth year at the helm and has gone 36-18-1 in his previous five campaigns. There are 55 players on the varsity roster going through football’s rite of passage, Hell Week(s).

Jake Gagne turned his weekend around with a brilliant victory in the second Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup race of the Cardion AB Grand Prix of the Czech Republic, extending his Rookies Cup lead to 11 points with just the single Misano race remaining.

The 16-year-old Ramonan stole the lead from arch Cup rival Danny Kent going into the final “S” bends and left the 16-year-old Brit to fend off fellow countryman Harry Stafford for the rostrum places.

Saturday’s winner, Kevin Calia, headed a 16 man battle for the lead on lap 4 but had slipped back a few places when he crashed on lap 5. The 15-year-old Italian remounted to finish 16th. Falling at the same corner on the same lap but in separate incidents were pole man Alejandro Pardo and 15-year-old Italian Alessio Cappella, who knocked off luckless 16-year-old Japanese Daijiro Hiura.
Gagne had only qualified 16 after crashing early in qualifying and missing the second session, but from the fourth row he made an incredible start.

There is an old adage, “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work.” Not for Kevin Hawk.

For the Ramona High School graduate and former longtime Ramona resident, a good day of fishing is a good day’s work.

Hawk won the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Lanier, Ga., and took home a $600,000 paycheck. Hawk came from behind to win the four-day event. He rallied on the final day to catch his limit that weighed in at 14 pounds, 13 ounces.

He was the only one of the five finalists to reel in double digits on the final day. His four-day total was 50 pounds, 14 ounces.

For many of us “hazing” has been thought of as something seen and experienced on college campuses nationwide. It has been known as sort of a “badge of honor” or “rite of passage” to many.

The fact is that the impact of hazing on high school students has become a problem nationwide for administrators, athletic personnel, and activity supervisors. Recent studies have provided athletic directors with critical information to help educate our campuses so that our student-athletes and students can feel safe.

Culturally, we see hazing that occurs in athletic programs; however findings now show that the practice extends beyond sports to a wide variety of other school activities including band, theater, choir, cheerleading, dance squads, debate and forensic teams, academic clubs, Greek-letter organizations, and other school groups. To see the information on these studies you can go to www.hazingstudy.org and www.alfred.edu/hs_hazing.