Capistrano Valley
| Capistrano Valley High School | |
| Location: Mission Viejo, CA | |
|---|---|
| Coaches | Eric Johnson |
| Program Status | Unknown |
| School Size | Unknown |
| NAQT Page | link |
Capistrano Valley enjoyed five years of being near the top of the Southern California circuit before fading back into the middle of the pack.
History
Capistrano Valley played in the Kiwanis Bowl format as far back as the mid-1990s, with Ken Sayles as coach. Somewhere along the line Lyn Harvey became the team's coach and led them into NAQT play starting in 1999. Harvey retired from coaching following the 2007 season.
In 2000 Capistrano Valley earned the first of its three straight runner-up finishes in the NAQT California State Championship. A lineup of Matthew Sherman, Danielle Gilbert, Ryan Ruppe, and Jingyi Zhu competed in the school's first-ever national tournament, the 2000 ASCN TOC, where they lost three straight games and finished somewhere near the bottom of the field. The four were joined by Dwight Wynne for the 2000 NAQT HSNCT, where they finished a much more respectable 24th.
In 2001 Capistrano Valley returned all five of its key contributors from the 2000 team, and had arguably its most successful season, winning various tournaments and once again finishing in second place at the state championship. 2001 Capistrano Valley is also the last known team to have won any vestige of Kiwanis Bowl. After going undefeated in the preliminary rounds and 4-1 in the first playoff round robin with their only loss a last-second defeat to Detroit Country Day, they dropped three straight games to finish in a tie for fifth place.
Capistrano Valley's 2002 season started off rocky as ten of the eleven regular players in the program graduated. The team did not appear until a February 2002 tournament at UCI, in which they won the JV division. Although this was the first tournament ever for five of their six players, several coaches questioned their appearance in the JV division due to Dwight's presence. Capistrano Valley picked up an unexpected win at a USC tournament after extenuating circumstances forced Los Alamitos to pull out halfway through the tournament and several other teams followed suit after the preliminary rounds. After defeating Los Alamitos in the first round of the 2002 state champs, they lost to Woodbridge to set up a three-way final, which Los Alamitos won handily; Capistrano Valley outscored Woodbridge to take its third consecutive state runner-up finish. At HSNCT a team of Dwight Wynne, Nicholas Wells, Brian Rosenbaum, Sean Gossage, Adrienne Lee, and Carrie Sullivan finished 6-4, out of the playoffs, and in 13th place by points per game, thus earning a spot in hsquizbowl.org's Post-Nationals Top 25 poll.
Due to all sorts of schedule conflicts, 2003 Capistrano Valley played only six tournaments with five different lineups. With wins at TWAIN III, CBCT IV, and a San Dieguito tournament that turned into clubbing baby seals for the most part, as well as a t-2nd finish at Caltech's high school tournament, 2003 may have been Capistrano Valley's most successful regular season ever. In addition, 2003 saw Capistrano Valley hold a tournament for the first and so far only time. A nearly five-month layoff between competitions contributed to rust leading to a t-3rd place at the state championship. The 2003 HSNCT lineup consisted of Dwight Wynne, Nicholas Wells, Brian Rosenbaum, and Meridith McColl, and finished tied for 8th place. A B team consisting of Michael Chang, Sean Gossage, Ken Robinson, and Kevin Wynne finished 3-7 and in 55th place out of 62 teams.
In 2004 Capistrano Valley once again used NAQT's old HSNCT bid policy to send two teams to HSNCT. The A team consisting of Sean Gossage, Ken Robinson, Shruti Vora, and Kevin Wynne finished 5-5 in 37th place out of 64 teams, while the B team consisting of Priya Thaker, Chris Gossage, Becky Green, and Chris Majcherek went 2-8 to finish in 60th place.
From 2005 to 2008, the team slid back to the middle of the pack, although captains Kevin Wynne and Becky Green kept the team from sliding further.
In 2009, Capistrano Valley made a single tournament appearance, placing dead last at Baby Anteater X.
Trivia
Two members of Capistrano Valley's HSNCT teams have gone on to play Division I athletics. Meridith McColl played water polo for Stanford from 2004-2007 and Kevin Wynne currently plays volleyball for UCI.