October 26, 2018
Concord Pioneer • www.concordpioneer.com narrowing her college choices and eventually hopes to attend law school and work in corporate law. According to her coach, that’s very likely to happen. Sydney has written Athlete Spotlights for the Pioneer since she was a sophomore. This one we kept as a surprise from her!
Athlete Spotlight
Sydney Skow Grade: Senior
School: CVCHS
Two-time all-DAL player Skow and her Eagles teammates are in the DAL water polo tournament this week with a berth in the North Coast Section playoffs on the line. She is a team captain and the leading scorer for the Eagles, who lost only one league game. It’s no wonder Skow took to the water as soon as she enrolled at
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Sports: Water Polo, Swimming
CVCHS. Her dad, Todd, is a member of the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame as an allAmerica swimmer. First-year head coach Riley Shaw says, “I have had the privilege of getting to know and coach Sydney over this water polo season. She is a leader on this team who not only leads through teaching but by example. Her determination
and work ethic are unmatched. She is someone who will accomplish anything she sets her mind to. Sydney has been a key player in all of our games.” Skow is also a four-year swim team member. Away from the pool Skow is very active in the Public Service Academy, ASB Leadership and Mock Trial team. The Concord native is
New coaches at Carondelet, CV face different challenges to match last year’s hoops success
The Concord Pioneer congratulates Sydney and thanks Athlete Spotlight sponsors Dr. Laura Lacey & Dr. Christopher Ruzicka who have been serving the Clayton and Concord area for 25 years at Family Vision Care Optometry. www.laceyandruzicka.com Do you know a young athlete who should be recognized? Perhaps he or she has shown exceptional sportsmanship, improvement or great heart for the sport. Send your nomination for the Pioneer Athlete Spotlight today to sports@concordpioneer.com.
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Clayton Valley Charter boys and the Carondelet girls each begin basketball tryouts and practices next Monday with a new face in charge. For the perennial powerhouse Cougars, Mike Morris is brand new to the Concord school while the Eagles new head man, Andrew Doss, has had a birds-eye view of the position for the past four years as the varsity assistant coach. The top seeded Eagles reached the North Coast Section Division I championship game last February before losing a heartbreaker to Heritage 71-66. A week later they fell to Menlo in the NorCal Championships opening round in what proved to be coach Eric Bamberger’s last game in charge as he stepped away after leading the Ugly Eagles in an historic 2017-18 season. Doss, 31, was hired when Bamberger decided to take a break from high school coaching to watch his daughter Ali in her senior year at Carondelet and son Mason play his freshman season at De La Salle. Ali Bamberger recently announced that she is accepting a scholarship to the University of Washington. Her dad is continuing as a club coach at the all-girls Cal Stars, where his daughter played for 10 years and he’s coached since 2011. Morris comes to Carondelet from Vacaville Christian High School where he was the girls varsity coach last year (Sierra Delta League coach of the year) after spending the previous two seasons in charge of the Falcons boys varsity. Morris got his teams into the Sac Joaquin Section playoffs all three years. He has run the Morris Elite Basketball Academy in Suisun for eight years. Morris, 48, inherits a senior-laden Carondelet team that is the two-time defending North Coast Section Division I champion. The Cougars have 13 Section titles (11 in Division II) and have been top seed for seven straight years in the NCS playoffs. He replaces Elgin Leslie, the four-year head coach with a 99-24 record, who ended his tenure earlier this year. Last season finished abruptly on a sour note when the Cougars forfeited their first-round game in the Northern California Championships Open Division after team rules violations were discovered from an off campus post-NCS championship game party.
ANDREW DOSS CLAYTON VALLEY CHARTER
MIKE MOORE CARONDELET
Bamberger led the Ugly Eagles for five seasons, culminated with the record-setting 26-4 team featuring seniors Garrett Pascoe, Nick Klarman and JD Williams. Pascoe is now at Boston University after setting a slew of season and career records for the Eagles as a four-year all-league performer.
San Jose State. He went back to coaching at Berean, commuting from San Jose State and sometimes spending the night at his parents Clayton home. He stayed in San Jose for a year after graduation but continued to coach at Berean. He got a teaching job at Tabernacle School in Concord and moved back to the area. He started at Clayton Valley as JV coach for three years while Troy Sullivan was head coach. When Bamberger took over in 2012 he was the frosh coach for a year before he moved up to Bamberger’s varsity staff for the past four seasons. His ninth season coaching at CVCHS and third year teaching US and World History there will be quite memorable for the self-described gym rat. “If it’s possible, we’re going to be even faster than last year.”
EAGLES ROSTER CHANGES As Doss he gets his first varsity head coaching opportunity, he inherits a roster that last year included 12 of 15 non-seniors. On the other hand, the three seniors dominated all the teams’ statistical categories (70 percent of the scoring and 75 percent of the rebounding). Doss is getting thumbs up from his former boss. Bamberger says, “Andrew is a hard worker who has been studying basketball for the past five years. He is ready to run his own program. He put in more time than any coach in our program. “He would study film on our players, the opponent and college teams that run the same system to see if we would want to implement any their sets. I am excited to see where he takes Clayton Valley basketball.” Doss has been a basketball junkie for many years after playing CYO from third to eighth grade at St. Bonaventure and four years at Berean Christian High in Walnut Creek. In his senior year the Eagles were second seed in NCS Division V and reached the semi-finals. He attended Diablo Valley College as a freshman and coached the frosh basketball team at Berean because his high school coach Mike Gleisner gave him a key to the gym, so he could play at any hour. He went to the University of Oregon as a sophomore but only lasted a year. “The weather was not what this California boy was used to.” He came back to the Bay Area and finished up college at
MORRIS TAKES OVER Morris takes over the highprofile Carondelet basketball team in the first major coaching hire of new athletic director Tom Williams’ tenure. A parent from his Academy whose daughter was enrolling at Carondelet told Morris about the Cougars coaching vacancy this summer and he contacted the school after further texts and calls from the parent. “It’s an awesome opportunity,” Morris says. The newcomer to the school adds, “This is a whole new year and we’re going forward, not looking back.” The 6-5 Morris grew up in Solano County and played center at Fairfield High before going to Solano College and Dickinson State University in North Dakota. His playing career continued with professional teams in Australia, Austria and finally in the now defunct International Basketball Association when a back injury ended his playing days at 28. In the IBA he played in
See Basketball, page 14
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