Whetting your football appetite

While the Daily Journal sports staff will begin rolling out our in-depth football previews at the end of the week, I thought I could provide a little more info as we head into the season.

The Peninsula Athletic League’s Bay Division stayed unchanged from last season, with last year’s order of finish: Wilcox, Los Gatos, Menlo School, Menlo-Atherton, Palo Alto and Sacred Heart Prep.

Which means last year’s De Anza Division co-champs, King’s Academy and Capuchino, breathed a sigh of relief. All six Bay Division teams qualified for the Central Coast Section playoffs and all six advanced to at least the semifinals of their divisions — with Wilcox winning the DII title, SHP taking the DIV crown and Los Gatos making the DI final.

The rest of the PAL saw movement between the divisions. Aragon and Hillsdale, which went a combined 3-7 in De Anza Division play and 6-14 overall, both moved down to the Ocean Division for 2025.

Those two were replaced by Ocean Division co-champ San Mateo and third-place finisher Carlmont.

It is not always a case where the top two teams move up and the bottom two move down. A team’s returners and junior varsity performance factors into teams moving between divisions, as well. Hillsdale, for example, tied with Burlingame for third place in the De Anza Division with 3-2 records, but were moved down. The same could be said of Carlmont, which finished third in the Bay, but got the promotion.

The Ocean Division, which is kind of the demarcation line of a PAL’s team competitiveness, saw the most turnover, with three new teams joining holdovers Sequoia, the defending co-champ, co-third place Half Moon Bay and fifth-place Milpitas.

Aragon and Hillsdale are coming down from the De Anza, while Terra Nova continues to see its program fade as the Tigers were moved down into the El Camino Division.

Before the retirement of longtime coach Bill Gray in 2014, Terra Nova was the only team in the history of the PAL to have only played in the Bay Division. Now the Tigers are one level above the Lake Division.

Replacing Terra Nova in the Ocean Division is Woodside. The Wildcats finished second to South City in the De Anza Division last season, but Woodside has seen a resurgence in the last couple of years. As I said previously, the Ocean Division is where teams prove if their program is on the rise or not.

In the El Camino Division, Woodside is replaced by Gunn, which went 7-0 in the PAL Lake and 10-0 overall during the regular season in 2024.

For Homestead, the fall from the competitive ranks is complete. Three seasons ago, the Mustangs were in the De Anza Division, the second-highest in the PAL. This year, Homestead finds itself in the eight-team Lake Division, replacing Gunn.

And after seeing the Lake feature nine teams last season, that number has dropped to eight with Lynbrook dropping out of the PAL and playing an independent schedule this season.

So there you have it. A little football appetizer to hold you over until the main course over the next couple of weeks with the Daily Journal’s 24th annual football previews.

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While the Redwood City-based NorCal Crew u19 men’s 8s decided to participate in the prestigious Royal Henley Regatta in England last month, another NorCal Crew member, Ana Ciechanover, decided to participate in the U19 rowing world championships in Finland earlier this month.

Good decision as the Hillsborough native who is entering her senior year at Lick Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, teamed with seven other rowers, and a coxswain, to take silver in the women’s u19 8s final.

The American boat got off the slow start, as Australia built up an early three-second lead over the United States at the halfway point of the 2000-meter race.

But the U.S. boat picked up the pace and starting working its way past the field. The Americans moved into third place with 500 meters go and finished hard, surging to second place in a time of 6:49.50.

They finished less than two seconds behind winner Great Britain, which posted a time of 6:47.87. Romania finished third, while the Australian boat faded to sixth out of six teams with a time of 6:6:55.19.

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.