For those who haven't noticed, Northwood High, it's campus still
pristine and still months away from graduating its inaugural senior
class, has officially claimed its long-rumored status as an athletic
power.

And, having taken enough lumps its first two or three seasons of
varsity competition (depending on the sport) to keep it just under the
releaguing radar, it will be terrorizing Pacific Coast League competition
-- namely Corona del Mar -- the next four years as a member of the
powerhouse projection program.

The Timberwolves, now fully fanged in about every sport there is, won
the school's first CIF Southern Section crown recently when the boys
soccer team, which finished second to Costa Mesa in the PCL race,
defeated top-seeded Bonita, 2-1, to claim the Division IV title.

The Northwood baseball team, with Irvine High transfer Chris Lewis, a
Stanford-bound shortstop who was an All-Sea View performer his first
three seasons, defeated defending PCL champion CdM Friday, 5-2. Lewis
unleashed three home runs in three at-bats against the Sea Kings' ace
pitcher. Afterward, Northwood Coach Rob Stuart, another Irvine defector,
downplayed his team's favored status, though PCL coaches have clearly
tabbed the T-wolves the team to beat for months. One of Stuart's
assistants is Aron Garcia, the former Northwood Little League legend who
starred in football and baseball at Irvine, where he was also a member of
Coach Terry Henigan's football staff.

Coach Rick Curtis, another former Irvine employee, guided his
Northwood football squad to a 10-0 regular season with its first senior
class last fall, outscoring five PCL rivals, 194-51.

Former Estancia High and Orange Coast College coach Tim O'Brien led
his boys basketball team to a 10-0 mark against PCL competition to claim
the program's first league crown this season.

Boys volleyball, sans seniors, shared the PCL title with CdM last
spring and this year's squad met Newport Harbor in the title match of the
Orange County Championships Monday night.

And that is just off the top of my head.

Irvine High folks have foretold of the flight of their top athletes to
Northwood since before it opened and their worst fears have come to
fruition.

For athletic purposes, Northwood High has assumed Irvine's former high
profile, while the Vaqueros are left bailing water from a sinking
athletic ship, of which the captain and crew will soon be kicking
themselves for not being more proactive about leaving the Sea View League
during the last releaguing process.

The good news: At least Costa Mesa and Estancia will leave the PCL
behind to compete in the Golden West League, beginning next fall.

However, PCL holdover CdM could be among those thrown to the T-wolves
for at least the next four years.