Bishop Diego headlined the final Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Press Luncheon of 2025 on Monday at Harry’s Plaza Cafe.
The Cardinals awarded Jaymi Coronado their Scholar-Athlete of the Year and honored their CIF-SS Div. 8 champion girls tennis team at the top of Monday’s program.
Meanwhile, the rest of the luncheon featured high school winter sports teams as they kick off their league schedules this week.
Jaymi Coronado Named Bishop Diego Scholar-Athlete of the Year
Coronado has grown into one of the top student-athletes on campus during her time as a Cardinal, shining as a three-sport athlete and in the classroom.
She is the centerpiece of the Bishop Diego girls basketball team that is off to a 7-2 start to the season, and also contributes as a member of the flag football and softball teams.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to coach Jaymi these past four years,” Bishop Diego girls basketball head coach Jeff Burich said. “I could spend an hour talking about all of her traits and qualities. She does everything the right way, never complains about a bad call, about anything that goes against her.”
“She’s always there. She makes everybody around her better. She is coaching other people up on the court offensively and defensively, in a most positive way.”
Academically, Coronado holds an impressive 4.71 GPA while taking several AP courses. She has also been a part of the Bishop Diego Scholar Program and the Bishop Diego Honor Roll in recent years.
She is interested in potentially furthering her basketball career at the collegiate level, where she would like to study film and animation, or some other form of art.
“Thank you to my parents, my family and my teammates for just being a great support system,” Coronado said. “I’m thankful for such a great community of people that helped me get to this point and I’m excited to see what the future holds for me.”
Haugen is the third of 11 Scholar-Athletes of the Year for this school year, joining Dos Pueblos’ Elliot McGuire, Laguna Blanca’s Bennett Sullivan and Providence’s Annika Haugen. ‘
The award is sponsored by Marc Gamberdella of the Gamberdella-Spruill Group of Merrill Lynch.
CIF Champion Bishop Diego Girls Tennis Honored
The Cardinal recognition continued later in the luncheon as the CIF-SS Div. 8 champion Bishop Diego girls tennis team was honored for their stellar season.
“This is an incredibly special group of girls and that’s why it all happened,” Bishop Diego head coach Peter Kirkwood said. “The way they came together at the end of the year and were pulling for each other and playing for each other, it was just incredible.
“Our philosophy this year was, we don’t need to win, we don’t have to win, but we have got to want to win. We practiced every day, wanting to win. We played every match wanting to win. That wanting to win produced some great results.”
The Cardinals ended the regular season in a three-way tie for first place in the Frontier League. They broke the tie and clinched their spot in the CIF-SS playoffs with a tight victory to keep their season alive.
“[After the regular season] I think wanting to win turned into believing we could win and that was a huge stepping stone in completing the mission that we completed,” Kirkwood said. “Once we started believing we could win, the team really started to come together and everyone figured out what their role was.
“As we got through the CIF and we started going through it, I’m telling you, the believing we could win became expecting we could win. I really believe that we expected to win all the way to the end.”
From there, Bishop Diego rolled through the CIF-SS Div. 8 playoffs and capped off the magical run with a victory over Santiago High by way of games.
“One thing that I’ll never forget is the spontaneous celebration that we all had when we were announced the winners,” Kirkwood said.
“At a school like Bishop Diego, a lot of times girls will play different sports and try different sports. This was all possible because the seniors stuck it out. In three and four years, they got better and better each year.”
Winter League Play Brings Rivalry Showdowns
The local high school winter sports teams have shaken off their rust and will now charge ahead into their tough league schedules this week.
While all league games are crucial, some local squads will be playing for more in the coming days as they begin league play with crosstown rivalry matchups.
On the pitch, Santa Barbara High boys and girls soccer will both be playing a pair of games against local foes this week.
The Dons’ girls team will roll out the welcome mats for San Marcos on Tuesday at 5:15 p.m. and host Dos Pueblos on Thursday at 5:15 p.m.
Meanwhile, the Santa Barbara High boys will head across town to take on San Marcos on Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. before clashing with Dos Pueblos in Goleta on Thursday at 5:15 p.m.
Laguna Blanca girls soccer will head across town to take on Bishop Diego on Tuesday at 3 p.m. in a matchup of local private schools.
On the hardwood, San Marcos and Santa Barbara High girls basketball will meet inside the Thunderhut on Tuesday at 7 p.m. for the Channel League opener.
On the boys side, the new-look Bishop Diego boys basketball squad is set to head out to Carpinteria High for a matchup with Cate on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
Student-Athletes in Attendance
Santa Barbara High Boys Soccer: E.J. Manamea, Pablo Desales, Pietro Nascente
Laguna Blanca Boys Soccer: Baylor Wilson, Finlay Sutherland
San Marcos Wrestling: Anthony Leal, Leon Fox
Santa Barbara High Girls Basketball: Kayla Beard, Savannah Margolles, Kendall Dowdy
Dos Pueblos Boys Basketball: Jordan Caratachea, Caleb Damron
Bishop Diego Girls Basketball: Jaymi Coronado, Yesenia Mendez, Jeisa Coronado
Santa Barbara High Boys Basketball: Brent Sharpton, Valentino Canessa
Santa Barbara High Girls Water Polo: Hope Smith, Yesenia Dunn
Dos Pueblos Boys Soccer: Logan Stevens, Kieran Buell
San Marcos Girls Basketball: Jada Ahmad, Izzy Schow
San Marcos Boys Soccer: Ricky Olivo
Bishop Diego Girls Soccer: Kaitlyn Garcia, Lindsay Doyle
Bishop Diego Boys Soccer: Fisher Pennestri, James Gaggs
Dos Pueblos Girls Basketball: Carly Letendre, Taylor Grant
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