Sports

The San Lorenzo Valley Cougars and Scotts Valley Falcons opened the high school football season over the weekend with a taste of live action. The scrimmage — meaningless in the standings — was a warm-up for the first game of the season.

The Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League’s season-opening football jamborees will be this weekend.

A young redhead blew hard one last time into her noise-maker vuvuzela, marking the end of the Soccer by the Bay Tournament in San Mateo on Aug. 21 and 22. When the echo of the horn had faded, her brother’s Scotts Valley-San Lorenzo Valley Thunder under-13 boys travel soccer team had defeated Livermore, 2-0, to claim third place in the competition that featured teams from all over California.

There are 384 Little Leagues in Northern California, which is considered a state by the national Little League organization. Of those 384 leagues, 330 fielded 10- and-11-year-old All-Star teams this year. After several dozen divisional and sectional tournaments in which only one team advances to the next bracket, just six teams in Northern California are left in the hunt for a state crown.