With each tick of the clock — though our office clock doesn’t tick anymore because someone hit it with a football — we get closer to the best unofficial holiday of the year.

And as usual, the Appeal-Democrat is going to put out a special, all-encompassing sports section on Sunday to fully prime you for Super Bowl XLIV. We’ll have preview stories, columns, predictions from local community leaders and sports figures and the BEST DARN GOING OUT GUIDE AROUND.

Angelo Guillory, left, and his son Jake, both of Yuba City, celebrate at The Happy Viking in Yuba City following a San Francisco 49ers touchdown. This Sunday, people will hit the town to watch good teams play. (Photo by Chris Kaufman/Appeal-Democrat)

People like to leave the confines of their homes for the bowl and have fun, so we decided last year to call up all the Mid-Valley watering holes to see what they had planned. It worked out so well that we’re bringing it back.

And after calling a number of bars on Tuesday — not exactly Woodward and Bernstein-esque work, I know — I was pleasantly surprised to hear that many establishments are going out of their way to do this day properly.

The first two places I called had legit drink specials and even better food options (rotisserie duck!? shrimp alfredo, what!?) and many more local establishments are offering sweet deals.

As a kid coming from a college town to here, it’s nice to see area businesses make an effort to have some fun on this most awesome of Sundays. Sadly, one bar in downtown Marysville that shall remain nameless (hint: their name includes the words ‘box’ and they sell cigars) had an employee that would rather cuss me out and hang up than let people know what they’re doing for the bowl.

So, aside from that anonymous establishment– besides, inhaling Cohiba smoke for five hours isn’t exactly my thing — Sunday’s Appeal will have a list full of Mid-Valley spots containing food and drink specials and other vital information like television counts.

If you plan on going out — and be safe, DD’s and cabs if you’re drinking — be sure to pick up Sunday’s paper.

–Ryan Klocke

It’s rough being a part of the sports desk.

Most of us wake up at 1 p.m., do dishes, laundry, watch a little ESPN and get ready for work. By the time we get to the office, we realize food was an afterthought.

Malnourished, with hands shaking, we dig into our pockets and count the quarters – it’s tough being a sports writer.

We scramble – ‘who’s driving?’ ‘Who can spot me?’ ‘What do we want?’ These are common questions exchanged.

Yes, it’s time to grub.

We would smite the fool who actually ate before work – don’t do that.

Once everything is sorted out and the list has been written, the unlucky member heads out and gathers for the pack.

Letting you in on our daily ritual, we want to know what you think of our hot spots…

5. Freetime Java/ Chevron – Don’t worry, this isn’t for food. We’re not stocking up on Lunchables and beef jerky, this is our caffeine dealer. We make at least one stop here a day. Red Bulls, Monsters, blended mochas, Chunky Monkey’s (yeah we get crazy), it’s all there. Not naming names, a couple of us probably need to look into a rehab group (Andy). Caffeine is an essential part of the day for us. After all, we’re at work until 11:30-midnight, and then we can’t sleep until 2-3 a.m. We still can’t figure out why? It’s a rough life.

4. Taco Bell – Yes, we’re slobs. While some of us avoid the grease pit, as a friend once told me, ‘I work out to eat.’ So while most of us stay active by going to the gym, playing recreational sports and walking back and forth to the refrigerator, we sort of live by that motto. The fresco menu frees us from a guilty conscience. However, we tend to delve inconsistently into the Nachos Bell Grandes and Crunchwrap Supremes.

3. Antonios Quick Lunch – El Tejaban rest in peace. We were once staunch supporters of the former Mexican hole-in-the-wall just before the bridge in Marysville, and while we’re not exactly completely hooked on Antonios…yet, the Mexican food diet is hard-wired in us. Funny thing is, the “Garbage Burrito,” which is what the place is known for, doesn’t exactly our cup of horchata. We tend to go with the nachos and 75 cent tacos.

2. Subway – This is the just-got-in-from-the-gym day. Oh yeah, we’re feeling healthy, trying to drop the pounds. However, this usually goes hand-in-hand with the neighboring Freetime or is spawned by the loser who comes in with a footlong. Now personally, I tend to get crazy with sandwiches (everything on it, extra jalapenos, pepprichins, etc.) But I’ll have you know, we have some picky eaters on the sports staff. And usually, when sandwiches are conjured up, it takes a quarter of basketball by the time the order has been processed.

1. Ciscos Taqueria – This is typically the one place we’ll sacrifice an entire break to sit and chew the fat. It’s by far our top Mexican joint in Marysville, hands down. The best part is we take our seats, and thanks to the gracious Sandy, we have our drinks and meals within minutes without ordering. The bottomless chips, perfect salsa and service with a smile has us craving the sit down. While this tradition began before every Friday night football game, we’ve come to expand on the visit and are trying to find a way to fit it into the busy schedule of being a sports writer, as you can see, it’s a tough life…hopefully we bump into you around town, just don’t ask us if your son can get into the paper more, please.

This, of course, is when we don’t get pizza, but that’s a whole other blog.

–Bryan DeMain

It started the moment the clock hit 0:00 for the JV game on Wednesday. Rising up out of their seats at Honker Gymnasium, a large group of recalcitrant rowdies unanimously shouted of the first of their many verbal salvos.

“YC! YC! YC!” they bellowed before seamlessly transitioning to a boisterous chorus of boos when the River Valley High boys basketball team took the court.

It was loud. It was crass. It was awesome.

It was just another day at the office for the “Brown Mob.” Read the rest of this entry »

We here at the Press Box love big local rivalry games. And tonight’s regular season extravaganza of a contest between the Yuba City and River Valley boys basketball teams is about as big as they come for this area.

What we have is a complete package of a game.

Conference championship implications? Check.

Athletes sure to be on future All-Area teams battling it out? Check.

Crazy crowd sardine-canned into gym? Check.

We haven’t been this excited for a game since football season. And thinking back to all those great local-on-local gridiron slug fests reminded us of one of our favorite pastimes – predicting games.

So for a showdown of this magnitude, we decided that it would be prudent to give our (ahem, cough) expert thoughts on tonight’s game, which tips off at 7 p.m. at Yuba City High.

Bryan DeMain, sports editor: Yuba City 70, River Valley 56

– Yuba City is bigger, and more experienced…And Jessa Chima’s facial hair is neat.

Cassie Bryant, sports assistant (aka: the person who saves us on a nightly basis): Yuba City 78, River Valley 62

– Zach Nelson’s the real deal. He’s a bad mamma jamma.

Robert LaHue, multimedia guru (aka: the guy standing on the sidelines tonight with the video camera): Yuba City 68, River Valley 58

–Nelson dominates in the paint, and the Game Day Crew hangs with the Brown Mob until a third-quarter chant involving either a) chickens b) barbed wire or c) the ghost of Michael Jackson.

Ryan Klocke, sports reporter, illustrious writer of this post: Yuba City 65, River Valley 58

– Fueled by the Brown Mob, Nelson will pull an Isaiah Bohmann on both hoops, which after being replaced, will be shattered again by the cacophony of yelling and pep band music. Eventually, Yuba City pulls away.

Now this type of unanimous pontificating got us in trouble a few months back. Durring football season, we all picked Wheatland to topple Sutter. It didn’t work out too well for us. Luckily, there is one Appeal staffer who has the guts to take the Falcons. So if River Valley comes through with what would be the biggest win in school history, fans can’t call us up to say “Ha. All of you had it wrong.”

Jeff Nelson (no relation to Zach), production tech who lives in Roseville and has a vast knowledge of local sports: River Valley 72, Yuba City 64

–  I’m just throwing (the Falcons) out there because I don’t know who they are.

See you at the game. And be sure to check Thursday’s Appeal for full coverage (stories, video, photos, blog).

Doug Cornelius called itchy and ugly. He hated his facial hair but loved what it represented — winning.

After a victory in late December, the Yuba College men’s basketball coach pledged to not shave until his 49ers lost. It lasted for an eight-game span,with his look progressing from a  5 O’clock shadow to a pile of stubble to a full-blown beard.

An unshaven Doug Corelius (far left) watches on as his team steamrolls Marin last Friday. Now that scraggly monument to success is gone. (Photo by Colleen Cummins/Appeal-Democrat)

Now the Al Borland look is no more, a Mach3 victim of the 49ers’ tepid performance against Los Medanos on Wednesday.

“It will be off before I hit the pillow tonight,” he said on the bus ride home.

When Cornelius called in to report how his team faltered against the Mustangs, who were the other top team in the Bay Valley Conference, all I could think about was the beard.

As a quasi-beat writing journalist for all things Yuba College, I can’t root for the team. But I was pulling for the beard.  Now I know the whole idea of going Paul Bunyan during a streak of success is nothing new in pro sports (see NHL Playoffs), but it represented a level of cool superstition that I haven’t seen in my 15 months covering Mid-Valley athletics.

It was comical. It was unconventional. It was a way to show just how much winning trumps vanity.

If the 49ers could have Camaro’d the the Mustangs (I’m a Chevy guy, had to drop the reference) there was no telling how long that beard could have grown. Yuba has been on a roll this season, using a dose of cohesiveness to supercharge their usual batch of talent into a team that can roll opponents and make themselves entertaining as heck while they do it.

When they’re on — like the two times I’ve seen them this year –  they’re the best show in the Mid-Valley. Period. There’s no other place locally where you will see basketball players make the key look like a catapult on an aircraft carrier. The 49ers this year are alley-ooping good.

That’s why the hump-day defeat in Pittsburgh was such a letdown. If Yuba topped Los Medanos, there’s no telling where they, and their coach’s beard could have gone. Three weeks from now our local JC could have been cruising with a double digit streak with a Robinson Crusoe look-a-like navigating.

Now Cornelius is talking about how Friday’s home game against Contra Costa could be a tough one. That’s a whole paradigm shift from what all of us Yuba followers had started to get accustomed to over the last month.

But the situation is fixable. I highly doubt, especially after a cleanly shaven coach gives these guys the mother off all lectures (as he should), that this team will again come out and go 4 of 24 from beyond the arc, give up 16 offensive rebounds and turn the ball over 25 times.

And if the players again come up empty , they have nobody to blame but themselves. They had a normally Mr. Clean-esque coach ready to resemble Father Time for them. It says something.

But when I first uncovered the whole beard thing last week, Cornelius said he hadn’t publicised it to his players.

He didn’t want the focus to be on him. He wanted it to be on the fact this team is clicking.

This squad is devoid of the omnipresent egos that have hijacked the  squads of the past. And for those eight games it showed.

They passed. They cheered each other on. They put  team before “I”.

Barring a total meltdown those ideals should remain, even after a loss that should be considered a sobering reminder that the BVC men’s basketball does have some talent outside the valley. Entering the second half  of conference play, the 49ers should use this game as a smelling salt wake-up to the fact they’re not invincible.

If they do, the 49ers still have a chance to make waves. Even if their coach no longer looks like a surfer bum.

–Ryan Klocke

It was minutes after the his biggest win as a coach. But Terry Evan’s couldn’t just talk about his River Valley High boys basketball team’s huge victory over Pionner.

He had to share his idea, bring his and former Yuba City High coach Brad McIntire’s brainchild to light.

And we’re glad he took that break from discussing X’s and O’s, because if these two coaches can pull of what they are planning, it would be a boon for the entire Mid-Valley.

Their goal: To create an All-Star seniors game for the area.

“I think it would be a great night for our community,” he said. “Can you imagine Zach Nelson and Isaiah Bohmann on the same floor?”

Yes, coach, we can. And watching the area’s best two big men try and dunk on each other for 32 minutes would be a great way to spend an evening.

Aside from being super entertaining, the postseason game would be a way for kids on their way out to have one final chance to play at the prep level and maybe impress some college scouts, Evans said.

The Falcons coach said the game would be similar to the Optimist game in Sacramento, a contest that has for the most part not featured any local prep talent over the years.

Evans has already talked to a number of Mid-Valley coaches and plans on talking to programs in the Chico and Redding Area as well.

While Evans admits this idea is still in its infancy, he is nonetheless excited about the possibility of making this happen.

So are we.

–Ryan Klocke

When chatting with Yuba-Sutter Marysville Gold Sox’s Tom Lininger yesterday, the team’s managing general partner said he should know within a couple of day’s whether the the Sox’s games will once again be broadcast on KUBA.

Lininger has had some conversations with Bob Breck, chief executive of Nevada County Broadcasters Inc. (the company that owns KUBA) and said that he is feeling rather positive that fan’s will be able to hear play by play all summer long on the station.

Now some fans may remember that this was an issue last year.  Breck actually came out and said that due to monetary issues, the station would keep cranking out the “classic hits of the 60’s and 70’s” in lieu of broadcasting baseball four nights a week.

Luckily a sponsor came through and last summer we got to hear Geoff Flynn call each and every Gold Sox game. Now I actually like KUBA’s music, but I’ll take baseball over “tears of a clown” any day.

We’ll keep you posted here about what transpires.

–Ryan Klocke

As of today, the Yuba-Sutter Gold Sox have officially been renamed the Marysville Gold Sox.

Tom Lininger, the Managing general partner for the team will appear at tonight’s (Tuesday’s) Marysville City Council Meeting to formally announce the change. I just had quick chat with Lininger and he said the main reason behind the name change is recognition.

What it boils down to is that people here in the Mid-Valley are cognisant of what/where Yuba-Sutter is, he said. But travel outside the area are you are met with blank stares if you say you hail from Yuba-Sutter.

We’ll have a story running on this in tomorrow’s Appeal. Stay tuned.

–Ryan Klocke

No, seriously. It apparently works. Just ask the one of the MVP’s from Saturday’s Mark Langford Invitational.

River Valley’s Adam Blank, the 135-pound champion at the 28-team tournament at Lincoln High school has a bag full of sugar, corn syrup, citric acid and hydrogenated palm kernel oil to thank for him being the named the “outstanding middleweight wrestler.”

No, seriously. I’m not being facetious. OK, maybe a little. In the interest of full disclosure –  his athleticism, determination and talent probably had something to do with it, too. (You should of seen him in the finals — essence of ownage.)

But back to the candy.

When Blank woke up pre-sunrise and stepped on the scale, he saw that he was a pound and a half overweight with the tourney’s weigh-in looming. While many of us, myself included, have seen that darn contraption produce a cringe-worthy number, for Blank it was an aberration .

The svelte senior usually has a  couple of pounds to spare, he said. But this time he had to find his inner Jenny Craig at an hour that 95 percent of us were still asleep. So he did the requisite running thing then got himself a bag of sour skittles.

When he told me this, I wish I had a mirror to see my facial expression. You’re telling me you can cut weight using skittles? I’ve been popping those little bits of deliciousness for years with quite the opposite effect.

Then he elaborated, and it all started to make sense. Blank explained that you suck on the candy and because it is sour it makes you produce more saliva, which you proceed to spit out. Hawk enough loogies (gross, I know) and eventually you’ll have spit your way to making weight.

It’s a long way from the sweating-it-out strategies I’m familiar with but with a little Googling it showed that getting your spit on is quite commonplace. When I asked Falcons coach Ron Benton about it, he said it was pretty much standard practice when a wrestler is just a tick overweight. Show’s you how much I know.

(But with pure sincerity…Kids, please be careful. Obviously you don’t want to spit out 10 pounds, and please consult with the right people — like your coaches — to make sure your cutting weight safely and properly.

This side story from what was an enjoyable Saturday shows my nascent wrestling knowledge and reinforces one of the reason’s why I love my job — I learn new things every day. Even about spitting.

–Ryan Klocke

Image credit: http://jenniesaysrelax.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/sour-skittles-bag.jpg

Around the Mid-Valley there are some talented prep programs that just can’t seem to lose.

On Thursday, I was out in Live Oak to watch the Lions host the Colusa High girls soccer team. Not surprisingly,  Colusa won. I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just that the Redskins have the statistics to back up that notion. Going into the match, Colusa had gone 25 matches without recording a loss.

Thanks to a freshman, the Redskins extended it to 26. At the rate the this young group is blowing past opponents, it will be exciting to see just how long this streak can last. Just don’t ask their coach about it, you’ll get shushed. Trust me.

But the Redskins are not the only girls soccer team around that’s allergic to losing.

Take a short trip East on Highway 20 and you’ll find that one of the area’s great programs has a winning streak longer than a line a Disneyland.

The Sutter High girls now have 62 straight Butte View League wins to their name. It’s a streak dating back to the 2004-2005 season that shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Same goes for the Huskies’ other streak, one that is far more impressive than obliterating teams like Oroville for the better part of a decade.

If new coach Jeff Stanhope and his girls have their way, they’ll be celebrating a sixth consecutive section title. And the critics wonder why we love Sutter so much. (We’re joking, people).

Speaking of our favorite school….

Propelled by the arm of Jessica Moore, who will be hurling a softball at Pac-10 opponents come spring, the Huskies softball team didn’t lose a single game last year – 34-0 with a section title to cap it off.

And while another perfect season is all but a pipe dream minus Moore, who was easily the most dominant athlete in the area last year, the Huskies still have a lot of talent that can keep their 37-game BVL winning streak alive. That one date’s back to 2006, when the Huskies finished a, ahem, rather average 9-1 in league.

One team that has just missed qualifying for the ever-prestigious honor of making this esteemed blog list is the Yuba City High baseball team. Spoiling the Honkers’ fun was Woodland in 2007 and 2008 and Pioneer in 2009. Each season’s final league record — 14-1.

Oh well, I guess the Honkers just have to be satisfied with three straight section titles. Sigh.

There are probably some streaks that we’re forgetting (including some losing ones, wink), but what the above team’s have accomplished stood out the most.

We at the Press Box tip our caps for a job well done.

–Ryan Klocke