Photo by Jason Redmond

Oaks Christian's Jillian Stowell, left, advances the ball under pressure from Valley Christian's Julie Prins during CIF-SS Division V girls' soccer final last March. The game finished in a tie, giving Oaks Christian its fourth title in the last five years.

Photo by Jason Redmond

The Oaks Christian boys' swim team won the CIF-Southern Section Division II title.

The league championships came less often.

Even for a Division V co-champion girls' soccer program, qualifying for the playoffs proved difficult.

Oaks Christian School's first year in the Tri-Valley League for most sports as part of the merger with the Frontier League to form the Tri-Counties Athletic Association was as difficult as advertised.

Competing against the area's best small schools programs through each of the three sports seasons, Oaks Christian emerged as the winner of the Star Cup for the fifth consecutive year.

Oaks Christian teams won four section championships (increasing the athletic program's all-time total to 19) and eight league titles in the 2006-07 school year.

Most telling was the slim margin — 35 points — that Oaks Christian had over Tri-Valley League rival Oak Park for the the most league points by a small school program.

"I can remember that one year we had 16 (Frontier) league championships," said Oaks Christian athletic director Jan Hethcock.

"This was a good move for us in the sense of competitiveness all the way around. We only had two league championships in the fall; in the Frontier we'd usually have four or five."

The girls' soccer program won its fourth CIF title in the last five years. Not before getting knocked around by league opponents.

Nordhoff, La Reina, St. Bonaventure and La Reina pinned losses on the Oaks Christian girls' soccer program, which also tied Santa Paula. Oaks Christian was regulated to a fourth place league finish and entry to the playoffs as a wild card team.

"We knew that it would be a good league for girls' soccer," said Hethcock, who is also the program's head coach. "There are five really strong teams in that league.

"To go from being a wild card to a (section) co-championship will be something that will stick to those kids and the coaching staff for a long time."

The two-time CIF champion Oaks Christian softball program had to rally for league wins over St. Bonaventure and Oak Park.

While most of the Oaks Christian programs have established themselves on league and postseason fronts, baseball made a significant breakthrough in the 2006-07 school year.

Not only did the baseball program have to deal with a Tri-Valley League that was already strong with St. Bonaventure, Oak Park and Fillmore, it was introduced to its third head coach in seven years.

In the hunt for the league title in the closing weeks, Oaks Christian tied Oak Park for second place behind St. Bonaventure. In the second round of the playoffs, Oaks Christian upset No. 1 seed Sonora, 13-12, by scoring eight runs in the bottom of the seventh inning.

"I was very proud of the job that Jimmy (Stueve) did with that program," said Hethcock.