The San Diego Section’s all-time rushing leader will be heading to the Bay Area to play football. Escondido’s Ricky Seale signed his letter of intent to attend Stanford University in the fall, and to play for coach Jim Harbaugh on the football team. Seale’s signing, which took place today at the Escondido High School Learning Center, capped months of speculation as to where Seale would land.

“Thank God, it’s finally all over,” said Seale after putting ink to paper.

Seale was one of four Escondido athletes signing letters of intent on Wednesday, a banner day for the North County school. Tim Zier signed a baseball scholarship with SDSU, while Joe Morton signed to play basketball at Wyoming, and Mala Lemay accepted a softball scholarship from Hawaii.

How close did the Aztecs come to landing Seale?

“It was a 50-50 deal all the way,” said Seale, “but Stanford was always my first choice.”

After the jump, watch video of Seale and Tim Zier answering questions on Signing Day:

Seale didn’t know for sure if he would be admitted into Stanford until late last night, when Harbaugh called his house.

“I was just, Oh My God,” said Seale, “I was actually surprised I got in, but I’ve been working so hard for it so I was really happy it all worked out.”

Seale was receiving pressure from inside his own school and to the west as well. Over at Oceanside, the five Pirates who are coming as a group to play under Brady Hoke were reaching out to Zier, asking him to help recruit Seale to SDSU. Meanwhile, the Pirates were trying to keep mammoth defensive tackle Thomas Molesi in town as well; Molesi said he came “this close” to switching, but instead honored his commitment to Oregon State.

Watch Ricky Seale and Tim Zier answer questions from 619 Sports and the assembled media in Escondido:

Seale finished his prep career with 6,694 yards, averaging 7.9 yards per carry. He will compete for playing time in the Cardinal backfield with another San Diego prep phenom, the former section rushing leader (and state player of the year) Tyler Gaffney.

Zier, meanwhile, is excited to begin a baseball career under Tony Gwynn at San Diego State, but admitted that “football is always in the back of my mind.” Zier teamed with Seale to form a lethal combination the past two years in the Cougars’ backfield.

–Story and video courtesy 619Sports.net

–View Ricky’s full SportsForce profile: http://www.sportsforceonline.com/athletes/rseale

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