By Joe Snyder
The XXXIII Olympics in Paris, France are just eight days away as athletes in various sports prepare for the World’s largest event.
The only local athlete spotted in making the United States Olympic team came in rugby in Marcus Tupuola of Carson. Tupuola starred in football at Carson High and went on to play football and rugby at Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio.
However, there are a lot of athletes from the Los Angeles area. The next closest athlete is Taylor Spivey of Redondo Beach who will be competing in the triathlon. The triathlon includes three sports in swimming, cycling, and running. Rancho Palos Verdes will bring Taylor Pritz in men’s tennis, Andy Benesh in men’s beach volleyball and Marko Vavic in men’s water polo.
For men’s basketball, the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers will each have a player. From the Lakers is La Bron James and the Clippers is Kawahi Leonard. Also playing is former UCLA player Jrue Holiday on that Dream Team. He is currently with the Phoenix Suns.
Unfortunately, the likes of former Serra High standout track and field athletes, Roderick Pleasant and Brazil Neal, will not quite be ready as neither even competed in the Olympic trials last month at their current college, University of Oregon in Eugene. They, of course, will look for better things in 2028 here in L.A. In 2021, Rai Benjamin won one gold, one silver and one bronze at the 2020 Olympiad in Tokyo as the former University of Southern California athlete will gear for three events, the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, 400 dash and the 4×400-meter relay in Paris.
A little later in Paris, Jamal Hub of Inglewood will compete in the Paralympics men’s swimming.
There will be a lot of L.A. flavor at the Olympics that start with the opening ceremonies on July 26. Next in line will be L.A. in 2028.
Sources are that, possibly in 2028, the Special Olympics are being considered to join in with the Olympics and Paralympics. It would be great that those developmentally disabled athletes get even more in the spotlight.
On June 8 and 9, Cal State Long Beach hosted the Southern California Special Olympics with teams from Carson, Torrance, and the South Bay (mostly athletes from Redondo, Hermosa, and Manhattan Beach) represented but sources were that there were a few from Gardena, Lawndale and Hawthorne involved. It was about those special needs athletes getting a chance to compete in sports like basketball, flag football, bocce, swimming, softball and track and field.
Last Saturday, a few local baseball players were involved in two games, one for recently graduated seniors and the other for incoming freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, in the Fifth Annual Tyler Skaggs Foundation All-Star Games at UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium.
The teams were Red and Blue. On the senior red team, included Serra’s Adrian Pineda and Henry Sorman, Caden Lewis (South Torrance), Eshua Desai (Torrance) and Dylan Mares (Carson).
Playing for the Blues included Carson’s Aiden Brasher and Sergio Padilla, along with Torrance’s Slater Nunez.
There were two underclassmen local players on the Blues including Reef Sharman (West Torrance) and Brandon Dillon (Harbor City Narbonne). Dillon is son of head Gaucho coach Bill Dillon.
Results of the games were unavailable.
Skaggs, who played with the L.A.-Anaheim Angels and Arizona Diamondbacks, died suddenly in 2019 at just 27 years old. He was a pitcher.
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CSUDH softball falls in Super Reg.
In 2023, the Cal State University, Dominguez Hills women’s softball team advanced to the NCAA Division II championship but lost.
This past season, the Lady Toros did quite well at 39-21 overall and 21-13 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association for a third-place finish.
CSDH advanced to the Division II Super Regional before falling in three games in the Best of Three Series to host University of Western Washington on May 14 and 15. The Toros began on May 14 with a 4-3 loss before winning the first game of a May 15 doubleheader 3-2 but fell short 7-6 in the nightcap in Bellingham, Wash.
In the Toros’ win, Jay Ross went 2-for-3 and drove in a run, while Kaylee Hull and Alani Nguyen each had a hit and a run batted in.
Despite the second game loss, Mariah Ramirez had a grand slam and drove in five runs.
Ross went 3-for-5 with an RBI.
Cal State Dominguez’s baseball team was not quite as successful as it went 20-29 overall including 16-23 for an eighth place in the 12-team CCAA.
Things were also not very good on Senior Day as the Toros were routed by San Francisco State University 16-2 on April 27.
Noah Karlever was a bright spot for CSDH going 3-for-5 with one RBI. He finished the season batting .359 with 21 home runs and 51 RBIs. Alex Sepulveda was the Toros’ next best batter at .339. Both made the all-CCAA team.
The top pitcher at Cal State Dominguez was Julian Diaz who was 8-3.
A day earlier (April 26), the Toros topped the Gators 5-2 in Carson.
