By Joe Snyder
Gardena High’s baseball team struggled in the final two games of the Dennis Gilbert Revival of Baseball in the Inner Cities Tournament with losses to Roybal and Sotomayer last week at the Urban Baseball Academy at Compton College.
Against Roybal on March 31, located between Downtown Los Angeles and Dodger Stadium, Francisco Pavon sparked the Panthers by going 2-for-3 with one run batted in and two runs scored. Chris Alvarez was 2-for-3 with two runs. Juan Castellanos and Max Garcia each had a run-scoring hit. Morrell Parks drove in a run. Gardena lost that game 10-6.
On April 1, the Panthers played Sotomayer, located just outside of Downtown L.A. Sotomayer came out with a dominant 13-0 win as Gardena mustered just three hits.
Jesse Aguayo, Chris Alvarez and Parks each had one hit.
For the Panthers (4-9-1), it’s on to playing the big boys of the brutal Marine League. They began on Wednesday at home against last year’s CIF-L.A. City Section Division I champion Carson. Gardena visits the Colts Friday at 3 p.m. The Panthers host Narbonne next Wednesday at the same time.
Serra High is 0-6 in the Del Rey League but currently has its Spring Break that includes non-league games. On March 31 at Serra, the Cavaliers topped Maywood Center of Enriched Studies 7-3. Last Thursday at Culver City, Serra rallied for an eight-inning 7-6 win against a very good Centaur squad.
With the score knotted at 5-5 through the regulation seven innings, the Cavaliers pushed across two runs in the top of the eighth before holding off Culver, which had one run in the bottom of the inning.
Against Maywood, Serra trailed 2-1 before taking the lead for good with four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The Cavaliers are 6-7 overall.
Serra has two more non-league games before resuming Del Rey action at Bishop Amat High in La Puente next Wednesday at 3 p.m. After visiting Torrance on Wednesday, the Cavaliers visit Rolling Hills Prep Friday at 3:15 p.m.
North Torrance did not have any games last week as it had two non-league games against cross town rival West Torrance this week. The Saxons visited the Warriors on Tuesday before hosting West Wednesday. North resumes the Pioneer League against El Segundo next Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.
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Serra softball battles to 12-12 tie
Serra High’s softball team had a rivalry game at St. Bernard High in Playa del Rey as the two teams settled for a 12-12 tie in a Santa Fe League game on March 31.
In that game, the Lady Cavaliers appeared to be headed for a blowout win with a 9-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning and 12-4 in the top of the fifth. That’s when the Vikings made a ferocious rally scoring two runs in the bottom of the fifth, four in the sixth and two in the seventh. There were no extra innings.
Serra is 3-4-1 overall and 2-4-1 in league.
On March 24 at Serra, the Cavaliers rolled over another rival, Inglewood St. Mary’s Academy 14-4.
The Cavaliers return to Santa Fe action at home against Sacred Heart of Jesus from Los Angeles next Tuesday at 3:15 p.m.
Gardena is 0-3 after losing its Marine League opener at home to Rancho Dominguez Prep from Long Beach 12-3.
The Lady Panthers, however, had games where they scored 17 and 23 runs and lost. At Gardena on March 16, Gardena lost to Torres 34-23. A day later at Santee High in Downtown L.A., the Panthers fell on the short end of a 26-17 score.
Gardena continues to play in the rigorous Marine League as it hosts Carson today. The Panthers visit San Pedro next Monday. Both games start at 3:15 p.m.
After defeating Irvine Beckman in a non-league game 7-5 on March 28 at North, the Lady Saxons took off last week. North had an intersectional non-league game against last season’s CIF-L.A. City Section Open Division runner-up Carson on Tuesday. North resumes the Bay League at home against South Torrance Friday at 3:30 p.m.
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Dodgers look promising for three-peat
The Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team is off to a good start after completing a sweep of the host Washington Nationals by rallying for an 8-6 victory on Easter Sunday.
The Dodgers, who are 7-2, began another thing where they left off. They started the season with seven players, including five pitchers, on the injured list and added another as Mookie Betts went down on Sunday. He is on the 10-day list.
One of those players is Blake Snell, who is expected to be out for, at least, the first 15 days forcing them to start a struggling Roki Sasaki. Sasaki did struggle on Sunday as the Dodgers trailed 3-0 and 6-2 before getting their rally caps on to pull out the game.
Shohei Ohtani is doing well with his bat and arm but did, for a while, struggled with the home runs. He hit his first one in the Dodgers’ 13-6 win over the Nationals last Friday and his second on Sunday. He is 2-0 as a pitcher with wins over the Cleveland Guardians and the Nationals.
The Dodgers began the season at Dodger Stadium with a sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks but lost two of three to the Guardians. They are currently in a rematch series of last season’s World Series at Toronto against the Bluejays. They played Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We still like to remember as the Dodgers rallied for the seven-game World Series winning back-to-back World Series for the first time in their 136-year franchise history. They will be looking to become just the third team in Major League Baseball history to win, at least, three consecutive World Series and the first ever for National League teams. The famed New York Yankees did it three times, a record five straight from 1949-53, four in a row from 1936-39 and three consecutive from 1998-2000. The Oakland (soon to be Las Vegas) Athletics won three in a row from 1972-74, including the last year against the Dodgers in five games.
The Dodgers return home against the Texas Rangers, that includes former Dodger star Corey Seager, on Friday. They play the Rangers through Sunday before the three-game home series against the Mets, led by Juan Soto, next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The injury bug really did the Los Angeles Lakers in. Both Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves went down in their embarrassing 139-96 loss to the host San Antonio Spurs last season. Doncic will be lost, at least, for the remainder of the regular season, which ends Sunday at Cryto.com Arena against the Utah Jazz. Reaves will be lost for about four to six weeks. Also, “King” Labron James has an injured foot and may not have played last Tuesday at home against the Thunder, which is 62-16. The Lakers were hot at 50-26 but lost the last two games without Doncic and Reaves. Making it worse, James may be lost for a while, as well. It could be an very rough playoffs for the Lakers, who already clinched it.
This Friday and Saturday will mark the prestigious Arcadia Track and Field Invitational that will include several local stars. Serra High junior Wesley Ace has excelled including his personal best time of 10.51 seconds in the 100-meter dash in winning his heat and placing fifth overall on March 14 at the Redondo Nike Invitational. Torrance’s Nicolas Obingba will be highlighted in the Invitational Division with his personal best he did at 10.2 in last season’s CIF-State Prelims at Buchanan High in Clovis. He placed second in the state finals.
There is expected to be some athletes from North Torrance High, as well.
Gardena High’s track and field team has struggled in recent years due to being small in numbers but hope it can get athletes into the CIF-L.A. City Section finals.
