During the recent past, Serra High’s track and field program has been dominating the Del Rey League and most of the rest of California.
This year, the Cavaliers appear to be rebuilding but they qualified enough athletes for Saturday’s CIF-Southern Section Division IV Prelims after top showings in the Del Rey League Championships on May 6 at St. Paul High in Santa Fe Springs.
During the recent past, Serra High’s track and field program has been dominating the Del Rey League and most of the rest of California.
This year, the Cavaliers appear to be rebuilding but they qualified enough athletes for Saturday’s CIF-Southern Section Division IV Prelims after top showings in the Del Rey League Championships on May 6 at St. Paul High in Santa Fe Springs.
Serra’s girls were led by sophomore Jasmine Reed who won the 100- and 200-meter dashes with times of 11.94 and 24.06 seconds, in order. She also keyed the Lady Cavaliers’ 4×100- and 4×400-meter relays to victory. Other runners on Serra’s 4×400 included Madison Golden, Jaela Williams and Kayla Pickens who were timed at 47.53 seconds to defeat runner-up and league rival Inglewood St. Mary’s Academy (48.11).
Serra’s 1,600 relay of Reed, Jaela Williams, Kayla Pickens and Golden won their race clocking 4:03.24.
Williams captured the 100-meter hurdles in 14.19.
For the boys, Malik Roberson made his return to football from last fall and this track and field season after tearing his ACL during his long jump at the CIF-Southern Section Masters Championships as a sophomore two years ago. He was out of action in both sports through the 2013-14 school year but showed promise with his wins in the 100 (10.89) and 200 (21.94).
Roberson also anchored the Cavaliers’ 4×100 relay team to a win timing 43.13. The first three Serra runners were Ziovian Cannady, Tyron Johnson and Cameron Hayes.
Serra’s boys also had the top two finishers in the long jump and shot put. The top finishers in the long jump included winner Roderick Atkinson (20 feet, two inches) and runner-up Jaiden Wosbey (19-5). In the shot put, Akinyele Turner won with a toss of 43-9 and Joshua Davis was second at 41-9.
In the 300-meter intermediate hurdles, the Cavaliers had a second and third place finish by Turner (41.21) and Canady (41.37), respectively.
The Division IV Prelims begin at 9 a.m. at Carpinteria High in South Santa Barbara County on Saturday. Top nine overall finishers in each event will vie in the Divisional Championships on May 23 at Cerritos College.
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Gardena Youth Basketball
Rebels, Shockers capture Gardena basketball championships
By Joe Snyder
Sports Editor
The Rebels won the Bantam (ages 6-7) championship of the Gardena Parks and Recreation Youth Basketball playoffs last Saturday at Rush Memorial Gymnasium.
The Rebels defeated the Bruins 16-11 for the title.
In that contest, the game was tied at four after the first quarter and remained close throughout.
The Rebels had leads of 9-6 at halftime and 13-11 after three quarters before shutting out the Bruins 3-0 in the fourth period to pull away.
Avery Jones proved dominant for the Rebels with a game-high 10 points. Cayim White and Aaron Jones added four and two points, in order.
Koby London led the Bruins with five points. Damien Lopez chipped in four points and Spencer Norman contributed two.
The game was originally scheduled to be played at the Rowley Park Gym but there was a malfunction with the scoreboard that forced officials to move the game to Rush.
In the Junior (age 12-13), the Shockers won the title over the Cardinals 54-46.
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Serra Baseball
Lack of offense plagues Serra in losses to Cathedral, Mira Costa
Sports Editor
Serra High’s baseball team had offensive woes in its league loss to host Cathedral on May 5 in Los Angeles and a Harvard-Westlake Tournament finale defeat to Mira Costa in a rematch of the 2013 CIF-Southern Section Division III championship game last Saturday at Serra.
Against the Mustangs, who will be hosting rival Redondo for a possible Bay League championship today at 3:15 p.m., the Cavaliers were unable to solve the strong Mira Costa pitching, led by starter and now 10-0 junior Trevor Franklin, mustering only one hit and one unearned run in a 4-1 loss.
Serra started out well in taking a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning when Adrian Morales brought home Morgan Lomax, who had the Cavaliers’ only hit, on a sacrifice fly.
From there, though, the Mustangs (21-7 overall and 6-2 in the Bay League) grabbed the lead for good with a run in the top of the second, two more in the third and one in the seventh. A single by Reese Alexander scored Ty Conrad for the tying run.
Mira Costa added two runs in the third behind a run-scoring single from Conrad.
“We quickly diminished,” Serra head coach Wilmer Aaron said. “It was poor execution. We can’t play good teams with poor execution. We have to learn to step up.”
Franklin gave up just one hit over five innings and freshman reliever pitched two perfect innings.
Hard luck Tommy Bothwell, who fell to 2-7 but has an earned run average of less than three, took the loss. He gave up five hits and walked five in 3 1/3 innings.
It was not the same for Serra in this game as in the Division III championship two years ago at Dodger Stadium. The Cavaliers, led by Dominic Smith (now with the New York Mets organization), downed the Mustangs 8-1 for their only CIF baseball crown in the school’s 65-year history.
Mira Costa is currently ranked eighth in the Southern Section Division III and play Redondo twice (at Redondo last Tuesday and at Mira Costa today) in a battle between two of the South Bay’s hottest teams at this time. The Mustangs won 12 of their last 14 games and were co-champions with Studio City Harvard-Westlake in the Harvard-Westlake Tournament, while the Sea Hawks (24-5) are rated second, behind a 26-0 San Dimas team that is 13th in the United States by Maxpreps, in Division III and ride a 13-game winning streak entering this week’s showdown. Redondo is 8-0 in the Bay League which includes sweeps of Peninsula and Palos Verdes.
At Cathedral, the Phantoms scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning to edge Serra (10-11 overall) 3-2.
Missed opportunities plagued the Cavaliers as they stranded 11 base runners and had nine hits.
Serra tied the game at two in the top of the fifth behind run-scoring hits by sophomore Gary McCoy and Morales. McCoy went 2-for-4 with one run batted in and a run scored.
The Cavaliers close league with two games against La Salle of Pasadena and a make-up game against Cathedral.
Serra was at La Salle last Monday but results were unavailable. The Cavaliers hosted the Lancers on Wednesday and host the Phantoms in a game that will be made up from last Friday’s rain out today at 3:15 p.m. with slim hopes of pulling off a CIF-Southern Section Division III playoff berth on the line.
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Gardena Baseball
Gardena finishes league with losses to Banning
By Joe Snyder
Sports Editor
Gardena High’s baseball team ended the Marine League with a 2-8 record after lopsided losses to eventual co-league champion Wilmington Banning last week.
At Banning on May 4, the Panthers were shut out by the Pilots 10-0 behind a combined five-inning no-hitter by pitchers Michael Ramirez and Justin Yanez.
Ramirez struck out seven batters and walked only one in four innings.
On May 6 at Gardena, Yanez was the winning pitcher in Banning’s 11-3 victory to end its league at 9-1 and finish tied for first with Narbonne.
The Panthers finished three innings with a 3-2 lead but the Pilots overpowered them with three runs apiece in the top of the fourth, fifth and seventh innings.
Johnny Campbell was a bright spot for Gardena, which is 7-8 overall, as he went 3-for-4 with one run batted in and a run scored. Robert Chavez also went 3-for-3.
Ivan Reynoso was 3-for-3 with two RBI’s and one run scored to key Banning.
Gardena finished fifth on the field but, officially, ended up in a three-way tie for fourth and last place with Carson and Washington since the Colts were forced to forfeit their final five league games, including their last two to the Generals, due to an bench clearing brawl in a league game at Carson against San Pedro on April 23. It was the second time in less than a year that Carson was involved in a brawl, the other being on April 29, 2014 in a league rivalry against Banning. As a result, CIF-Los Angeles City Section officials ended Carson’s season more than two weeks early and forced the Colts to forfeit all remaining games.
The Panthers and Washington are both L.A. City Division II teams, while Banning, Carson, Narbonne and San Pedro are in Division I and Gardena swept the Generals in April 21 and 23 games giving the Panthers a good chance at making the playoffs, which begin next week. Pairings will be chosen this week.
