Former Santiago Canyon College president sues district over enrollment fraud claims

• September 20, 2026

Former Santiago Canyon College President Jeannie Kim has sued the Rancho Santiago Community College District, alleging whistleblower retaliation after she raised concerns about suspected fraudulent student enrollments at its two colleges.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Orange County Superior Court, alleges Kim became known for combating suspected enrollment fraud at Santiago Canyon and Santa Ana colleges before she faced escalating scrutiny and adverse treatment. She received a vote of no confidence from the group representing Santiago Canyon College faculty members in November 2025.

In May 2026, after returning from medical leave, the district informed Kim that the Board of Trustees had decided to remove her as president, and she was later placed on paid administrative leave, according to the lawsuit.

Santiago Canyon College Vice Chancellor Enrique Perez is currently serving as the college’s acting president.

Kim, who alleges whistleblower retaliation, gender and racial discrimination, discrimination based on her medical leave and disability, and a hostile work environment, is seeking economic and noneconomic damages, compensation for lost wages and benefits, and attorney fees and legal costs. Additionally, she is seeking reinstatement to her position.

Fraudulent enrollments

Beginning in 2023, the suit alleges, Kim raised concerns through district channels about fraudulent student enrollments at the district’s two colleges — Santiago Canyon College in Orange and Santa Ana College — after seeing what she believed was a growing problem with people using automated “bots” or other fraudulent methods to enroll or reenroll in classes. She warned administrators that the district could be collecting state apportionment funds associated with fraudulent enrollments, according to the lawsuit.

The district serves 571,000 residents in the communities of Anaheim Hills, Orange, Santa Ana, Villa Park and portions of Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove and Tustin. Along with its two community colleges, the district also operates eight other facilities, including the Orange County Regional Fire Training Center and the Orange County Sheriff’s Regional Training Academy.

Kim alleges she discussed her concerns with Chancellor Marvin Martinez and Vice Chancellor of Educational Services Enrique Perez, and stressed how the two colleges were handling suspected fraudulent enrollments differently.

At Santiago Canyon, Kim said, the college took steps to combat the problem, including implementing artificial intelligence fraud-detection technology in the fall of 2024. According to the lawsuit, the technology substantially reduced fraudulent enrollments but also contributed to a 14% decline in reported credit enrollment.

Santa Ana College, however, continued to allow enrollments or reenrollments that Kim suspected were fraudulent, even as Santiago Canyon College was working to remove them, according to the lawsuit.

In January 2025, the lawsuit alleges, Kim raised concerns with Martinez about how declining enrollment at Santiago Canyon and the loss of state apportionment funding could affect the district’s budget. She also questioned how the college could absorb the costs of union contracts Martinez was negotiating, including a proposed 14% increase, given its declining enrollment.

Kim claims those concerns, along with her warnings about enrollment fraud and its financial impact, preceded increasing scrutiny and adverse treatment that she alleges amounted to retaliation.

“Kim made efforts to clean up and remove the fraudulent or false enrollment numbers for (Santiago Canyon College), which led to reduced funds, while the Chancellor was negotiating pay raises with the unions with full knowledge of the shortfall issue he was creating by his actions,” said Kim’s attorney, Daniel Moussatche of the Riverside law firm Wagner Zemming Christensen, in a statement.

Dispute intensifies

The dispute intensified in May 2025, when Kim, according to the lawsuit, warned Perez and Assistant Vice Chancellor Jesse Gonzalez in writing that continuing to enroll or reenroll “known fraudulent actors” could mean the district was knowingly committing fraud by accepting state funding tied to those enrollments.

Kim claims Perez described the accusations as “serious” and that legal counsel would need to become involved if she was making a whistleblower complaint. Kim characterized the response as “haranguing” and threatening, according to the lawsuit.

After warning administrators of the potential repercussions from failing to properly address fraudulent enrollments, Kim claims district officials increasingly scrutinized her work, undermined her authority and subjected her to hostility.

Meanwhile, the issue of fraudulent enrollments drew scrutiny from the state auditor, and Santiago Canyon College was one of three colleges targeted by the state for an audit, according to the lawsuit.

Auditors began visiting the campus in December 2025 and interviewed Kim about the college’s efforts to identify fraudulent students. The audit’s findings remain pending, Moussatche said.

Medical leave

Kim, a breast cancer survivor, went on leave for “personal medical reasons” from June 9 to 24, 2025. Martinez, the district chancellor, wanted to discipline her over a doctor’s note that included previously approved vacation days. Kim obtained a revised note as requested, according to the lawsuit.

Several months later, Kim received the no-confidence vote from the Santiago Canyon College Academic Senate, which cited 120 items as evidence against her, according to the lawsuit.

Kim went on medical leave again in March after suffering a panic attack, and returned to work in May. While she was on leave, Kim claims district officials criticized her publicly, according to the lawsuit.

Upon her return to work, Kim was told that the Board of Trustees had decided to remove her as president, according to the lawsuit. Later that month, Kim was placed on administrative leave.

“Plaintiff’s district email was immediately disabled, her office access and equipment were removed, and staff were told she was not permitted on campus,” according to the lawsuit.

Rancho Santiago Community College District spokesman Eugene Fields acknowledged in an email Friday that the district and Santa Ana College have faced fraudulent enrollment attempts, and that the district has established processes for reviewing and verifying enrollment reporting.

“RSCCD and Santa Ana College dispute the allegation that they knowingly claimed fraudulent enrollments or received funding based on knowingly false enrollment information,” said Fields, declining further comment because of the pending litigation.

The lawsuit comes as the district faces other recent controversies involving its leadership.

Earlier this month, Chancellor Martinez was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into allegations against him that were not disclosed. Vice Chancellor Iris Ingram was named acting chancellor.

Martinez already had been the subject of possible discipline by the board earlier this year. In April, the district’s Board of Trustees formed an ad hoc committee to evaluate his performance.

​ Orange County Register 

Successful Aging: The history of National Grandparents Day

• September 20, 2026

You are on an airplane chatting with your seatmate, who is a grandmother going to New York to visit her grandchildren. With ease, she whips out photos of the precious newborn, her beautiful daughter graduating from college, and her handsome grandson playing soccer for his high school. We grandparents are proud. They are our legacy.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter made sure that grandparents were honored and remembered by declaring the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day with three purposes: to honor grandparents, to allow grandparents to show love for their grandchildren, and to help children become aware of the strength, information, and guidance older people can offer.

National Grandparents Day was celebrated on Sept. 13. Although I am late this year, the day is sufficiently important to mark the event.

Here’s a small grammatical point that is an intentional omission. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day have an apostrophe. National Grandparents Day does not. That is because Marion McQuade, founder of Grandparents Day and mother of 15 children and 43 grandchildren, did not envision the holiday as belonging to grandparents. She saw this day as more inclusive, a day to celebrate the entire family, to connect the generations, and for grandparents to confirm their loving legacy that will benefit future generations.

If you wonder why we care so deeply for our grandchildren, it all began a million years ago in the plains of Africa, writes geriatrician Dr. William Thomas (“What are Old People for? How Elders Will Save the World,” VanderWyk & Burnham, 2004). “A mother gave birth to a hominid child after a long and exhausting labor. She barely had enough energy to nurse her baby and not enough energy to feed or care for her other children.”

“A miracle occurred,” writes Thomas. The maternal grandmother came to the rescue and intentionally shared her food with her grandchildren. It was a defining moment that created a new pattern of support that carried over to other families.” Humans are one of the species with grandparents who deliberately help raise their grandchildren. Orca whales and elephants do the same.

Here are a few facts about the 65 million grandparents in the U.S.

Grandparents’ age. The average age of grandparents is 68 years. On average, grandparents are 50 when they have their first grandchild.

The grandparent economy. This refers to grandparents’ financial support and care of their grandchildren. Overall, grandparents provide an estimated $731 billion in annual unpaid care of grandchildren, a labor contribution that families and the broader economy rely on but do not formally count.

Grandparents as financial support. Nine in 10 grandparents spend money on their grandchildren, contributing an average of $2,654 annually. They are most likely to spend on gifts for birthdays and holidays. They also spend to cover essentials such as clothing, food, school supplies, childcare, camps, and family travel.

Essential technology. For grandparents who live more than 50 miles from their grandchildren, technology continues to be their key to connection. More than three-quarters of grandparents rely on texting, video calls, social media, and family group chats to stay connected.

I had the opportunity to speak with some grandparents about what they found to be the best thing about being a grandparent. Here are some of their responses.

• “I see them as a continuation of me. And I take full credit for their success,” said with a smile.
• “I love the role of ‘piquing their curiosity to learn,’ such as going to the Farmer’s Market to try new food and hear new music.”
• “All you have to do is love them, and they love you back. You don’t have to raise them.”
• “You can watch them from a distance and see the world from their perspective.”
• “I enjoy their accomplishments without feeling a sense of responsibility, knowing our values and experiences as a family are going to be continued and remembered tangibly.”
• “Everything. And I do tell them what I am thinking because that’s who I am.”
• “I enjoy watching them grow up, something I didn’t have a lot of time for when I had the pressure of establishing a career.”
• “Becoming a grandparent is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The role of a grandparent does not come with a job description. Yet a grandparent is a historian, role model, provider of emotional support, playmate, and a source of unconditional love. Let’s make every day Grandparents Day. I think we all could use a grandparent!

Stay well and know that kindness is never a waste of time.

Helen Dennis is a nationally recognized leader on issues of aging and the new retirement with academic, corporate, and nonprofit experience. Contact Helen with your questions and comments at Helendenn@gmail.com. Visit Helen at HelenMdennis.com and follow her on facebook.com/SuccessfulAgingCommunity.

​ Orange County Register 

Inch by inch, this Chicago diver scours Lake Michigan’s floor for our lost stuff: ‘The guy everybody calls’

• September 20, 2026

Mike Lang was mid-high-five when he heard a faint ping against the bow of his boat.

Then came a clunk, as his wedding ring dropped 27 feet to the bottom of Lake Michigan.

Lang, 44, had been watching the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds perform in last month’s Chicago’s Air and Water Show from his boat, anchored about a mile and a half off Northerly Island. He and a friend were celebrating a particularly impressive flyover when the ring flew from his finger.

“As soon as I did that, I knew there was one person who could ever give me any type of fighting chance of it being found,” Lang said.

After recording his coordinates and dropping a glass bottle in the water to mark the spot, Lang called his longtime friend and dock neighbor, Yohei Yamada.

Yamada — a professional diver and boat captain — has developed a reputation for finding what other people can’t: rings, watches, keys and phones lost deep beneath the surface of Lake Michigan.

“If you ask anybody in the harbor system if they know a diver, typically they give out my number,” Yamada, 49, said.

Clients send him the approximate coordinates of where the object was lost and, for a few hundred dollars, Yamada sets out on his repurposed police boat — christened Chicago Diver, like his business — to search. Summers are the busiest, he said, as “people come out and just drop everything.”

Some items, like bikes and anchors, are easy to spot by sight. For others, like jewelry, Yamada has to use a pinpoint metal detector, searching the mud inch by inch. Sometimes, the dense weeds at the bottom of the lake reach lengths of 10 feet, requiring Yamada to cut through to reach the bottom. Other times, clouds of silt can limit visibility.

This year, Yamada said, he found four rings, a bracelet, a couple of wallets and 10 cellphones.

A particularly high-profile search was for a wedding ring belonging to former Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo in 2020. The player had lost some weight and, as he washed his hands at a fuel dock, the ring flew into Belmont Harbor, Yamada said.

Rizzo spoke to harbor employees and was directed to Yamada, who found the ring in about an hour and a half.

Meanwhile, Lang’s ring was a “tough one,” Yamada said, requiring two days of diving. Using the boat’s coordinates and the direction of the wind, he identified a search area of hundreds of feet of silt, rocks and shells.

On the first night, Yamada retrieved Lang’s bottle. The next day, he returned and discovered the ring.

“I’m amazed I found it,” he said. “I was excited to give it back to him.”

Yamada immediately texted Lang a wet-suited selfie, still dripping water and holding up the ring.

“I couldn’t believe what I was looking at,” Lang said. “He had somehow done the impossible again.”

The lake is calm as Yamada sets for a long day on the water on a recent summer day. First, he plans to search for a lost anchor and a window frame, before heading to a boat-cleaning job and captaining a private cruise in the evening.

He drops anchor in the Playpen — a designated boating area between Oak Street Beach and Navy Pier — and puts up a red and white flag to signal that there is a diver down. Then, he zips up his wet suit, unfurls a long hose connected to a compressor and hops in. For 30 minutes, a dark shadow moves underwater, circling the boat. Scattered bubbles pop at the surface.

Eventually, Yamada resurfaces with beer cans, lighters, sunglasses, two phones and a vape cartridge — but no anchor.

“It’s anticlimactic,” he says.

He climbs back onto the boat, switches on the engine and steers toward Monroe Harbor. As he pulls in, he points to an area of water, saying it’s the site of a ring he never found.

Usually, Yamada said, he finds what he’s looking for. But sometimes, inaccurate coordinates or a drifting boat make the search trickier. He scours the lake for hours, breathing through a tube that gives him unlimited “bottom time,” unlike a scuba diver who would run out of air.

“I don’t ever have to quit,” he said. “If something takes forever, I’m still down there working.”

Yamada, who was born in Tokyo, has spent most of his life in or on the water. He learned to swim at 5 or 6, after his family moved to Peoria for his father’s job as an engineer for the construction and mining equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc.

After spending portions of his middle and high school years in Switzerland, Yamada returned to the United States to attend the University of Illinois Chicago on a swimming scholarship. In the summers, he worked as a lifeguard at Oak Street Beach.

Eventually, he was recruited to join a small team dedicated to rescuing people and retrieving bodies from the lake, where he learned to dive.

“It was not easy,” said Ron Dorneker, a friend of Yamada’s and a former captain of the unit. “We had a boss that was very strict and would throw things in the water and make us search.”

“From the very beginning, Yohei had a huge desire to learn,” Dorneker added.

Occasionally, Yamada said, people would ask him to look for their lost belongings and he would search in his own time. As he garnered a reputation around the city’s harbors, he realized that the work could be even more lucrative than lifeguarding and decided to strike out on his own.

“It wasn’t that I started it — it was that people asked,” he said.

Harbor officials said Yamada is usually their first recommendation when something is dropped in the lake.

“There are other people that do this type of work, but when somebody loses something really valuable, he’s the guy everybody calls,” Dorneker said.

Along with finding lost valuables, Yamada does underwater boat and harbor repair work — fixing broken propellers, rudders and worn-out chains — and, in the winters, works full time as the captain of a private boat in the Caribbean.

“Basically all my work is either underwater or on the water,” he said.

Yamada also does water safety and special effects for NBC’s “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago P.D.,” a gig he got through a mentor he met while lifeguarding.

“Throughout the years, you know, (NBC) would be like, ‘Hey, can you do this? Can you do that?’ And I never said no, so they started relying on me for harder and harder things,” he said.

IMDb credits him as a minor character in two episodes of “Chicago Fire” and with stunt work in three “Chicago P.D.” episodes.

“It’s fun,” he said. “It’s all different, weird things.”

Yamada also spends some of his leisure time submerged, playing underwater hockey, in which snorkelers use short sticks to maneuver a weighted puck into a goal.

Yamada says people are often fascinated by his work, but to him, “it isn’t that exciting.”

“It’s every day, it’s always work, work, work. People have just never heard of what I do, so that’s why they’re interested,” he said.

Still, he said, the water is peaceful.

“The air is clearer and it’s cooler,” he said. “There’s no one bothering you.”

​ Orange County Register 

Nico Iamaleava, UCLA football show resilience against Purdue

• September 20, 2026

PASADENA — UCLA found a way.

There was plenty of drama: an injured quarterback, costly penalties, an accurate Purdue quarterback who nearly spoiled the second home game of the Bob Chesney era at the Rose Bowl and a piece of history along the way.

Nico Iamaleava was hit and landed on his right throwing shoulder with 1:38 left in the third quarter before returning in the fourth, and a crowd of 30,916 watched UCLA outlast an improved Purdue team 52-38.

“What a warrior because he was pretty nicked up,” UCLA coach Bob Chesney said postgame. “He wouldn’t get out of the game, and he just wanted to keep fighting and keep playing.”

Iamaleava battled through the injury and finished with his best game of the season. He completed 19 of 31 passes for 276 yards and three touchdowns without an interception as UCLA improved to 3-0.

“It speaks to the growth of the team,” Iamaleava said. “It speaks to Coach Chesney and the buy-in to his process.”

The running back corps of Wayne Knight, Anthony Woods and Jaivian Thomas each produced touchdowns for UCLA on a night when the Bruins again leaned heavily on their ground game.

Knight rushed for 177 yards on 18 carries and scored two touchdowns while continuing to embrace the “Dark Knight” moniker that has caught on around the program.

“Getting a nickname is cool, and people feed off of that,” Knight said.

Knight now has eight rushing touchdowns through UCLA’s first three games. The Bruins had eight rushing touchdowns as a team during the entire 2025 season.

UCLA passed another test in its first Big Ten game of the season against a Purdue team that presented a much greater offensive challenge than the Bruins had faced through the first two weeks.

Purdue quarterback Ryan Browne completed 19 of 30 passes for 378 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. UCLA did manage to limit leading Boilermakers rusher Fame Ijeboi to 47 yards on 17 carries, while linebacker Sammy Omosigho forced two fumbles to bring his season total to four.

The blemish for Omosigho was a pair of roughing-the-passer penalties.

“The first one I was pushed into,” Omosigho said. “Just got to be smarter with the whistles, but we’ll continue flying around.”

UCLA picked up another win on a night when it needed a fast start, and that came with Iamaleava throwing the ball with confidence and timing.

On a night when the defense forced three turnovers but was beaten over the top several times by Browne, Iamaleava, Knight, Woods and Thomas came through offensively.

UCLA has put together complete stretches of football through its first three games, but Saturday checked another box.

Iamaleava delivered his signature game at the Rose Bowl, and when the Bruins were finally pushed, they had an answer.

UCLA football focuses on efficient starts ahead of Purdue

Myles Baker sees fit with UCLA during senior season at Sierra Canyon

​ Orange County Register 

Aidan Antonio pleased with time, but not his finish in Woodbridge Classic

• September 20, 2026

IRVINE – A better time, but not the preferred place.

Woodbridge senior Aidan Antonio sliced 20 seconds off of his time from last year to this year in the Woodbridge Classic cross country meet. But he was not jazzed about his eighth-place finish competing in a national-level field Saturday in the Doug Speck Sweepstakes boys race, the final race of two long days of cross country in what annually is the largest regular-season meet in the nation.

Antonio’s eighth-place time was 13 minutes, 47.6 seconds. He ran the meet’s sweepstakes race in 14:06.30 to finish fifth last year.

“It was a good time,” said Antonio, last season’s Orange County boys cross country athlete of the year. “But at this point I care more about the placement.”

Antonio was in fourth place after the first mile.

“I wasn’t able to stay in the position I needed to be in,” he said.

Abdinasir Hassan of Northfield in Colorado finished first in 13:35.5, five seconds ahead of second-place Kai Gutierrez of Southlake Carroll in Texas. Hassan crossed the finish line with long, smooth strides.

Southlake Carroll won the boys sweepstakes team championship with 206 points.

Santa Margarita senior Carol Dye was Orange County’s best in the Bob Day Girls Sweepstakes race, the top girls competition of the meet. Dye was 10th at 16 minutes, 18.5 seconds.

Dye said she was happy with how the race went for her, and that her training paid off Saturday.

“I kept my same training plan,” she said. “We’ve been going pretty heavy. I think not letting off the gas too early in the season and sticking with my race plan has made me so successful.”

She finished second in her two previous meets, the Saddleback Cup at Trabuco Hills High and the Mountie Xpress Invitational at Mt. San Antonio College.

Illness struck the JSerra girls cross country team, a program that went into this season with five straight CIF State championships. Reese Holley, All-Orange County second team last year as a junior, was unable to compete in the Woodbridge Classic.

JSerra still turned in a great team performance. The Lions finished third in the team standings in the Bob Day Girls Sweepstakes.

They were led by sophomore Brooklyn Tennant’s 11th place finish at 16 minutes, 19.1 seconds. Fellow JSerra sophomore Maya Pawlowicz was 15th at 16:26.1.

JSerra coach Chase Frazier was more than pleased with how the Lions ran.

“I’m thrilled with the way they stepped up,” Frazier said. “Everyone ran their best time this season, and we’re ready to go.”

JSerra will compete in the Great American XC Festival in North Carolina in two weeks.

Crater of Oregon won the girls sweepstakes team championship with 142 points.

The top Orange County finisher in the girls rated varsity race was Mission Viejo sophomore Quinn Turner. She was 13th at 17 minutes, 00.6 seconds.

JSerra senior Zac O’Leary was the top county finisher in the boys rated varsity race at 14:26.5.

The Woodbridge Classic drew more than 19,000 athletes representing 645 schools from 19 states.

​ Orange County Register 

UCLA football outduels Purdue in high-scoring Big Ten opener

• September 20, 2026

PASADENA — UCLA’s offense was worth the price of admission in its Big Ten opener against Purdue, powering the Bruins to their first conference win under Bob Chesney.

The Bruins (3-0, 1-0 Big Ten) dominated through the air and on the ground in their 52-38 victory over Purdue (1-2, 0-1).

Although the Bruins’ offense took care of business, the same wasn’t true for the defense. UCLA struggled to get the Boilermakers off the field as chunk plays and fourth-down conversions kept Purdue in the game.

The Boilermakers held a four-point lead early in the third quarter, but the Bruins quickly rallied, outscoring Purdue 28-17 in the second half to pull away.

Nico Iamaleava had his best game of the season, completing 19 of 31 passes for 276 yards and three touchdowns. The senior added seven carries for 55 yards.

“Last week it wasn’t his greatest game,” UCLA coach Bob Chesney said. “We watch him go out here today and he was near perfect for a stretch at the beginning of the game. Finding all kinds of different receivers and being able to carry the ball himself a little bit. What a warrior because he was kinda nicked up out there in moments and he wouldn’t come out the game.”

As a team, the Bruins rushed for 369 yards. Wayne Knight led the way in the backfield, finishing with 18 carries for 177 yards and two touchdowns.

“This game, the biggest test for us was putting it all together. I think we all stood up to that challenge,” Knight said.

The Bruins’ passing game, which has mostly been an afterthought through the first two games, shined in the first half.

Iamaleava tossed his first touchdown pass of the year to cap the Bruins’ opening possession. He found Semaj Morgan for a 20-yard touchdown to give UCLA an early 7-0 lead.

Purdue had a lightning-quick response. On its first play from scrimmage, Ryan Browne hit Xavier Townsend on a drag route, and Townsend did the rest on a 75-yard touchdown to tie the game.

Morgan hauled in his second touchdown of the night when Iamaleava found him for a 27-yard score to put the Bruins back on top 14-7.

The Boilermakers appeared headed for another promising drive, but two plays into the possession, UCLA forced its first turnover of the game. Linebacker Sammy Omosigho forced a fumble inside Purdue territory, giving the Bruins’ offense a short field to work with.

It was the first of two forced fumbles by Omosigho, bringing his season total to four. The Oklahoma transfer has been a pivotal part of the Bruins’ turnaround under defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler.

Omosigho said punching the ball out was something the defense keyed in on during practice.

“That was a big emphasis throughout the week, just trying to punch the ball out. Creating another turnover, creating another opportunity for the offense,” Omosigho said. “That’s my goal every week and every day.”

On the ensuing possession, Knight scored his seventh touchdown of the season on a 6-yard run to give the Bruins a two-score lead.

Purdue scored a pair of touchdowns to tie the game at 21 late in the half.

Just before halftime, Mateen Bhaghani made a 34-yard field goal to send the Bruins into the break with a 24-21 lead.

On the opening possession of the second half, Purdue drove down the field in five plays to take its first lead of the game. The Boilermakers’ lead did not last long, as Anthony Woods rumbled for a 16-yard touchdown on the following possession to put UCLA back up 31-28.

Knight found the end zone again on a tough 7-yard run to give the Bruins a 10-point lead.

Purdue cut UCLA’s lead to seven with a field goal before, for the second game in a row, a third Bruins running back found the end zone. Jaivian Thomas scored on a 17-yard touchdown run to put UCLA back up by double digits.

The Boilermakers did not go away, scoring on a 1-yard run by Ijeboi to make it 45-38 with 12:38 left in the game.

Landon Ellis caught his first touchdown in a UCLA uniform late in the fourth quarter. Iamaleava found Ellis on a 6-yard touchdown pass to put the game away.

UCLA will travel to Maryland next week in its first road game outside of California as it looks to go 4-0 for the first time since 2022.

​ Orange County Register 

Myles Baker sees fit with UCLA during senior season at Sierra Canyon

• September 20, 2026

PASADENA — It’s enthusiasm Sierra Canyon senior safety Myles Baker can’t hide.

Baby blue head cover and arm sleeves and the next chapter of Baker’s career awaits at UCLA. He was in attendance for another night at the Rose Bowl before his Bruins outwilled Purdue 52-38 in front of 30,916.

Baker had another defining game on Friday night, leading a bruising defense that took Orange Lutheran out of rhythm to eventually win 28-10. He made five tackles and a game-clinching interception.

A potential preview of Baker’s future 25 miles east at the Rose Bowl, where he’ll attempt to become a mainstay on UCLA’s defense in 2027.

It’s not the phrase that Baker has appreciated from UCLA’s coaching staff in Bob Chesney, defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler, safeties coach Anthony DiMichele and defensive analyst Justice Seales. But the constructive criticism and mentorship he’s received.

“They were hard on me,” Baker said.

Hitschler was a defensive backs coach at Alabama in 2024 and coached safeties at Wisconsin and Cincinnati. The calm but directness of Hitschler fits with Baker’s personality.

“I believe in our coaching staff,” Baker said about Chesney, Hitschler, DiMichele and Seales. “I believe in the resources that we have at UCLA and we are going to get the job done.”

​ Orange County Register 

Christian Moore caps Angels’ comeback with walk-off hit against Twins

• September 20, 2026

ANAHEIM — In the penultimate home game of a miserable season, the Angels gave the Fan Appreciation Night crowd something to celebrate.

Down by three runs in the eighth inning, the Angels scored the winning run on Christian Moore’s infield hit to beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-5, in 11 innings on Saturday night.

The Angels scored two in the eighth on an Adam Frazier pinch-hit double, and then Vaughn Grissom tied the game in the ninth with a one-out homer.

In the 11th, the Angels had the bases loaded with two outs. Moore, who had just entered the game in the previous inning, swung at the first pitch he saw and hit a bouncer that deflected off the back of the leg of pitcher Taylor Rogers. It rolled too far from Rogers for him to have a play, and the Angels celebrated the walk-off victory.

The Angels were able to get to the game to the 11th because right fielder Josh Lowe threw out a runner at the plate in the top of the 10th. With one out, Ben Ross had tried to tag up on a fly ball to shallow right field, and Lowe threw him out to retire the side.

Left-hander Tayler Saucedo retired all three hitters he faced in the top of the 11th, setting up the Angels for the winning rally.

The Angels (60-95), who need three more victories in their final seven games to avoid the first 100-loss season in franchise history, spent most of the night wasting opportunities.

They were hitless in their first nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, including eight trips to the plate with two runners on base.

In the eighth, Denzer Guzman led off with a walk and then Lowe doubled. An out later, Frazier pulled a double down the right field line, scoring two. A Zach Neto walk brought Mike Trout to the plate with the tying and go-ahead runs on base, but Trout grounded into a double play.

Grissom’s 12th homer of the year tied the game, which spared starter Reid Detmers a loss.

Detmers recorded his 200th strikeout of the season, but saw his streak of seven straight quality starts come to an end.

Detmers gave up four runs in five innings. Detmers had not allowed more than three runs in any of his previous 11 starts since the All-Star break.

When he struck out Austin Martin in the first inning, though, he reached a milestone that no Angels pitcher had reached since Shohei Ohtani in 2022. No Angels lefty had done it since Chuck Finley in 1999.

After he retired six of seven hitters in the first two innings, Detmers started giving up hits.

In the third, he gave up two runs on two hits. An inning later, he gave up another run on two more hits.

And in the fifth — just after a José Siri two-run homer brought the Angels within a run — Detmers gave up a first-pitch homer to No. 9 hitter Ryan Kreidler.

Kreidler hit a 92 mph fastball, which was a couple ticks slower than his normal velocity.

Detmers got through his 179th inning of the year, and then his night was over after five. He is scheduled for one more start, next weekend in Seattle. He’ll have a chance to become the Angels’ first pitcher to reach 180 innings since Andrew Heaney in 2018.

The Angels did little to support him, though.

They were hitless with runners in scoring position for the first seven innings of the game, including Grissom stranding six runners in his first three trips to the plate.

Moisés Ballesteros, who had been one of the hottest hitters on the team this month, also left four runners on in his first three trips.

More to come on this story.

​ Orange County Register