California Sen. Laphonza Butler makes history as first out LGBTQ Senate Judiciary Committee member

• October 19, 2023

Washington  — California Sen. Laphonza Butler will fill the Senate Judiciary Committee seat left empty by the passing of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a history-making move that also gives Democrats back their razor-thin control of the powerful committee tasked with vetting federal judicial nominees.

Butler, the first known Black lesbian in the Senate, is also the first out LGBTQ member of the Judiciary Committee.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Butler earlier this month to fill the seat left vacant by Feinstein, a longtime California Democrat who died last month at the age of 90.

Since Feinstein’s passing, the committee has been at a 9-9 deadlock between Democrats and Republicans, but with the addition of Butler, the one-member majority will enable them to give a thumbs-up to Biden’s judicial nominees without the help of Republicans on the panel. Those nominees will still need to garner 51 votes in the full Senate to secure confirmation.

For Democrats and progressives, confirming President Joe Biden’s picks has been a key part of their agenda given the fact that Donald Trump reshaped much of the federal judiciary during his four years as president by pushing through scores of conservative judges on lower courts throughout the country and putting three conservative justices on the Supreme Court.

When Feinstein was ill and away from the Senate earlier this year, the panel was also deadlocked, which led some Democrats to call on her to resign.

“I think Sen. Butler’s appointment to the Judiciary Committee is really momentous. She gives Chairman Durbin the majority he needs to resume the confirmation of President Biden’s judicial nominees, which needs to be an urgent priority for the Senate,” said Alex Aronson, a former chief counsel to committee member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat.

Aronson added that the process was particularly critical given how successful Trump was “in stocking the courts with far-right movement ideologues” who were boosted by groups like the Federalist Society.

In total, Congress confirmed 234 Trump judicial nominees during his tenure, according to the American Constitution Society, which tracks the nominations.

During his more than two and a half years in office, Biden has had 147 of his judicial nominees confirmed, including two federal trial court judges who were approved by the Senate on Tuesday: Julia Kathleen Munley for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and Jennifer L. Hall for the District of Delaware.

Since Feinstein’s passing, the committee has held one nomination hearing – for Mustafa Taher Kasubhai’s nomination to the district court in Oregon – but has yet to hold a vote on a pending nominee. There are currently six nominees awaiting a committee vote and five nominees who have yet to have a hearing before the panel, according to ACS.

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Meanwhile, Biden has continued to announce more nominations, with his latest slate reflecting a pledge he made at the start of his presidency to pick diverse candidates for the federal bench.

“These choices also continue to fulfill the President’s promise to ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country – both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds,” the White House said in a statement on Wednesday announcing two new nominees to the Northern District of Oklahoma.

The president said he was nominating Sara E. Hill, a former attorney general for the Cherokee Nation, and John D. Russell, a former trial attorney with the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that Butler would also hold seats on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, as well as the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Rules and Administration Committee.

​ Orange County Register 

Long Beach’s 562 LIVE goes old school with a Halloween-themed radio production

• October 19, 2023

Normally, Long Beach’s 562 LIVE Radio plays hip-hop, R&B, pop and dance-club music.

But once a year, on a terrifying night when the monsters and other creatures come out to play, the station pauses its usual programming and becomes Haunted Radio.

“I want people to imagine being around the campfire, around a radio with the lights out and listening to spooky stories,” said Alex Exum, the station founder and narrator of the annual Halloween-themed radio show dubbed Haunted Radio, which will air online from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Oct. 31. It will also be available on demand after its original air date. Tickets for the show $9 and can be purchased at 562live.com/halloween.

“It’s all family-friendly,” he said. “So it’s going to be a spooky Halloween event for the whole family that they can enjoy by listening to audio and using theater of the mind.”

The two-hour radio program is an homage to the classic radio dramas that were among the main forms of entertainment in the in the ’20s-’40s, as people gathered around their radios listening to plays created specifically for that specific medium.

“I was an actor before I got into radio and I always loved old radio theater of the ’30s and ’40s,” Exum said. “And I’m now trying to just get anyone interested to keep the art of radio theater alive. It’s a dying art.”

For the Halloween show, which he launched in 2019, Exum does things as old school as possible, using a cast of more than a dozen Long Beach actors as well as sound effects and music to tell a handful of original scary stories. Of course, people aren’t going to be sitting around the radio, but instead can listen on laptops, phones or whatever devices they choose to stream the pre-recorded show.

“We have twist endings, shock scares and some amazing sound effects,” Exum said.

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This year’s lineup is made up of six original stories that include “Bigfoot Speaks: Interview with a Sasquatch!” It’s about a jaded talk show host who doesn’t believe in Bigfoot until he is approached by a man who claims to have captured him and brings the creature in for an interview.

“He has a Bigfoot translator device, which can translate the grunts and groans of the Bigfoot and at the end, you can imagine what will happen,” Exum said.

From there, the show digs into Long Beach’s scary history with “Scary Mary” a ghost that is said to still haunt the Queen Mary. There’s also a terror-themed love story dubbed “Dead Again,” and a murder mystery will then unfold with “Manor of Death,” that is if you dare to sonically step into the forsaken halls of a malevolent mansion.

If you survive that, the story of “The Diabolical Doctor Stein” awaits you with the nefarious experiments of an unhinged scientist that come to life.

But perhaps most terrifying of all, there’s a Karen in the mix.

With the tagline “Do You Know Who I Am?,” the final story of the night is titled “Karen.” It’s a story about a bored suburban housewife trying to find excitement in her dull existence until she loses it and turns her life into a living nightmare.

“Karen is not only a caricature, she’s all of us,” he said. “We’ve all been Karen and she loses her marbles toward the end of the play.

​ Orange County Register 

San Clemente approves final 4-district map for new by-district voting process

• October 19, 2023

The City Council has picked the map for how San Clemente should be carved up into four voting districts for future elections.

On Tuesday, in what was the council’s fourth public hearing, a council majority voted for the map considered the “clearest, easiest and clearly delineated by boundaries.” Those boundaries would form districts from which voters would chose their council representative; all voters would cast ballots for the city’s mayor, who would serve two-year terms.

Map 109 has been the one that has drawn the most support over the past few weeks.

If approved in a second required vote on on Nov. 7, the new districts will go into effect for the November 2024 election.

At that time, the council seats representing the more coastal District 3 and District 4 would be on the ballot and in 2026 voters in District 1 and District 2 would choose their councilmembers. The at-large election for mayor would be held in 2026.

Councilmembers have said creating an elected mayor position chosen by all voters would guarantee residents always have a voice in each election, regardless whether their district was on the ballot. Currently the mayor is chosen each year by councilmembers from among their ranks.

Map 109 includes the Talega and Rancho San Clemente communities as one district and Forster Ranch and Marble Head as another. The other two districts along the coast are divided by Avenida Victoria. One district would go toward North Beach and the other would go south toward Cypress Shores. From there, it would cross the 5 Freeway and go around the golf course toward the Broadmore area.

The switch to by-district elections comes after San Clemente’s at-large system – used for decade – was challenged in July for being “racially polarizing” and diluting the voice of minority groups. In response, the council in August began looking at the change to by-district elections.

In the end, councilmembers Steve Knoblock, Victor Cabral and Rick Loeffler voted for Map 109.

“I like Map 109, it does a good job of keeping the associations together,” Knoblock said. “I think it makes sense; it’s a clean map and keeps population numbers consistent.”

Loeffler agreed, saying, “A resident can look at this and it’s easy to understand; it just seems to me as the most obvious.” Cabral called it the “most straight-forward.”

Duncan and Councilmember Mark Enmeier pushed for a different map that separated Rancho San Clemente from Talega, saying pairing the two was not putting like with like.

“They are very different in terms of how they view their communities,” Enmeier said, adding he lives in Rancho San Clemente. He said other maps worked “really well to create communities that represent San Clemente in the traditional sense of how we look at San Clemente.”

The current two-term limits for councilmembers will be maintained and the at-large mayor will be able to serve up to three terms.

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​ Orange County Register 

Muslims come together in Orange County to mourn boy stabbed to death in Illinois

• October 19, 2023

At least 50 Muslim community members and others gathered at a vigil Tuesday night in Garden Grove, mourning the death of 6-year-old Palestinian American boy Wadea Al-Fayoume, whom officials say was stabbed to death in his suburban home near Chicago last weekend.

The Greater Los Angeles area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) and community partners organized Tuesday’s vigil, held at the Islamic Center of Orange County, to honor Al-Fayoume and all victims of Islamophobia and war, organizers said in a news release.

Al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 times last Saturday, Oct. 14 by his family’s landlord in Plainfield Township, Illinois, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said. Police said the suspect also stabbed Al-Fayoume’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, who is hospitalized and fighting for her life, and reportedly missed her son’s funeral on Monday.

Will County officials determined the attack was a hate crime, and said the suspect targeted Al-Fayoume and his mother “due to them being Muslim, and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”

CAIR-LA officials said Tuesday’s vigil was, so far, the only local event specifically honoring Al-Fayoume. Numerous Israeli and Palestinian peace vigils and rallies have been held over the last week and around the world, with many calling for the end of innocent deaths after attacks in both Gaza and Israel by the Hamas terrorist group.

CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush condemned the attacks, saying that “no child deserves to feel insecure or threatened.”

“Every child is precious. Every child deserves protection,” Ayloush said. “Whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Palestinian, Israeli, American, White or Black — every child deserves that protection.”

Members of the Islamic Society of Orange County, Project Islamic H.O.P.E and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California also joined in Tuesday’s solemn event.

Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Center of Orange County, said a blessing for Al-Fayoume, his mother, and for those whose lives have been lost.

“Six-years-old… he did not do anything wrong to anybody,” Siddiqi said.

Referencing increasing violence in Israel and Gaza, Siddiqi said that Palestinians are “the longest-suffering people in the world.”

“Hundreds and thousands of them are killed, expelled from their homes, living as refugees,” Siddiqui said. “In their own home, they’re refugees.”

Community members at the vigil asked that humanity be remembered in divisive, atrocious times.

Najee Ali, the executive director of Project Islamic H.O.P.E., reminded attendees that “Islam is a religion of peace and justice.”

“This baby was murdered because he was a Palestinian. He was murdered because he was Muslim, and that’s something we should all be outraged about because at the end of the day, he’s a child. And he was murdered because of hatred, ignorance and those engaging in Islamophobia,” said Ali.

“We want to protect all innocent children,” Ali added. “Palestinian lives matter. Our children matter. Muslim children matter.”

CAIR-LA officials also criticized Orange County leaders for their release of a “one-sided statement” last week that they said “offers solidarity with Israeli victims of violence, but blatantly makes no mention of the 1,400 Palestinians killed by Israel in their most recent assault and bombardment of Gaza.”

“Instead of using their platform as an opportunity to recognize and support all the communities impacted by the recent events — including Palestinian Americans, Arab Americans and American Muslims — the (Orange County) supervisors chose to engage in old Islamophobic tropes that conflate violence with a religion practiced by 2 billion people around the world,” CAIR-LA officials stated, while asking the board members to meet with local Palestinian human rights advocates.

Related links

Local OC leaders respond to Israeli-Hamas war
OC Jews, Palestinians mourn those killed following surprise Hamas attack
What to know about the deadly stabbings of a Palestinian mother and her 6-year-old in Illinois
Pasadena peace vigil is a place for grief, prayer amid Mideast war
Rallies across Los Angeles County stand in memory of those killed in Israel and Gaza

​ Orange County Register 

Pasadena Express Innovation Kitchen tests Dim Sum Bites and Boba Black Tea Ice Cream

• October 19, 2023

Panda Express has a spot in Pasadena where the menu is slightly different than other locations in the chain and new items created at headquarters in Rosemead get tested on the public.

It’s called the Panda Express Innovation Kitchen and it’s currently serving new items called Dim Sum Bites.

They include Lobster & Shrimp Dumplings, stuffed with lobster, shrimp, cream cheese and vegetables, and Mini Chicken Wontons. filled with chicken and vegetables, according to a news release.

Dim Sum Bites also include Veggie Spring Rolls and Chicken Egg Rolls, which are available everywhere, and Apple Pie Rolls, which Panda Express calls its first-ever dessert item. It was introduced to mark its 40th anniversary. The chain began in the Glendale Galleria in 1983.

Bites at the Innovation Kitchen cost $3.75 for two dishes and $5 for three dishes.

Panda Express is testing another dessert called Boba Black Tea Ice Cream at the Innovation Kitchen and three other locations. It is a collaboration with Boba x Ice Cream, a company that sells small batch lactose-free ice cream by the pint for online delivery and in markets such as Sprouts.

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The ice cream cups cost $3.99 for 5 ounces.

The Dum Sum Bites test is scheduled to last until Nov. 28. The ice cream cups will be available until Nov. 14, according to the chain.

The Innovation Kitchen is at 3867 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.

The other locations that sell the ice cream are at 1717 Walnut Grove Ave, Rosemead; 3717 S Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas; and the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas, 3355 S Las Vegas Blvd.

Information: pandaexpress.com/innovation

​ Orange County Register 

Jim Jordan will back a temporary House speaker as he tries to shore up GOP support, lawmakers say

• October 19, 2023

By LISA MASCARO, FARNOUSH AMIRI and STEPHEN GROVES

WASHINGTON — Refusing to drop out, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan told GOP colleagues Thursday he will back a temporary U.S. House speaker as he works to shore up support to win the gavel himself.

Jordan delivered the message at a closed door meeting at the Capitol as the Republican majority considered an extraordinary plan to give the interim Speaker Pro-tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry more powers to reopen the House and conduct crucial business.

That’s according to Republicans who attended the private meeting and insisted on anonymity to discuss it.

The House is tentatively set to convene Thursday afternoon, but it’s doubtful now that Jordan will immediately try again to win a vote to become speaker. The hard-fighting ally of Donald Trump has been unable to win, but he and his far-right allies won’t step aside for a more viable GOP nominee.

At the same time, there is a sinking realization that the House could remain endlessly stuck, out of service and without a leader for the foreseeable future as the Republican majority spirals deeper into dysfunction. The impasse has left some Republican lawmakers settling in for a protracted stretch.

“I think clearly Nov. 17 is a real date,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., who leads a large conservative caucus, referring to the next deadline for Congress to approve funding or risk a federal government shutdown.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, arrives for the Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Next steps were highly uncertain Thursday as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options.

What was clear was that Jordan’s path to become House speaker was almost certainly lost.

On Wednesday, Jordan failed in a crucial second ballot, opposed by 22 Republicans, two more than he lost in first-round voting the day before. Many view the Ohio congressman as too extreme for a central seat of U.S. power and resented the harassing hardball tactics from Jordan’s allies for their votes. One lawmaker said they had received death threats.

“We’ll keep talking to members, keep working on it,” Jordan, a founding member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, said after the vote.

The House came to another abrupt standstill, 16 days now since the sudden ouster of Kevin McCarthy without a speaker — a position of power second in line to the presidency.

As Republicans upset and exhausted by the infighting retreated for private conversations, hundreds of demonstrators massed outside the Capitol over the Israel-Hamas war, a stark reminder of the concern over having the House adrift as political challenges intensify at home and abroad.

“The way out is that Jim Jordan has got to pull his name,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who voted twice against him. “He’s going to have to call it quits.”

After Wednesday’s vote, McCarthy and other party leaders appeared to tentatively rally around Jordan, giving the combative Judiciary Committee chairman the time he was demanding, though it was doubtful he could shore up enough votes.

With Republicans in majority control of the House, 221-212, Jordan must pick up most of his GOP foes to win. Wednesday’s tally, with 199 Republicans voting for Jordan and 212 for Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, left no candidate with a clear majority.

The holdouts added to a surprisingly large and politically diverse group of 20 Republicans who had rejected Jordan’s nomination the day before.

Jordan’s refusal to concede only further embittered some of the Republicans, who were upset that the party’s first choice, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, was essentially forced to drop his own bid 24 hours after a failed vote last week in large part because Jordan’s backers refused to give their support.

Bipartisan groups of lawmakers have been floating ways to operate the House by giving greater power to McHenry or another temporary speaker. The House had never ousted its speaker before McCarthy, and McHenry could tap the temporary powers that were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to ensure continuity of government.

The novel concept of boosting the interim speaker’s role was gaining favor with a pair of high-profile Republicans: former GOP speakers Newt Gingrich and John Boehner.

The two men have deep experience with the subject. Both were chased to early retirement.

“All options are on the table to end the Republican civil war,” Jeffries said Wednesday.

But McHenry appeared to brush off the idea of taking further powers for himself, saying Jordan “has the support of the conference to keep going, so that’s what we’re gonna do.”

McHenry added that he finds himself in an unprecedented position and has constructed his role “as narrowly as the rules say I should, and we can’t transact business until we elect a speaker.”

To win over his GOP colleagues, Jordan had relied on backing from Trump, the party’s front-runner in the 2024 election to challenge President Joe Biden, and groups pressuring rank-and-file lawmakers for the vote. But they were not enough and in fact backfired on some.

“One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully,” said a statement from Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, who voted against Jordan on the second ballot and said she received “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls.”

Flexing their independence, the holdouts are a mix of pragmatists — ranging from seasoned legislators and committee chairs worried about governing, to newer lawmakers from districts where voters prefer Biden to Trump.

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Instead, the holdouts cast their ballots for McCarthy, Scalise and others, with one vote even going to the retired Boehner.

Jordan has been a top Trump ally, particularly during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by the former president’s backers who were trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden. Days later, Trump awarded Jordan a Medal of Freedom.

The political climb has been steep for Jordan, who is known more as a chaos agent than a skilled legislator, raising questions about how he would lead. Congress faces daunting challenges, risking a federal shutdown at home if it fails to fund the government and fielding Biden’s requests for aid to help Ukraine and Israel in the wars abroad.

First elected in 2006, Jordan has few bills to his name from his time in office. He also faces questions about his past. Some years ago, Jordan denied allegations from former wrestlers during his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University who accused him of knowing about claims they were inappropriately groped by an Ohio State doctor. Jordan has said he was never aware of any abuse.

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

The killing of innocents, Israeli or Palestinian, is wrong

• October 19, 2023

The savage attacks Hamas inflicted upon the Israeli military and civilian population are utterly without justification, but not without explanation. The Arab/Israeli bloodlust has been going on since the end of World War I, most pointedly since 1947 when Zionist militias used violence to force 750,000 Palestinians from their villages and ancient homeland.

That process resulted in the establishment and international recognition of the State of Israel and the confinement of the Palestinian people to the Gaza strip in the west and to the West Bank in the east. Rather than amalgamate these folks into a democratic society — where individual rights are equal and the government respects them — Israeli governments have established an apartheid.

Gaza became an open-air concentration camp, doomed to poverty and cultural repression. The West Bank, meanwhile, keeps shrinking, as the Israeli government keeps encouraging and funding illegal Israeli settlements on land that the Palestinians have believed, because Israeli governments told them, was theirs.

The Israeli government repression of Palestinian natural urges for freedom, cultural identity and prosperity has resulted in extremists on both sides, and these people have fomented unspeakable violence. How did Hamas come about? Hamas was the brainchild of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu fomented and caused the Israeli government to fund Hamas so as to resist the political influence of Netanyahu’s long-time foe, the late Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Netanyahu and his government separated the Palestinian people not only geographically but also politically. His creation of Hamas was far more successful than he envisioned. As the Israeli repression of Gaza grew, as it became more of an open-air concentration camp, Hamas sought and received the political support of Gazans. It fomented the resistance Netanyahu hoped for, and that resistance morphed into violence, and that violence erupted savagely last week.

What role has the United States played in all this? The U.S. has been Israeli’s best and most faithful friend since Israel’s creation. Israel is about the size and population of New Jersey. New Jerseyans pay hundreds of billions in federal taxes each year and receive about $800 million annually in return. Israel, which of course pays no taxes to the U.S. government, receives $4 billion annually in what the feds euphemistically call foreign aid.

Foreign aid is nowhere authorized in the Constitution. But we all know that the federal government does what the folks who control it believe will keep them in office, whether countenanced by the Constitution or not. The feds believe that they can enact any law, tax any event, regulate any behavior, fight any war, insinuate government into any relationship and spend money that they don’t have — the Constitution be damned.

In furtherance of that extra-constitutional behavior, the feds have supported Israeli governments no matter what they did. Israeli governments spy on the U.S. government, the White House and American citizens — no problem. Israeli government jets bombed the USS Liberty, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors — no problem. The Israeli government wants to suppress and partially annihilate an ethnic group using American weapons — no problem. The Israeli government wants to kill more innocents than Hamas crazies did — no problem. The Israeli government wants American cash to do all this — no problem.

This unstinting U.S. support, just like the U.S. military support for the government of Ukraine, has brought about the deaths of innocents, and it has brought Israel and Ukraine to the most dangerous and unstable precipice that either country has stood upon in the past 50 years. Since the recent Hamas attacks and Ukraine military defeats, American politicians have called for more borrowing from the Chinese so as to give the Netanyahu and Ukraine governments more cash. This will add to the federal government’s $33 trillion debt and push American prices up and employment down.

Instead of negotiating or even spending for peace, the U.S. has encouraged and paid for wars. Instead of using its enormous economic might to facilitate prosperity, the U.S. has, quoting U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “projected power on both fronts,” meaning in the Middle East and in Ukraine. Power? It has projected and caused death and destruction, just as the U.S. did with its “power” in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Is that the goal of U.S. foreign policy — to project power? If it is, it is not working.

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My friend and colleague, former Rep. Dr. Ron Paul, has argued eloquently not only that Russia has won the war in Ukraine despite U.S. efforts to use Ukraine as a battering ram to impair Vladimir Putin’s presidency, but that Hamas has won its war with Israel. How so? Hamas’s goal was to bring out the worst in the Netanyahu government and to arouse support for a Palestinian state among Arab and Muslim peoples. In that respect, Hamas has succeeded. Israeli rage is justified. But the intentional slaughter of innocents — Israeli or Palestinian — is not.

Where does all this leave the United States and the American people?

We have a president who cannot put two sentences together, much less credibly negotiate with foreign heads of state for peace. We have a Congress beholden to the intelligence community and the military-industrial complex. We have one big government party in Washington. It is pro-welfare, pro-warfare, pro-deep state, pro-security state and pro-administrative state; but it is not pro-Constitution or pro-limited government or pro-personal liberty or pro-peace.

U.S. foreign policy — no matter who is in the White House or which major political party controls Congress — stokes festering rage wherever it goes. What will that bring us? As of this writing, it is bringing 2,000 American troops to Tel Aviv. History shows indisputably that when all else fails, governments bring us to war.

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

​ Orange County Register 

Huntington Beach girls volleyball sweeps Alemany in CIF-SS playoffs after tough opening set

• October 19, 2023

HUNTINGTON BEACH — The Huntington Beach girls volleyball team had to come from far behind to win an extended first set against Alemany in the opening round of pool play in Division 1 of the CIF SS playoffs on Wednesday at Huntington Beach High School.

The comeback seemed to ignite the No. 3 seed Oilers, who then went on to sweep the No. 6 Warriors, 28-26, 25-16, 25-14.

Huntington Beach (28-7), which plays in Pool B, will play host to Surf League rival Los Alamitos, the No.7 seed, on Tuesday.

The Oilers swept the Griffins in their first match on Sept. 15 at Huntington Beach and came from two sets down to defeat the Griffins again on Oct. 3 at Los Alamitos.

The Warriors (23-8), who finished in second place in the Mission League, will take on No. 2 Mira Costa on Tuesday at Mira Costa.

“There’s always a concern,” Oilers coach Craig Pazanti said about his team trailing for nearly the entire first set. “But at the same time, this is a pretty veteran group. I mean, a lot of kids who have started for us for three years and I kind of give them a little bit more leeway than I would a young group. So I let them kind of find it and make their adjustment and they did a good job doing that.”

Kills delivered mostly by Havyn Rolle helped the Warriors take a 19-14 lead in the opening set.

The Oilers then went on a 6-2 run to get to within one point.

Ellie Esko’s kill tied the score for Huntington Beach and then Kylie Leopard’s block gave the Oilers their first lead at 23-22.

Huntington Beach then came within a point of losing the set twice before Haylee La Fontaine scored on a dump shot and then delivered a kill to the back row to win the first set for the Oilers.

Huntington Beach’s Haylee LaFontaine led all players with 18 kills in a three-game sweep of Alemany in the opening round of pool play in the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs Wednesday, Oct. 18. (Photo by Lou Ponsi)

“Actually, after the game I went up to (Taylor Ponchak) and I said that was pretty clutch that we won (the first set),” said La Fontaine, who led all players with 18 kills. “Because if we didn’t win that, it would have been a longer game. So I think it was very important to win that first one.”

Esko and Ponchak each had 11 kills for the Oilers and Ponchak assisted on four blocks.

Setter Dani Sparks contributed to the victory with 40 assists.

Rolle, Alanah Clemente and Gabi Pulishuk had eight kills each for the Warriors.

Huntington Beach’s Taylor Ponchak had 11 kills and assisted on four blocks in the Oilers’ three-set victory over Alemany in the opening round of pool play in the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs Wednesday, Oct. 18. (Photo by Lou Ponsi)

The winner of Pool B will play the winner of Pool A for the Southern Section Division 1 championship on Nov. 4 at Cerritos College.

If two teams finish in a tie, head-to-head result will be used to determine the winner.

If there is a three-way tie, the total number of sets won divided by the total number of sets played in pool play would determine the winner.

“That’s why that first-set win was important,” Pazanti said.

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​ Orange County Register