Long Beach State falls to UC Davis in OT for 7th straight loss

• February 7, 2025

LONG BEACH — In a season marked by dramatic peaks and valleys, the Long Beach State men’s basketball team got another glimpse of light on Thursday night.

LBSU forced overtime against visiting UC Davis in a Big West Conference matchup at the Walter Pyramid, but that was as close as it would get.

T.Y. Johnson scored 12 of his game-high 33 points in overtime to lift the Aggies to a 73-65 victory and hand Long Beach its seventh consecutive loss.

LBSU also lost in overtime to first-place UC Irvine on Jan. 30.

“Our group is learning valuable lessons,” first-year Long Beach head coach Chris Acker said. “Obviously, no one’s more frustrated than the players that are on the floor. I know they wanted to get this one tonight. Another overtime loss at home.”

LBSU (7-17 overall, 3-9 Big West) lost eight straight nonconference games in November, regrouped to win five straight, including its first two Big West Conference games in early December, but hasn’t won since beating UC Davis (13-10, 7-5) on the road on Jan. 11.

Johnson came in leading the conference in scoring at 21.2 ppg, which was also the sixth-best mark in the nation, and was second in steals (2.5 spg).

He was matched up against Long Beach senior point guard Devin Askew, who came in fourth in the Big West in scoring (18.4 ppg) and tops in assists (4.6 apg).

Askew did his part, finishing with 17 points and four assists.

“He’s getting double- and triple-teamed all night, every game,” Acker said of Askew. “I know he’s frustrated as well with not being able to come out with these W’s.”

Askew made two free throws in a one-and-one situation with 5.8 seconds left in regulation to tie the score at 59-59, and the Aggies were unable to convert on the other end, sending LBSU to overtime for the second time in the past three games.

Pablo Tamba scored inside to start overtime and Johnson hit a pull-up 3-pointer to extend the Aggies’ lead to 64-59.

Long Beach cut the deficit to one on two free throws by Kam Martin, but Johnson hit a pull-up jumper and then another 3-pointer for a 69-63 lead with 2:06 left and LBSU wasn’t able to get back within one possession.

“We’re just learning how to win based on what we have and what we’re trying to do,” Acker said. “Obviously, we want to win, but I’m proud of the fight that our guys put up tonight.”

Askew had 32 points and five assists in the first matchup against Davis, an 84-73 LBSU win, and Johnson had 31 points and three steals.

Askew scored seven points in the first half Thursday and Andrew Nagy also scored seven, but it was the contributions of Varick Lewis and Cam Denson off the bench that helped Long Beach take a 30-29 lead into halftime.

Denson scored seven points in the opening 20 minutes and Lewis scored six, both more than their season averages.

Denson finished with 10 points, the only other player in double figures besides Askew.

“Cam is an amazing player, especially when his motor is going and he’s running,” Askew said. “It’s always good when we see Cam running.”

Askew took just one shot through the first eight minutes, while Johnson scored nine points in the span on 3-for-5 shooting, including two 3-pointers, but Long Beach only trailed 11-8.

Askew sank his first basket on a runner in the lane to cut the lead to 13-10 with 11:26 left in the first half, and Lewis sank a 3-pointer to tie it 13-13, but the Aggies came back with a 7-0 run to take their biggest lead of the first half at 20-13.

Lewis followed with his second 3-pointer of the first half to ignite a 12-0 run and give LBSU a 25-20 lead with 4:44 left in the opening half.

Davis strung together another 7-0 run to retake the lead at 29-27, but Askew drilled a 3-pointer with 46 seconds left to move Long Beach back ahead 30-29 and that score remained at the half.

Johnson didn’t score again after making a layup to give the Aggies an 11-8 lead.

UP NEXT

Long Beach hosts Cal State Northridge on Saturday at 4 p.m.

BIG WEST STANDINGS

Through Thursday, Feb. 6

UC Irvine – 20-3, 10-1

UC San Diego – 19-4, 9-2

CS Northridge – 16-7, 8-4

UC Riverside – 15-9, 8-4

UC Santa Barbara – 15-8, 7-5

UC Davis – 13-10, 7-5

Hawaii – 13-10, 5-7

CS Bakersfield – 10-14, 4-8

Cal Poly (SLO) – 9-15, 3-9

Long Beach State – 7-17, 3-9

CS Fullerton – 6-18, 1-11

​ Orange County Register 

Clippers can’t hold off Pacers, drop 3rd straight game

• February 7, 2025

INGLEWOOD — The Clippers’ landscape changed over the past three days, adding new faces and clearing lockers. But the biggest difference came in the team’s play and attitude.

That was for at least for the first 18 minutes of Thursday night’s game against the Indiana Pacers.

The Clippers, having received Coach Tyronn Lue’s message about playing hard and competing, came out intent to put aside their listless performance in their previous game.

But somewhere in the second quarter, amid a barrage of turnovers and missed opportunities, the Clippers lost their purpose and fell, 119-112, at the Intuit Dome.

Led by forward Pascal Siakam, the Pacers handed the Clippers (28-23) their third consecutive loss.

Siakam had a game-high 33 points on 13-of-16 shooting, including five 3-pointers, and grabbed 11 rebounds. Bennedict Mathurin added 25 points, six rebounds and four assists.

Lue had been upset with his team’s passive play against the Lakers on Tuesday night and addressed the players before facing the Pacers.

“They owned it and (acknowledged) we have to be better all around the board,” Lue said.

His words seemed to get lost against the Pacers, who picked up the pace late in the first half (they outscored the Clippers 42-19 in the second quarter) and kept pushing until they came away with a hard-fought victory, despite balanced scoring by the Clippers.

Asked what turned the game in the Pacers’ favor, Clippers star Kawhi Leonard said, “That second quarter.”

“Them getting out in transition turnovers, Pascal being great, knocking out three or four 3-pointers in a row and obviously in the third quarter as well, just getting too many of these easy baskets,” he added.

The Pacers had 31 assists on 43 baskets and seven turnovers to the Clippers’ 19 turnovers.

“We got off to a good start, so you can’t blame that,” Lue said. “(We) just got to secure the game. Like you said, you can’t have six turnovers in a row, six bad possessions. It’s just hard to win games that way.”

It wasn’t for a lack of scoring.

All-Star guard James Harden and Norman Powell each had 22 points and Leonard finished with 19 points in 34 minutes – his longest stint this season.

Ivica Zubac had 18 points and 15 rebounds, Amir Coffey had 14 points and Derrick Jones Jr. added 12 points.

And Lue said it wasn’t the Clippers’ highly rated defense that failed. It was more the Pacers’ high-power transition game that caused the Clippers problems.

“I thought it was our offense that allowed them to get out and transition,” Lue said. “Like you said, having six straight turnovers, which allowed him to get out and transition, get some easy baskets and so I got to take a look at it. But overall, I thought our defense was pretty good.”

Harden took a more pragmatic view of the loss, saying that every team suffers bad losses during an 82-game season.

“We just gave them comfort shots and gave them too many opportunities off turnovers,” Harden said.

“Think everybody’s trying to be consistent throughout the course of the game, throughout the course of a year. So, luckily, we got 37, 40 more games to figure it out.”

The Clippers appeared to have solved some of their second-quarter problems after halftime.

They clamped down on the Pacers in the third quarter and kept up the pressure in the fourth, never letting Indiana gain more than a two-point advantage after Coffey hit two free throws with 11:01 left to play for a 90-88 lead.

The teams largely traded baskets for much of the final period.

Jones gave the Clippers a 105-100 lead with 3:31 left, but the Pacers closed to within two when Siakam’s fifth 3-pointer started a 19-7 closing run. A 3-pointer and layup by Haliburton gave the Pacers a 108-105 lead with less than two minutes to play, and they made nine of 10 free throws down the stretch.

“We understand that we’re a defensive-minded team first,” Lue said. “Everything else takes care of itself and we haven’t done it the last three games. And so, they understood that.

“We just got to be better. And it doesn’t mean you’re going to win every game, but the way you lose and how you lose is something totally different.”

Two days after their loss Tuesday, the Clippers came out firing, making seven of their first 10 shots. They continued to find openings around the basket against the Pacers’ improved defense that has helped them turn around their season.

Indiana started the season 10-15 but has won 12 of its last 15 games and 18 of the past 24.

“We’ve gotten better defensively and that’s going to continue to be our main focus,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

The Clippers, however, fell into familiar bad habits late in the first half with careless plays and turning the ball over. The Pacers were quick to take advantage of 11 first-half miscues by the Clippers to turn a 22-point deficit into a 64-61 halftime lead.

Trailing 39-17, Indiana went on a 15-0 run to trim the Clippers’ lead to 44-37. Zubac stopped the flow with a turnaround hook shot at the 7:10 mark. After Thomas Bryant’s dunk, Powell hit back-to-back baskets to push the lead back to double figures at 51-41.

But the Pacers, playing without center Myles Turner, didn’t fold. They continued to push the Clippers and eventually took a 62-58 lead on seven consecutive points by Siakam. A 3-point play by Mathurin closed out a 42-point second quarter by Indiana.

Turner had gone to the locker room to be evaluated for a concussion in the first quarter after he was inadvertently hit in the face by Mathurin while going for a rebound. Turner stayed down on the court for several seconds, got up and then staggered while making his way to the bench.

The Clippers might have blamed the lapse on being short-handed. Earlier in the day, they sent Terance Mann and Bones Hyland to the Atlanta Hawks for Bogdan Bogdanovic and three second-round picks. They also sent Kevin Porter Jr. to the Milwaukee Bucks for Marjon Beauchamp.

​ Orange County Register 

Swanson: Trade deadline winners in a blowout, Lakers fully in win-now mode

• February 7, 2025

LOS ANGELES — I’m so glad the Lakers traded for Mark Williams.

Not even because they filled a need at center, but because it ought to mean we’ll stop being inundated with all these inane takes about the Lakers punting away the season.

If trading to pair Luka Doncic with LeBron James – again Luka Doncic and LeBron James – wasn’t a sure sign that the Lakers are going for it, well, hopefully now you know: They’re going for it now.

So much of the discourse in the immediate aftermath of the Lakers’ bombshell Anthony Davis-for-Doncic deal was about how, by trading a 31-year-old center for a 25-year-old point guard, the Lakers seemed to be prioritizing the long term over the short term (read: 40-year-old James’ remaining tenure with the team).

It all brought me back to freshman algebra, because I was kind of lost there too. Except this time, I don’t think it’s me who’s misunderstanding; I think who’s getting it wrong are the boys in the back of the room that I used to spend all my class time talking hoop with.

You guys have always been silly: “For the next two years, I think Dallas won that trade,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “Yes,” Jay Williams said, the Mavericks are now the one team that could overtake Oklahoma City for the top seed. Stephen A. Smith? “I got Dallas as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference right now.”

So, tell me if I have this right?

Anthony Davis + LeBron Davis on the fifth-seeded Lakers = Also-ran, team that needs help, yawn, meh.

Anthony Davis + Kyrie Irving on the eighth-seeded Mavs = Dangerous! A contender! Look out now!

I’m glad Davis is finally getting his due as a difference-maker on both ends, but I’m confused: Why did he only start getting it after he landed in Dallas? Where was that energy while he was in L.A., having his durability and reliability constantly questioned?

Meanwhile, while we were all picking our jaws up off the hardwood, either laughing at or cursing out Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison for making the move to deal Doncic without a suitably gargantuan haul in return, why then were so many people’s calculations: LeBron + Luka on the Lakers = No chance in 2025. But in the future …

This is me raising my hand. Because I need some help with this one: A basketball team makes a big trade. The return it gets is far-and-away the best player in the trade, why is the basketball team kicking the proverbial can down the road?

Why – what? I mean, that assertion doesn’t make sense …

Ohhh … Maybe some of you thought having LeBron and Luka – who was still sidelined on Thursday, working his way back from a calf strain, but who walked to midcourt to wave hello to a roaring crowd before tip-off against Golden State at Crypto.com Arena, where they tried to win for the eighth time in nine games – on the court at the same time might present redundancies? That they might get in each other’s way?

You could worry about that if LeBron hadn’t succeeded sharing the ball with everyone from Dwyane Wade to Matthew Dellavedova and Luka had not just gone to the NBA Finals sharing the rock with ball-handling savant Kyrie? Or if LeBron isn’t going to benefit from less usage.

Ohhh … it was the void at center left by A.D.’s departure? I could see that if you really believed the Lakers just wouldn’t solve for x, that they’d turn in their work at the trade deadline on Thursday without finishing the equation and just take the INCOMPLETE.

But that wouldn’t have just been wasting LeBron’s precious time, it would’ve been wasting Luka’s too and the Lakers weren’t going to do that, I didn’t think.

Yes, I was there, I know what GM Rob Pelinka said at Doncic’s introductory news conference on Tuesday morning: “We know that our roster has continued work to do to become complete. We know we have a need for a big (but) the market for bigs right now leading into the last two or three days of the trade deadline is very dry. There’s just not a lot available. … If there’s not a championship big on the market, I can’t wave a wand and create that opportunity.”

But then he dug into his bag of tricks, said “Alarte Ascendare” or something, and pulled off a trade for Williams from Charlotte on Wednesday night. He used the second and last of those first-round draft picks that have been burning a hole in fans and pundits’ pockets for the past two seasons to acquire a perfectly suited 7-foot, 241-pound lob threat.

It was almost as if Tuesday’s comments, delivered at the height of trade season, had been made to minimize how badly the Lakers wanted exactly that kind of center. As if he’d been negotiating.

And now everyone gets it, I hope. The Lakers have LeBron James and Luka Doncic, with their 231 regular-season triple-doubles between them (151 + 80 if you’re doing the math) and combined basketball IQs of 280 (OK, that’s a guess, harkening back to ninth-grade algebra) and Thursday’s chest bump between them after James drained a logo 3-pointer as time expired in the first quarter against the Warriors.

They can win now and they can win later. And they 100% won this trade deadline; it wasn’t close.

So let’s try it again, shall we? Luka Doncic + LeBron Davis on the Lakers = Dangerous! A contender! You better look out now.

​ Orange County Register 

More than 100 Billabong, Quiksilver, Volcom retail shops closing in US, several in Orange County

• February 7, 2025

Surf industry heavy-weight brands Quiksilver, Billabong and Volcom suffered another major blow this week after Liberated Brands filed bankruptcy. It is shutting more than 100 retail store locations across the country.

The news comes just weeks after an announcement that Liberated – the retail and e-commerce operator for several of the Authentic Brands Group labels – shuttered its Costa Mesa headquarters and laid off 400 employees. 

Employees at Southern California stores learned of the news of the retail closures about a week ago and the doors will be shut in about 10 weeks, said Reese Rowbotham, assistant manager at the Volcom shop at Irvine Spectrum.

“All of them are shutting down,” she said of the retail stores.

Liberated, since 2023, has overseen the retail operations for Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, RVCA, Honolua and Boardriders in the United States and Canada, and was the licensing partner and wholesale distributor in the two countries for Billabong, RVCA and Honolua adult sportswear, activewear, swimwear, outerwear, headwear and base-layer products.

Liberated was already the core licensee and operating partner for other Authentic-owned action and outdoor sports brands Volcom, born and based in Costa Mesa, and Spyder, a snow and ski company.

Liberated Brands announced its Chapter 11 bankruptcy “to implement an orderly monetization and disposition of its businesses,” a statement from the New York-based company said.

“The company has been in the process of transitioning its brand licenses to new license holders as part of a management transition to ensure continuity for the brands and their success moving forward,” the statement said.

The filing “does not impact the future of the brands, as they have already transitioned to new, well-capitalized partners who are actively investing in their growth and long-term success,” the company said.

Aaron Pai, owner of Huntington Surf & Sport, said the incoming owner of the brands, O5 Apparel, is supporting the Billabong shop on Main Street and Walnut Avenue, which is a collaboration with HSS, and that store will remain open.

“A forest burns over and new growth happens,” Pai said. “The new company is taking care of us for the Billabong store. We will live on.”

Pai said brands Quiksilver, Volcom and Billabong are still top sellers among customers. Billabong is the third-highest grossing brand at the flagship store at Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway, he said.

“I just look at what’s going on inside our store, our sales say they are still strong,” said Pai, who has been in the surf retail business for 47 years. “I hope that the new brands and the legacy brands all make it out alive, because they are not just brands, but our friends and families work for the brands.”

While Liberated’s 100-plus retail locations in the U.S. will be closing, the status of the company’s nine retail locations in Hawaii is currently being negotiated.

“The Liberated team has worked tirelessly over the last year to propel these iconic brands forward, but a volatile global economy, consumer spending changes amid a rising cost of living, and inflationary pressures have all taken a heavy toll,” Liberated Brands said in a statement. “Despite this difficult change, we are encouraged that many of our talented associates have found new opportunities with other license holders that will carry these great brands into the future.”

A sale in 2018 brought together some of the most iconic surf and skate brands under the Boardriders Inc. umbrella, including Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, RVCA, DC Shoes, Element, VonZipper and Honolua.

Authentic Brands Group then purchased the mega Orange County surf brands in 2023, causing nervousness in the surf industry, with long-timers weary of a corporate takeover that would put profit over its core customers.

On all three websites for the surf brands, a notice to customers states that gift cards and loyalty points will not be honored after Feb. 16. There are retail shops throughout Orange County, including the Irvine Spectrum, Laguna Beach and the Outlets at Orange.

Bloomberg News contributed to this story.

​ Orange County Register 

Rams OLB Jared Verse named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year

• February 7, 2025

The last time the Rams picked a defensive player in the first round of the NFL draft, almost 11 years ago, he won Defensive Rookie of the Year, the first in a long list of hardware that he would add to his shelves.

That defensive rookie a decade ago was Aaron Donald. On Thursday, the Rams’ next first-round defensive pick, Jared Verse, carried on the tradition, being named the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year at NFL Honors in New Orleans.

The 19th overall pick out of Florida State in last April’s draft, Verse – the Rams’ first first-round pick, period, since 2016 – totaled just 4½ sacks in 2024. But he led all rookies with 77 quarterback pressures during the regular season to go with 66 tackles, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.

He added 12 more QB pressures in the Rams’ two postseason games, including two sacks in the divisional round loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Verse beat out fellow Ram and fellow Florida State product Braden Fiske for Defensive Player of the Year, sure to add fire to their friendly competition at the practice facility.

That makes three total members of the Rams’ young pass rush to be invited to the NFL Honors as Rookie of the Year finalists in the last two seasons, after defensive tackle Kobie Turner was the runner-up following the 2023 season.

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County scores and player stats for Thursday, Feb. 6

• February 7, 2025

Support our high school sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribe now

Scores and stats from Orange County games on Thursday, Feb. 6

Click here for details about sending your team’s scores and stats to the Register.

The deadline for submitting information is 10:45 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 p.m. Saturday.

THURSDAY’S SCORES

GIRLS WATER POLO

CIF-SS PLAYOFFS

OPEN DIVISION

Round 1

Pool A

Mater Dei 10, Corona del Mar 4

Pool B

Newport Harbor 12, Long Beach Wilson 8

Orange Lutheran 13, Foothill 4

Goals: (OLu) Robinson 5, Cohen 2, Sloman 2, Urkov 2, Webb 2

Saves: (OLu) Pranajaya 7

DIVISION 1

Round 1

Beckman 19, Huntington Beach 11

San Clemente 7, Sunny Hills 4

JSerra 13, Agoura 8

Laguna Beach 12, Rosary 9

Goals: (Ros) Ekstrom 3, Velazquez 3. (LB) Carver 5, Jones 3.

Saves: (Ros) Jackson 10. (LB) Jumani 5.

​ Orange County Register 

As wildfire cleanup crews surge to nearly 1,200 workers, concerns about safety grow

• February 7, 2025

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s army of wildfire cleanup crews has grown to nearly 1,200 workers as it races to meet a 30-day deadline set by the White House, but the rushed nature of the endeavor and the histories of the companies involved have sparked concerns.

The operation underway in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades is now the largest hazardous waste removal effort in the EPA’s history, officials said.

“We’re not going to wait days or weeks or months to ramp up,” said Lee Zeldin, the EPA’s newly installed administrator, in a statement. “We have over a thousand personnel on the ground to aid Californians, and our local, state, and federal partners, in Los Angeles’s recovery.”

The team has completed the first phase of cleanup at 1,153, or about 8%, of the 13,575 residential parcels affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires, as of Thursday, Feb. 6, according to the EPA. The second phase, which the Army Corp of Engineers will carry out, cannot begin on a property until the EPA has completed its work at that location. About 7,000 households have opted into that program so far and it is expected to begin next week, according to the county.

Processing sites criticized

The EPA’s faster ramp-up hasn’t gone smoothly and the Feb. 25 deadline is fast approaching. Residents and local officials in the San Gabriel Valley, Malibu and the Pacific Palisades have criticized the EPA’s opaque selection of the state and federal lands being used to process the hazardous materials before it is transferred to final disposal facilities, both within and outside of California. Officials have promised there will be no long-term effects from the use of the sites and will conduct soil sampling before and after to ensure areas are restored to their original state.

On the coast, residents protested the use of land in Topanga State Park, before officials announced a decision to open a second site in a parking lot at Will Rogers State Beach, but that also drew the ire of locals.

Farther inland, the selection of Lario Park, a federally owned property in Irwindale, for materials from the Eaton fire brought similar rebuke. The site is adjacent to the San Gabriel River and requires trucks to haul debris more than 15 miles through six cities. Officials have questioned why a site closer to Altadena wasn’t chosen.

Harry Allen, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator, told the Azusa City Council that additional staging areas are being sought closer to the burn area now that emergency personnel no longer need those locations.

The EPA has stressed it is taking precautions at all of the sites by sealing materials inside containers and bags and by using water to keep dust down. Protective flooring and waterproof barriers will be used to contain the waste.

Concerns about contractors

The deluge of contractors that have descended into those areas to bolster the EPA’s ranks has drawn additional concerns. One resident at the Azusa City Council meeting this week reported that some trucks transporting hazardous materials did not appear to have proper covers.

Additionally, at least one subcontractor has been fined repeatedly by the EPA and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control in recent years for violations relating to the handling of hazardous materials, according to public records.

Azusa Mayor Robert Gonzales visited Lario Park as part of a delegation of local officials last week and saw license plates from Oregon, Colorado and Washington. There, he learned how the process will unfold firsthand, though he still feels as though local communities are being kept in the dark.

“We’ve been in the dark since step one,” he said. “We don’t know who their contractors are, we know nothing. It is frustrating.”

The cities haven’t been included in any of the decision-making, he said.

“They’re expediting as quickly as possible,” Gonzales said. “My concern is, are you expediting it so quickly that human error could become a factor?”

The EPA hired two contractors, Environmental Quality Management and Weston Solutions, for $50 million and $26 million, respectively, to assist with the disaster cleanup, according to a federal spending database. Both companies have long histories with the EPA, including work on Hurricane Katrina, the space shuttle Columbia disaster and, more recently, the wildfires in Lahaina in Hawaii.

History of violations

Those companies then subcontracted the work out to meet the EPA’s huge demand. During a Jan. 29 townhall in Duarte, a resident accused one subcontractor, Clean Harbors, of having a history of environmental violations.

In November, the DTSC finalized a $125,000 penalty against Clean Harbors for more than two years worth of violations relating to the improper storage of hazardous waste at a facility in Wilmington, near Long Beach.

During inspections from 2018 to 2020, the DTSC found Clean Harbors had exceeded the waste storage capacity for certain areas of the facility, stored waste in unpermitted areas and containers, and failed to upkeep protective layers on the floor meant to stop spills and leaks from seeping into the concrete.

Records show the DTSC also fined Clean Harbors $52,000 for a facility in San Jose and $16,800 for another in the unincorporated community of Buttonwillow near Bakersfield in 2023.

Clean Harbors also has had its share of run-ins with federal regulators.

In 2021, the EPA reached a $25,000 settlement with the company for hazardous waste violations at a San Jose facility. The federal agency then hit Clean Harbors with another $270,412 penalty three years later for a Nebraska facility.

A Clean Harbors spokesperson and an attorney representing the company did not return requests for comment.

Another subcontractor, Patriot Environmental, was fined $10,640 by the DTSC for holding hazardous waste at a transfer facility for 141 days beyond the 10 days permissible under the law, according to a consent order.

Julia Giarmoleo, a spokesperson for the EPA, confirmed that both Clean Harbors and Patriot are subcontractors on the cleanup. However, neither is responsible for managing hazardous waste. The companies, like others involved, are providing manpower, she said.

If a company was fined in the past, Giarmoleo said, the EPA is “operating under the expectation that those violations were corrected.”

The amassed force is made up of about one EPA employee for every four contract workers, she said.

All contractors certified

All contractors and subcontractors are “certified to handle hazardous materials and hold other professional certifications specific to their job functions,” according to the EPA. Each attends a health and safety orientation and receives an overview of the standard operating procedure of the specific incident as well.

Anyone working on the clean-up effort is expected to follow federal standards and regulations. Ultimately, the EPA is the agency responsible for the hazardous materials removal and for ensuring all workers are operating to those standards, Giarmoleo said.

Zeldin, the new EPA administrator, was on the ground in Altadena on Thursday to talk to residents and officials and check on the progress on the cleanup efforts.

‘Lot of uncertainty’

Sam Kang, a Duarte councilmember, expressed his support for the recovery and said he understands the need for urgency, but he worries the rush will lead to mistakes that will impact the communities between Altadena and Lario Park as well as downstream if the river is impacted, he said.

Kang questioned whether sufficient training is possible in such a short time frame. He added that he is “baffled” by the EPA’s decision to work with a company fined for hazardous waste violations as recently as four months ago.

“This expansion is way too quick and they’re creating a lot of uncertainty for constituents,” Kang said. “Shouldn’t we take a little more time to clean it up safely, so we don’t jeopardize other people?”

The EPA’s quick standup of the site at Lario Park and the lack of communication with the neighboring municipalities in the beginning has shaken the confidence that some local leaders have in the agency, according to Gonzales, the Azusa mayor. He stressed that while the cities are opposed to the process, they still support the overall recovery efforts.

“You’re supposed to have confidence in the EPA because they’re the experts,” Gonzales said. “You want to believe that and you want to trust that, but they’re not getting out to a real good start here.

“There’s just a lot of mistrust now,” he added.

Staff writer David Wilson and correspondent Jarret Liotta contributed to this article.

​ Orange County Register 

Fryer: CIF Southern Section’s new basketball playoff system has strengths and quirks

• February 7, 2025

The CIF Southern Section boys and girls basketball playoff brackets will be released Saturday at noon.

There will be the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth.

This time, the wailing and gnashing will not be because of human decisions. This year, for the first time, the creation of the basketball playoff brackets are being done by computer.

CIF-SS member schools voted 79-8 to approve the move to take playoff bracketing decisions away from committees in many sports and have computer ranking systems create the brackets. Football has used Calpreps.com (now called HSratings.com) for a few seasons and that has worked out fine, mostly.

The goal of this was to have playoff team selections and brackets based upon current season results instead of the results of the previous two seasons, which is the way CIF-SS playoffs were constructed in recent years.

Jerry De Fabiis is the CIF-SS assistant commissioner in charge of the section’s management of basketball. He said once the schools decided they wanted computerized rankings for playoff placement, the Southern Section looked at several options before selecting the Colley Royalty rankings system.

For one, the Massey Ratings System that is used for some CIF sports was rejected because that system did not account for CIF-SS teams’ games against out-of-state teams, and many of the top CIF-SS boys and girls basketball teams play in tournaments or showcases in other states.

The Massey Ratings System that was used for this season’s girls water polo playoffs had a problem that was discovered once those brackets were released last week. Massey Ratings confused forfeiture scores with actual game scores, so some teams’ ratings were wrong. The Southern Section had to scramble and revise several playoff brackets.

For basketball, some coaches say that the Colley Royalty system for ranking CIF-SS teams puts too much weight on strength of schedule. The teams in the top leagues will always get plenty of rankings points, even if they go 0-10 in a league if that is one of the Southern Section’s top leagues.

Servite went 0-10 in the Trinity League. The Trinity League is one of the top two leagues in the Southern Section, with the Mission League (Sierra Canyon, Harvard-Westlake, etc.) being the other. Servite is No. 42 in the Colley Royalty rankings of the 516 CIF-SS teams that play boys basketball.

Servite is No. 22 in our Orange County rankings. The Colley Royalty rankings have Servite ranked higher in the CIF Southern Section than Orange County’s Nos. 7, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 teams.

That is an example of the Colley Royalty system placing too much emphasis on league affiliation instead of how good a team is.

This is how it’s going to look Saturday when boys and girls basketball brackets come out, assuming the Open Division again is an eight-team bracket.

The Open Division’s eight teams will compete in a pool-play format, with four teams in each pool and the Pool A and Pool B winners meeting for the Open Division championship at the Toyota Arena in Ontario on Feb. 28 or March 1. There is a possibility that the boys or girls Open Division will be a 10-team group with a traditional bracket, but eight-team pool play was how it’s been recently and likely will be again.

If the girls basketball Open Division is an eight-team group again, that likely puts Sage Hill into Division 1. Sage Hill is No. 9 in the Colley Royalty girls basketball rankings, although Sage Hill did beat No. 7 Windward twice. If Sage Hill is a Division 1 team it would be heavily favored to win that division’s championship.

Division 1 will be a 32-team bracket in boys and girls basketball The first teams placed in the bracket will be automatic qualifiers, which are the teams that finished high enough in their leagues’ final standings to receive guaranteed entry into the playoffs. The number of at-large berths available will depend upon how many automatic qualifiers are in a division.

After the CIF-SS office completes its Division 1 boys and girls brackets it begins work on the next eight playoff divisions, 2AA down to 5A, following the same format – automatic qualifiers are placed first, at-large teams fill any remaining berths.

A look at the latest boys basketball rankings indicate that Division 1 boys basketball will have 28 automatic qualifiers. That means only four at-large berths will be available and there will be some very good teams in the pool of Division 1 at-large candidates. Among them are Mater Dei, Cypress, St. Paul, Chaminade, St. Monica and Loyola.

Mater Dei is in the at-large pool for the first time in Gary McKnight’s 43 seasons as the team’s boys basketball coach. Mater Dei finished fourth in the six-team Trinity League that has St. John Bosco, Santa Margarita and JSerra as its three automatic qualifiers. Those three teams will be in the Open Division.

Canyon boys basketball coach Nate Harrison, whose team beat Cypress on Wednesday to take the Crestview League’s third and final guaranteed playoff berth, sees that as a problem.

“The way they’ve done it is that they’ve pushed so many at-large (teams) up because they’re in power conferences,” Harrison said. “There will be a ton of great teams that will miss the playoffs.”

Coaches are saying that head-to-head results don’t seem to matter as much as strength of schedule. San Juan Hills beat Cypress by 13 points, but Cypress is No. 32 and San Juan Hills is No. 54 in the Colley Royalty rankings.

“”I’ve heard that,” De Fabiis said. “The answer I have for people is that I don’t think one game is being weighed more than any other.”

De Fabiis and his team began compiling the boys and girls basketball brackets Thursday, with the regular season having ended Wednesday, based upon the Colley Royalty rankings that include Wednesday’s results. The CIF-SS office will release the final rankings along with its brackets Saturday.

CIF-SS by-laws require that teams enter all of their games and match results in its CIFSShome.org system so that the computer systems have accurate data to make their rankings. The Southern Section office on Thursday was still reaching out to athletic departments that had yet to input their complete results. Teams that do not enter accurate results can be excluded from the playoffs.

Leslie Aragon was Orangewood Academy’s girls basketball coach for many years and now is an assistant at Rosary. He sits on the CIF-SS Basketball Advisory Committee and likes the current concept.

“Any time you’re using same-year data, that’s good,” he said. “I’m all for this system.”

De Fabiis said the Southern Section is likely to retain the Colley Royalty system for the 2025-26 basketball season.

“I think it’s done a pretty good job,” he said. “As the data got better the rankings got better. I think it’s done what it was intended to do.

“We have the Open Division teams where they need to be and we have the power leagues up top. The emphasis on strength of schedule has worked. Are there outliers? Yes, but no system is perfect.”

The system, though, needs tweaking. You can’t tweak a system that does not exist. Still, more of a human element to the process would make the process better.

Computers have their strengths. But I’ve never seen a Colley computer at a high school gym. Seeing teams and players still is a good way to figure out how good they are.

​ Orange County Register