Sebastien Boydell extends Corona del Mar’s tight end legacy, signs with Fresno State

• February 6, 2025

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

Orange County high school football has a reputation for producing standout tight ends. Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez, for example, played at Huntington Beach High. But one school has been working especially hard to extend the pipeline of prospects.

Look no further than Corona del Mar.

The Sea Kings had yet another tight end sign on National Signing Day on Wednesday as Sebastien Boydell made it official with Fresno State.

Boydell joins a legacy of Corona del Mar tight ends that includes fellow Class of 2025 signee Zach Giuliano, who signed with Stanford in December.

The program’s other tight ends the last few years include Scott Giuliano (Harvard), Mark Redman (Washington, San Diego State, Louisville), TaeVeon Le (Stanford) and Scott Truninger (Yale).

Boydell, who is 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, said the tradition impacted his rise as a collegiate recruit.

“I’m super grateful and fortunate not just to be able get advice from guys playing at the next level but also to compete everyday with some of the best tight ends in the county,” he said Wednesday. “(It) definitely helped me get better so just super grateful to my teammates and my coaches.”

Boydell was a long-time Fresno State commit. He didn’t sign during the early period in December as the Bulldogs transitioned under new coach Matt Entz.

On Wednesday, Fresno State also signed Edison running back Julius Gillick, The Register’s offensive player of the year, and JSerra defensive back Elisha Canales.

As for the next tight end to watch at Corona del Mar, Boydell points to Finn Grimstad, a 6-foot-6, 240-pound junior who played mostly defense this past season.

​ Orange County Register 

No. 7 USC women bounce back from loss, rout Wisconsin

• February 6, 2025

By STEVE MEGARGEE AP Sports Writer

MADISON, Wis. — The USC women’s basketball team regrouped before leaving the Midwest and heading back home.

Kiki Iriafen scored 15 points to lead a balanced attack as the seventh-ranked Trojans bounced back from a rare loss and never trailed in an 86-64 victory over Wisconsin on Wednesday night.

USC (20-2 overall, 10-1 Big Ten), which had 17 steals while forcing 24 Wisconsin turnovers, was finishing a two-game trip after its 15-game winning streak ended Sunday with a 76-69 loss at Iowa.

USC’s JuJu Watkins, who entered the game averaging 24.7 points to rank third in Division I, was held to a season-low 14 points in 26 minutes. Avery Howell also scored 14, Talia von Oelhoffen had 11 and Kayleigh Heckel added 10.

After shooting a season-low 35.4% from the floor against Iowa, USC returned to form Wednesday by shooting 50.7%.

Serah Williams scored 19 points and Carter McCray and Tess Myers added 12 each for Wisconsin (11-12, 2-10), which lost for the 10th time in 11 games to drop below .500 for the first time this season.

Williams, the Big Ten’s third-leading scorer behind Watkins and UCLA’s Lauren Betts, did everything she could to keep Wisconsin competitive. After shooting 0 for 7 in the first seven minutes, she was 8 for 13 the rest of the way.

After falling behind 13-3 early, Wisconsin trailed just 23-20 when Ronnie Porter missed a potential tying 3-pointer with less than four minutes left in the second quarter. That’s as close as the Badgers would get.

Watkins made the game’s first basket but didn’t score again for more than 18 minutes. She scored five points during a 10-4 run over the last 1:39 of the second quarter to give USC a 39-28 halftime lead.

USC stayed in command the rest of the way, leading by as much as 24 points. The Trojan reserves outscored their Wisconsin peers 33-8.

USC had a 44-26 advantage in points in the paint and a 22-6 margin in fast-break points.

UP NEXT

USC hosts No. 8 Ohio State on Saturday at 6 p.m.

​ Orange County Register 

Reports: Warriors acquire Jimmy Butler from Heat in multi-team trade

• February 6, 2025

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer

Jimmy Butler got what he wanted. He’s being traded out of Miami and got a new contract in the process.

The Heat and the Golden State Warriors have agreed on a deal that sends Butler to the Bay Area, multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday night. Butler helped carry the Heat to the NBA Finals twice, long before a hostile breakup that saw him suspended three times by the team in January.

Golden State is making it happen by moving Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters and first-round draft compensation out in the deal, a source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the trade has not gotten league approval.

Wiggins and Anderson are headed to Miami; it’s unclear if Anderson will be staying with the Heat. Schroder is getting moved to Utah – where the Warriors, coincidentally, were Wednesday night – and Josh Richardson is heading from Miami to Detroit along with Waters. Also on the move: P.J. Tucker, who was just traded from the Clippers to Utah on Saturday and now is set to return to Miami, where he played in 2021-22.

“My brother, man. I’m going to miss him, for sure,” said Heat forward Nikola Jovic, who looked up to Butler. “I think a lot of guys here will. He’s someone who did a lot for this franchise.”

The Heat will get a protected first-rounder from Golden State; for now, that is a pick in this year’s draft though that could change based on final terms. And ESPN reported that Butler has already agreed on a two-year extension with the Warriors, one that would be worth around $113 million.

“I’m really happy that he got what he wanted,” Jovic said. “That bag’s kinda really big.”

Mark down March 25: Golden State at Miami, the first time Butler could play again in South Florida.

Golden State becomes Butler’s fifth team, after stints in Chicago, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Miami. His arrivals were celebrated in all four cities, and his departures weren’t exactly smooth in any of them.

With the Warriors, he joins Steph Curry and Draymond Green – two players who were part of all four recent Golden State championship teams and have hopes of getting back to title contention again.

The Warriors had a closed-door meeting in the locker room Wednesday as news of the trade was getting out; Coach Steve Kerr met with the team during the period that the room is typically open to reporters before games. Golden State wound up falling to Utah, 131-128.

“Our guys were in the locker room getting ready to play and all of a sudden we’re saying goodbye,” Kerr said.

Butler’s breakup with the Heat brewed for months. The primary issue was money; he was eligible for the two-year, $113 million extension and the Heat never offered it, largely because he missed about 25% of the team’s games in his Miami tenure.

The relationship was broken beyond repair at the end. When Butler said he didn’t expect to find on-court joy with the Heat again in early January, he was suspended for seven games as the last straw on a list of what the team called detrimental conduct.

It kept getting worse: Butler was suspended three times in January alone, the second a two-game ban for missing a team flight, the last an indefinite one that followed him leaving shootaround early after learning he wasn’t going to start a Jan. 27 game against Orlando. That was the end.

“There was a lot said by everybody, except for me, to tell you the truth,” Butler said after his first game back following the first suspension. “We’ll let people keep talking. … The whole truth will come out.”

The Heat said Butler asked for a trade, which caused them to changed course from team president Pat Riley’s December vow not to trade him; when the first suspension was announced, the Heat said they were trying to make a trade happen.

Butler is averaging 17 points per game this season. He had one of the best statistical games in Heat history against Detroit on Dec. 16 – 35 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists.

It was never the same again. In his six appearances following that Detroit game, including one where he departed in the first quarter with illness, Butler averaged 9.5 points, 2.7 rebounds and 4.2 assists.

Wiggins, the No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft, has averaged 18.5 points in 11 seasons – first with Minnesota, then Golden State. He is someone that Kerr has raved about at times this season, and when Wiggins was good the Warriors were usually really good. Golden State was 8-3 this season when Wiggins scored at least 23 points, and he was a contributor for the 2022  title team.

“Wiggs is one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached,” Kerr said. “Just a beautiful soul, just a wonderful human being. And we don’t hang that (championship) banner in ’22 without him. Everything he brings every single day, the laughter, the smile, the joy, just a wonderful human being. And so, I’m going to miss him.”

Butler joined Miami in 2019 to fill Dwyane Wade’s spot as the star of the team, the face of the franchise. He was an All-Star twice in Miami, helped the Heat to the NBA Finals in the bubble in 2020 and then as a No. 8 seed in 2023 and turned in some epic postseason performances. There have been 18 40-point games in Heat playoff history; Butler is responsible for eight of them, including a team-record 56 against Milwaukee in 2023.

The last time Butler spoke publicly as a Heat player was at a padel tournament on Jan. 25. “I love this city with everything that I have,” he said that day.

Two days later, he was suspended by the Heat for the third and final time.

AP sports writer Janie McCauley in San Francisco and AP writer John Coon in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Esperanza boys wrestling dominates Centennial to win CIF-SS Division 2 dual meet title

• February 6, 2025

ANAHEIM – Esperanza’s boys wrestling team closed out strong, with three pins and a technical fall in the final five bouts, to wrap up a 54-7 romp over Corona Centennial for the CIF Southern Section Division 2 dual meet championship.

“It feels good,” said Esperanza freshman Chris Arreola, who recorded a second-round technical fall at 136 pounds. “I’m happy our team got it done. We kind of shut them out, and everybody did their part.”

The Aztecs, ranked 10th in the state by Calgrappler, won the first five matches for a 22-0 lead.

The match started with the 144-pound match, and the Aztecs started strong. Mateo Centeno set the tempo when he opened with a quick takedown and near-fall, and led Rocco Godinez 9-0 after one round. He recovered from being put on his back in the second round and rolled to a 14-4 victory.

Esperanza’s Dimetry Molina beat Pablo Hernanzez 13-5 at 150, then the Aztecs’ Maddox Herrera recorded the first of four falls with a second-round pin of Centennial’s Jesse Jimenez.

Esperanza’s James Holiday followed with a 3-minute, 18-second pin at 165 pounds. The Aztecs’ Sammy Sanchez (106) got a takedown and near-fall in the final minute of the first round, then got his fall with a second left. Gianini Sanchez needed just 36 seconds to pin Gavin Salas at 113.

Arreola went after Aiden Verrick of Centennial like a hungry dog, taking him down twice with near-fall points en route to a 16-2 first-round lead. One more takedown ended the bout 43 seconds into the second round.

“I like scoring points in the match, but I’d rather get the pin for the team points,” Arreola said.

The match was the latest stop in Arreola’s comeback. He missed a month of the season with a broken left wrist, he said.

“I missed a couple of duals, and a couple of tournaments that could have gotten me higher in the rankings,” Arreola said. “After this, we’re going to go win our league title, we’re going to go win another Masters title, and we’re going to get it done at state.”

The Aztecs seem to be poised for a run at state. They have seven wrestlers in the state rankings; those seven include four sophomores and three freshmen.

Centennial had rolled into the final with two lopsided victories, but had nothing to cheer about until 190-pounder Keshaun White overpowered Aiden Shahrestani 13-3.

The Huskies’ other victory came at 285, when Angel Rodriguez outlasted Brody Aguilar 4-1, getting a takedown with one second left in the third round.

​ Orange County Register 

One of California’s new ‘trailer bills’ has origins in Capitol’s long history of closed-door politics

• February 6, 2025

As required by law, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget staff this week posted initial drafts of 59 bills they say would be needed to implement the 2025-26 state budget that Newsom proposed a few weeks ago.

That’s a polite fiction.

While many of the bills do relate to the budget, others have little or no connection but are designated as “trailer bills” merely to make them easier to enact. Those should properly be studied and debated on their own, rather than be secreted in the budget package.

One proposed measure that needs explanation and examination would delay for four years a crackdown on street racing, so-called “sideshows” and other forms of extreme driving that police officials say pose a serious threat to roadway safety. The Legislature approved the tougher penalties on dangerous drivers almost unanimously in 2021, and they were to take effect this year.

If the trailer bill is enacted, the law would be delayed until 2029.

Another proposed trailer bill, while quite innocuous in its effect, has an interesting and seamy backstory. It would extend a long-standing program of providing special devices that allow deaf people to use telephones for another nine years, financed by adding a few pennies to telephone bills each month.

Few would quarrel with a program aimed at overcoming the isolation that deaf and hard-of-hearing people may experience, but its creation nearly a half-century ago illustrates the wheeling and self-dealing that dominated the Capitol in the 1970s and 1980s.

Terry Goggin, a Democratic assemblyman from San Bernardino, carried legislation to create the program but it sounded fishy to Vic Pollard, a reporter for the San Bernardino Sun who had often written about Goggin’s many schemes.

Pollard revealed that the seemingly benign legislation benefited Goggin’s longtime friend and sometime business partner, Dennis Krieger, who was underwriting a stock sale for a company that made the only devices Goggin’s legislation would finance. After Pollard reported on that connection, Goggin was fined by the Fair Political Practices Commission.

I also added a chapter to the Goggin saga. At one point in the late ’70s, during one of California’s periodic gasoline supply crises, Goggin introduced a bill to prohibit oil companies from owning service stations. I reported for the Sacramento Union that his measure exempted one company that had employed Goggin’s father and Krieger’s father as top executives.

After my story published, Goggin dropped the bill.

Pollard later revealed to me that Goggin, who lost his Assembly seat in 1984, had once told him, “Somebody is going to make money off of everything we do up here, and it might as well be our friends.”

Pollard added, “He also tried once to hire me to get me off his back.”

Goggin’s political defeat was not the end of his saga, however.

After his old friend, Willie Brown, the legendary speaker of the state Assembly in the 1980s and 1990s, became mayor of San Francisco in 1996, Goggin moved to the city and began practicing law and lobbying city government. Eight years later, after Brown’s mayoralty ended, he and Goggin teamed up to propose a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign for the state’s bullet train project.

That gambit fell through and Goggin went into the coffee shop business, operating four concessions in Bay Area Rapid Transit stations while seeking investors to expand the chain.

That also backfired when federal prosecutors alleged that he had lied to potential investors about finances of the chain, which later went bankrupt. Then 78 years old, he pleaded guilty in 2019 to money laundering and two years later was sentenced to one year and one day behind bars.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

​ Orange County Register 

Super Bowl: Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo is mad scientist of pass rush

• February 6, 2025

By DAVE SKRETTA AP Sports Writer

NEW ORLEANS — Every once in a while, when an unsuspecting offense is least expecting it, Kansas City Chiefs safety Justin Reid will inch his way toward the line of scrimmage, then take off like a thunderbolt toward the quarterback the moment the ball is snapped.

It looks so simple, the way Reid blitzes, as if all he’s doing is timing up the QB’s cadence.

It turns out it is far more complicated.

The timing is a big part of it, of course, but so is the way defensive linemen tie up the offensive line. The way the rest of the defensive backfield disguises coverage. The way pass rushers stunt or otherwise provide pressure on the quarterback from the outside, making him move to the exact point on the field where Reid expects to meet him.

The mad scientist pulling all of those strings is Steve Spagnuolo, the Chiefs’ defensive coordinator, whose job in helping Kansas City get back to the Super Bowl had him interviewing with several clubs last week for another shot at being a head coach.

“He’s incredible,” Reid said ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl rematch with the Philadelphia Eagles. “My first year here, like, the amount of pressures and cover-zeros and simulated pressures – the sheer volume of it was a little bit like, ‘Wow, this is really deep.’ But as you get a ton of reps at it and start to get a feel for the defense, you’re almost hungry for it. Like, ‘Let’s put in more, put in something else nobody has ever seen.’”

It’s hard to believe there is something left to invent.

But that deep, complicated defensive playbook and all those exotic blitzes that “Spags” has developed over the years are a big reason why the Chiefs are back facing the Eagles on the NFL’s biggest stage.

“I love this defense, man. Spags, we’ve always trusted him and everybody that plays under him,” Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said. “They’re so sound and they play their tails off, and they throw their heart out there on the field every single week.”

In the early years of their dynastic run, the Chiefs’ defense was a liability, and it was up to Patrick Mahomes and the rest of a high-powered offense to bail it out. But that changed when Spagnuolo arrived, and General Manager Brett Veach began investing free-agent money and draft capital into upgrades on that side of the ball. The result has been a defense among the NFL’s best in scoring the past few years, and one that was particularly good against the run this season.

That could prove pivotal as the Chiefs try to slow down Eagles running back Saquon Barkley in the big game.

And when it comes to slowing down the passing attack, well, that’s where blitzes come into play. They can come from any level of the defense, at any point in time, and the only thing they have in common is the frequency in which they succeed.

“He doesn’t do it every down,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “Sometimes you get the stigma of being a ‘blitz guy.’ It’s when he does it and how he knows the protections or the run scheme, you know, for the run blitzes. How he understands the scheme and when to go about using it. I think that’s what makes him so unique and why they’re so successful.”

The success of the Kansas City defense coupled with Spagnuolo’s relatable personality have made him a fan favorite, and why the Jets and Jaguars were among the teams that interviewed him for their head coaching vacancies.

Spagnuolo had a chance with the Rams from 2009-11, going 10-38 as a head coach. But the deck was stacked against him; the team was unsettled at quarterback, the most important position in the game, and was in the midst of a major rebuilding effort.

Andy Reid would love to see his longtime friend get another chance. But in the meantime, he’s thankful Spagnuolo and so much of his defensive staff have remained intact for several years, providing consistency on that side of the ball.

“They know the scheme like the back of their hand. Spags has confidence in them and then the players have confidence in their coaches and Spags,” Reid said. “You have to stay focused during the meetings, you have to detail it at practice, you have to detail the walkthroughs that you do meetings on the field. Then, most of all, you have to execute it on game day. But there’s that trust, that whole foundation that you’ve built with the trust and these guys, they’ve got that.

“Then, likewise, I have the confidence in Spags and in certain situations. I don’t run over to him and go, ‘Hey, let’s not do that or this.’ I have enough confidence in him and been around him long enough to know he’s going to make the right call.”

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County scores and player stats for Wednesday, Feb. 5

• February 6, 2025

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

Scores and stats from Orange County games on Wednesday, Feb. 5

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.

WEDNESDAY’S SCORES

BOYS BASKETBALL

PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE TOURNAMENT

Laguna Beach 61, University 49

NONLEAGUE

Oxford Academy 44, Santiago 38

GIRLS BASKETBALL

FREELANCE LEAGUE

Acaciawood 31, Calvary Chapel/Downey 29

​ Orange County Register 

New report says more equity would mean more money in Orange County

• February 6, 2025

Equity – the controversial early frontrunner for “Word of the Year” – is about to play a starring role in a conference aimed at leveling the economic playing field in Orange County, an event titled “The Path Ahead: OC’s Roadmap to Equity.”

And while equity has become a trigger word for people of all political stripes – for some, “equity” can stand for “anti-White racism,” for others it means “hope for a just society” – the word has a third meaning that’s less rarely tossed around.

Ownership.

And that version of equity, the one about creating equal opportunities to earn and keep long-term wealth, could translate into huge gains for Orange County’s economy, according to people at the center of the Thursday, Feb. 6 conference at UC Irvine.

“When people hear ‘equity’ they think of fairness. And that’s certainly part of the definition. But part of having an equity perspective, economically speaking, is about whether everybody has an equal opportunity to thrive,” said Manuel Pastor, an economist who heads USC’s Equity Research Institute and who oversaw a report, “The Economic Benefits of Equity,” that will be made public at the conference.

“There’s significant research that suggests economies that are more unequal have more problems over time, that they can’t sustain growth,” Pastor added. “That perspective has become more common in the past 20 years or so, with research from a lot of people (such as the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Board) showing inequality is costly for any economy.”

How costly? The USC report, which tracks local economic and demographic shifts from the 1970s through 2022, offers specifics.

“Orange County’s economy could have been $97.4 billion stronger in 2022 if racial income gaps had been closed,” the authors wrote.

The USC report tracked local population shifts and economic history.

Broadly speaking, at the end of the 1970s, Orange County’s economy was slightly better than the nation in terms of income and home ownership. And, at that time, the county also looked a lot like the rest of the nation, with a population that was 78% non-Hispanic White.

Today, the county’s economy is usually ranked among the most robust in the country, with higher-than-average levels of both income and education. From 1979 through 2022, real gross domestic product in Orange County grew 238%, compared with 148% for the nation as a whole.

That county’s population also has shifted, becoming one of the nation’s most racially and ethnically diverse metro areas in the country. By 2022, White people accounted for 38.5% of the county’s overall population and Latino and Asian people combined to account for a 55.7% plurality. What’s more, about 1 in 3 Orange County residents was born outside the country, and roughly 1 in 7 are either undocumented themselves or live in families with at least one undocumented person, according to the report.

But if diversity and prosperity have grown in tandem, the report’s findings suggest that benefits haven’t been as equally felt.

For example, in 2022 the median household income in Orange County for a White family with a child 5 or younger was $150,000, far more than the median income for Black ($99,500) and Latino ($76,800) families with similarly aged children, according to the report.

“If the county achieved racial equity in incomes, people of color would see their average annual incomes increase by over $32,000 – a 67 percent gain,” the report found.

Pastor acknowledged that, as goals go, creating a race-blind economy is more idealistic than realistic. Everything from outlawed red-lining laws that once prevented Black and Jewish people from buying homes in many neighborhoods to current (and not racially controversial) tax rules about mortgage interest contribute to today’s wealth gaps. And issues that contribute to income inequality – racial bias, educational barriers and even environmental factors – can’t easily be waved away.

But the potential gains of fixing those issues, Pastor noted, would be felt by the broad economy, not just the people who historically were discriminated against.

“The efficiencies that could come with economic equity would help everyone,” he said.

Showdown? No, but…

The meeting at UCI is sponsored by Orange County Grantmakers, a nonprofit that helps connect some of the wealthiest people in the county – roughly 50 individuals and families who give $100,000 or more a year to local charities – to nonprofits that use the money. So some well-heeled members, or representatives from their charitable operations, figure to attend the conference.

It’s unclear how the national mood about equity will play out at the conference.

What is known is that the meeting is coming at a moment when equity – at least when the word is applied to the broad push for equality known as diversity, equity and inclusion – is facing a political reckoning of sorts.

President Donald Trump won the 2024 election after campaigning against DEI, among other things, describing it as everything from an anchor on the U.S. economy to a vehicle for reverse racism. Since starting his second term as president, on Jan. 20, Trump has signed executive orders to banish DEI from all levels of the federal government and U.S. military. He’s also linked DEI to what he termed ineffective efforts to fight the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County and as a potential secondary cause of a recent mid-air collision involving a passenger jet and a military helicopter in Washington, D.C.

That anti-DEI push has broadened beyond the beltway. McDonald’s, Walmart and Target are among the many companies that recently have ended or rolled back internal programs aimed at boosting racial and gender equity. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google would end hiring targets aimed at diversifying its workforce.

None of that played a role in the decision to hold a conference with the word “Equity” in its title and with equity, writ-large, as the goal.

“The fact that the report is coming out right now, and that we’re having our event right now, is serendipitous,” said Taryn Palumbo, executive director of Orange County Grantmakers.

“But it is a reminder that we’re working on the right things,” she added, laughing.

Grantmakers works directly with philanthropists, not nonprofits, and the members’ politics aren’t uniformly liberal or conservative. But Palumbo said she hasn’t heard any pushback from members because of the word equity or about the goals of getting money to fix problems outlined in the report.

Instead, she said, her members have expressed interest in diving into data about economic sectors that might benefit from equity-oriented philanthropy.

Housing costs, for example, have been a hot-button issue in the county for decades, in terms of rent and in home ownership. And the report, commissioned by Grantmakers, offers data on what that looks like in real life.

Overall, the county ranks 17th out of 150 metro areas in terms of the high number of people who are “rent burdened,” meaning they pay more than 30% of their income for housing. The report notes that Latino renters (59%) and Black renters (58%) are most likely to fall into that trap.

Palumbo said numbers like that are critical to housing and other areas tracked in the report, such as food insecurity, education and exposure to pollution.

“Obviously, a lot of these data points are extremely aspirational. It’s like saying ‘Zero homelessness, and housing for all!’ But the numbers let us see the connection between home ownership and generational wealth and equity,” Palumbo said.

“It’s not our responsibility to get complete racial equity,” she added. “But it is important to direct efforts toward that goal. We’ll highlight the existing collaborations that move us in that direction, toward equity.”

​ Orange County Register