Gov. Newsom signs $2.5 billion wildfire disaster aid package

• January 24, 2025

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $2.5 billion disaster aid package on Thursday, Jan. 23, to help Southern Californians recover from the devastating wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles County.

The funding, approved by the legislature earlier in the day, will help pay for services ranging from shelters for those who have lost their homes and debris removal to expediting the rebuilding of residential homes and damaged schools.

The two bills the governor signed were introduced by legislators just this week and fast-tracked through a special legislative session to get emergency dollars out to affected communities immediately.

During an afternoon press conference, Newsom thanked the legislature for acting with urgency and for legislators from both sides of the aisle coming together for a common cause.

“I wanted to thank everybody that cleared the deck, didn’t play politics with this, that recognized that people are in need,” said Newsom.

The governor later doubled down on the importance of bipartisanship, posting on the social media platform X that the bills passed with “No ‘conditions.’ No strings attached.”

He said he hoped Congress and President Donald Trump would do the same.

Since the Southern California fires first broke out on Jan. 7, some Republicans, including  Trump, have suggested that federal disaster aid to California should come with conditions. But by and large, lawmakers who represent Southern California, on both sides of the aisle, have decried the notion that conditions should be placed on disaster relief aid.

Trump, who has criticized the state’s water policy, said in an interview with Fox News this week, “I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down” from the northern part of the state to the south.

In the meantime, California state legislators moved forward with approving $2.5 billion in emergency funding for Southern California with hopes that at least some of that money will be reimbursed by the federal government. The money was approved as part of special session bills introduced by Assembly Budget Chair Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, and Senate Budget Chair Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco.

The first bill, ABX1-4/SBX1-4, provides up to $1.5 billion to fund fire response and recovery. This includes expenses related to evacuating and sheltering displaced individuals; removing household hazardous wastes; remediating post-fire hazards such as flooding and debris flow; conducting air quality, water or other environmental tests; and expediting recovery.

The second bill, ABX1-5/SBX1-3, provides funding for the following:

• $4 million for L.A. County, as well as the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu, Pasadena and potentially other local governments to expedite the rebuilding of residential homes by providing resources to speed up the planning review and building process.

• $1 million to assist the Los Angeles and Pasadena school districts, as well as charter schools within those districts, to rebuild and recover damaged facilities.

• Up to $1 billion for other disaster-related responses.

Legislators have called the $2.5 billion initial funding and said that more money and other actions will be needed in the future to address California wildfires.

​ Orange County Register 

NAMM 2025: Scenes (and sounds) from the first day of the Anaheim music event

• January 24, 2025

Scott Sullivan waited patiently in line for his chance to meet drummer Gregg Bissonette at the NAMM Show at the Anaheim Convention Center on Thursday morning.

The line moved, and Sullivan, himself a drummer from Simi Valley, reached the table where Bissonnette, who has toured and recorded with stars including Ringo Starr, David Lee Roth, Duran Duran and Pat Boone (on that metal album the pop crooner once made).

Out came a glossy photograph of Bissonnette enlarged to the size of a small poster.

“I was younger and thinner then!” Bissonnette said, laughing, as he signed the image.

Sullivan arrived at the annual National Association of Music Merchants Show with a stack of similar photographs and a list of musicians he hoped to track down for autographs at signings in the exhibition halls.

“I have so many of these at home I have to rotate them,” he said of the past success of his efforts. “On the NAMM app, they have a list of who will be at the different booths. I came prepared for many people.”

At NAMM on Thursday, we wandered the floor checking out guitar manufacturers and technical gear, the occasional musical performance, and a panel or two.

Here’s what we found:

Music for the heart

Marcelo Dai was hard to miss as he jammed on electric bass with two guitarists at the Macmull Guitars booth. Between his retro maroon suit and his funky, string-popping riffs, it was impossible not to stop and watch.

“I came here from Brazil,” said Dia, who is from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and is actually a Tama Drums-sponsored drummer, not a bassist.

“Everybody’s got the same energy, the same good vibes,” Dai said, explaining he saw the bass untended and couldn’t resist picking it up to jam with two strangers. “Having a chance to be in the same space with everybody here, it’s good for the heart.”

Ripping some riffs

Sofia Dove, the musician influencer known as Sunfyre, looked like she was having the most ridiculous time of her life as she laughed and grinned while trying out a new guitar effects pedal at NAMM on Thursday.

And how could she not? The Fart Pedal does exactly what its name implies, converting each note played on a guitar into, well, a very cheeky range of semi-musical sounds.

“People like farts,” said Dove, whose live performances on Twitch feature her wearing one silly costume after another – Dora the Explorer, a Mario Toad, a camouflage ghillie suit – while playing drums and singing on a technicolor set. “It’s for people having fun.”

Fart Pedal creator Steve Gadlin said the product, which is packaged in a can of beans not a box, came unexpectedly about four years ago.

“I was googling it because I wanted one, and it didn’t exist,” he says of his desire to make guitars break like the wind.

He contacted a tech guy who made pedals, who told him he could make the pedal of Gadlin’s dreams, but wondered why he wanted one.

“I said, ‘Just go on the journey with me, man,” Gadlin said. “And we’ve been making a lot of Fart Pedals since.”

Art and soul inside

Before Luis Ortiz founded Cream Guitars in Monterrey, Mexico, he was a musician whose first love was a Stratocaster. And as he tried new guitars, a Les Paul, a Telecaster, a semi-hollow body, he says he learned new sounds and techniques.

With Cream, Ortiz hopes to inspire those who try his company’s custom guitars and basses to go like him to musical places they’ve never known before.

“The old designs stopped changing,” he said of the way that Strats and Les Pauls and similarly shaped and built guitars became standards. “Everything was like the same car from the ’50s with better brakes. No innovation.”

At NAMM, Cream’s Voltage DaVinci displayed plenty of that attitude thanks to the electronic paper made by E Ink that covers the guitar body and allows a guitarist to endlessly customize the colors and shapes and their movements as they play the instrument.

“We are a new attitude,” Ortiz said of the customization his instruments can offer even beyond the e-paper used on the DaVincis. “From a guitar that changes colors to guitars that have art and soul inside.”

Record Plant stories

The name of the Record Plant, a chain of recording studios in New York City, Los Angeles and Sausalito, appears in the credits on scores of beloved classic albums from the late ’60s for decades after.

Stevie Wonder’s “Innervisions” and his other legendary albums of the early ’70s. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” and the Eagles’ “Hotel California.”

At NAMM on Thursday, some of the people who build Record Plant studios and produce or engineer those records appeared on a panel titled “Buzz Me In – Birth of Record Plant Recording Studios: 1968-1978.”

Much of the conversation circled around Studio B at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, which panelists John Storyk and Robert Margouleff created for Stevie Wonder to use not only for “Innervisions” but other albums including “Talking Book” and “Songs in the Key of Life,” too.

Storyk, an architect and acoustician, built Electric Lady studio for Jimi Hendrix, whose album “Electric Ladyland,” was the first album recorded at the Record Plant after its creation by partners Chris Stone and Gary Kellgren. Engineer-producer Margouleff was working with Stevie Wonder in New York City, and neither of them was entirely happy with the studios they had to use.

Studio B at the Record Plant changed all that, Storyk and Margouleff said. It allowed space to house the massive bank of synthesizers called TONTO with which Wonder was making those albums. But even more significant, it expanded on the new kind of recording studio that Hendrix and Storyk built at Electric Lady, making them more like a living room and less like a science lab.

“The Record Plant, Electric Lady, and a few others were finally studios that said there should be a vibe in a studio,” Storyk said.

At the Record Plant studios, not only could an artist make a record that sounded fantastic, they could indulge in all manner of fun while they were doing it. In Los Angeles, the studios had a jacuzzi, a former Coke machine that dispensed cans of beer for a quarter, and themed bedrooms.

In Sausalito, there were two jacuzzis and a weekly delivery of nitrous oxide – laughing gas – which apparently could be enjoyed through devices built into the control room, though panelist Ken Caillat, an acclaimed producer, said he never saw the nitrous during the year he spent in Sausalito recording Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.”

The sex and drugs are stories now, some of them likely to appear in “Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant Studios,” a book coming later this year from coauthors Martin Porter and David Goggin, the latter of whom moderated the panel in his online persona of Mr. Bonzai.

The music, though, will forever live on, Margouleff said.

“You couldn’t make a bad record in that room,” he said. “It was magical.”

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers’ LeBron James picked for 21st straight All-Star Game, extending records

• January 24, 2025

LOS ANGELES — Lakers star LeBron James already held the record for most NBA All-Star appearances.

And on Thursday, the league’s career scoring leader added more distance between himself and the rest of the field.

James was named an NBA All-Star for a record-extending 21st consecutive time on Thursday.

James, a four-time league MVP who is in his 22nd NBA season, entered Thursday averaging 23.7 points, nine assists and 7.5 rebounds per game.

James is a three-time NBA All-Star Game MVP (2006, ’08, ’18) and is the game’s all-time leading scorer (434 points).

He will start a record 20th consecutive All-Star Game.

James has averaged 21.7 points, 5.7 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.1 steals in his previous All-Star Game appearances.

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were also selected as starters from the Western Conference.

New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, Knicks guard Jalen Brunson and Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell were selected as starters from the Eastern Conference.

The starters were picked through a system of weighted balloting: 50% was fan voting, 25% was a media panel and 25% was voting by current players. Antetokounmpo led all players in fan voting for a second straight season.

There are 14 more All-Stars yet to be announced, and they’ll be chosen in a vote of the league’s head coaches. That list will be revealed next Thursday (Jan. 30), with Lakers big man Anthony Davis a strong candidate to be added.

The NBA is debuting a new format for the 2025 NBA All-Star Game, which will take place on Feb. 16 at Chase Center in San Francisco.

The All-Star Game will feature a mini-tournament with four teams and three games. Two teams will meet in one semifinal (Game 1), and the remaining two teams will meet in the other semifinal (Game 2). The winning teams from Game 1 and Game 2 will advance to face each other in the championship (Game 3). Every game is being played to 40 points.

Each team will have eight players, with the 24 All-Stars being divided evenly into three teams. The rosters will be drafted by TNT’s “Inside the NBA” commentators and honorary team general managers Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith on Feb. 6. The fourth team will be the winning team from the championship game of the Rising Stars, the annual showcase of the top first- and second-year NBA players and NBA G League standouts, that will be played on Feb. 14. TNT analyst and WNBA legend Candace Parker will be the honorary GM of the Rising Stars team.

Presuming he plays, James is in line to become the third player to appear in the All-Star Game after turning 40, joining Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who did so at 40 and 41, and longtime Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, whose All-Star finale came when he was 40.

James has two more All-Star selections than anyone else in NBA history (Abdul-Jabbar was a 19-time pick) and is three years clear of anyone else for the longest streak of consecutive selections. Lakers great Kobe Bryant was picked for 18 consecutive All-Star Games, the second-longest such streak.

More to come on this story.

​ Orange County Register 

Hegseth told senator he paid $50,000 to woman who accused him of 2017 sex assault

• January 23, 2025

By TARA COPP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Hegseth, President Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, paid $50,000 to the woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017, according to answers he provided to a senator during his confirmation process that The Associated Press has obtained.

The answers were provided to Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren in response to additional questions she had for Hegseth as part of the vetting process.

Hegseth attorney Timothy Parlatore declined to comment on the dollar figure Thursday. Hegseth told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing. He told senators during his confirmation hearing last week that he was “falsely accused” in the 2017 incident and completely cleared.

The news of the payment amount comes the same day the Senate advanced Hegseth’s nomination along a party-line vote. Two Republicans, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, broke with Trump and voted Thursday against Hegseth, who also has faced allegations of excessive drinking and being abusive to his second wife, which he denies.

The most serious accusation came from the woman who told police she was sexually assaulted by Hegseth in a California hotel room in 2017 after he took her phone, blocked the door and refused to let her leave, according to an investigative report released in November.

The report does not say that police found the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review.

Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni said her office declined to file charges in January 2018 because it didn’t have “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

AP reporter Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.

​ Orange County Register 

Bill Burr and Shane Gillis will host a one-night show for Los Angeles wildfire aid

• January 23, 2025

Stand-up comedians Bill Burr and Shane Gillis will perform A Night of Comedy to Benefit Those Affected by the Los Angeles wildfires.

In a recent interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Burr said he had to evacuate his Los Angeles home due to the wildfires. He saluted “everyone for doing a great job” despite online criticism of how the wildfires were handled and the internet opining about how the fire response was mismanaged.

“Like some (expletive) idiot on the internet knows how to manage the worst fire in L.A. sitting there in his underwear.” he joked.

Tickets for the show scheduled at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on Monday, Jan. 27 are available via livenation.com. All proceeds from the show will benefit the Wildfire Relief Fund, which is managed by GoFundMe.org and was created to provide quick and direct relief to people in need in the aftermath of domestic U.S. wildfires by accepting and dispersing tax-deductible donations and sending out critical cash grants.

Grants are allocated to individuals, small businesses, community relief efforts and to nonprofits coordinating long-term recovery. A Live Nation press release stated that the fund has raised nearly $3.5 million from almost 31,000 donations and has sent over 500 grants out so far.

SEE ALSO: FireAid L.A. Benefit concert releases lineup for both Kia Forum and Intuit Dome

Burr has been performing stand-up comedy since the early ’90s. He’s become one of the most prolific comedians in the last decade with Rolling Stone ranking him 17th on its list of the 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time. His approach to comedy is blunt, but his live performances are filled with authenticity and funny explanations of everyday subjects that make sense even to the most reserved haters. Burr has six Netflix comedy specials and stars in the Roku dark-comedy anthology series “Immoral Compass,” which was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. He’s also hosted his “Monday Morning Podcast” since 2007 and co-founded the All Things Comedy network in 2012.

Gillis is a newer face in comedy but has become increasingly popular since first starting his stand-up career in 2012. Gillis might be best known for being hired and then almost immediately fired by Saturday Night Live when controversial jokes surfaced within hours of the announcement he’d be joining the cast in 2019. Over the next few years, he released a self-funded debut “Shane Gillis: Live in Austin,” a breakthrough hit with over 30 million views on YouTube. In 2023, he released his follow-up Netflix special, “Beautiful Dogs,” and co-created and stars in the Netflix comedy series “Tires.” Last year, the SNL fiasco came full circle and Gillis was invited back to host the show.

The benefit show hosted by Burr and Gillis is one of many efforts happening throughout Los Angeles to aid those devastated by the wildfires.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump pardons anti-abortion activists who blockaded clinic entrances

• January 23, 2025

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday he would pardon anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.

Trump called it “a great honor to sign this.”

“They should not have been prosecuted,” he said as he signed pardons for “peaceful pro-life protesters.”

The people pardoned were involved in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of a Washington clinic.

Lauren Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade by directing blockaders to link themselves together with locks and chains to block the clinic’s doors. A nurse sprained her ankle when one person pushed her while entering the clinic, and a woman was accosted by another blockader while having labor pains, prosecutors said. Police found five fetuses in Handy’s home after she was indicted.

Trump pardoned Handy and her nine co-defendants: Jonathan Darnel of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania.

In the first week of Trump’s presidency, anti-abortion advocates have ramped up calls for Trump to pardon protesters charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats. The 1994 law was passed during a time where clinic protests and blockades were on the rise, as was violence against abortion providers, such as the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993.

Trump specifically mentioned Harlow in a June speech criticizing former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for pursuing charges against protesters involved in blockades.

“Many people are in jail over this,” he said in June, adding, ”We’re going to get that taken care of immediately.”

Abortion rights advocates slammed Trump’s pardons as evidence of his opposition to abortion access, despite his vague, contradictory statements on the issue as he attempted to find a middle ground on the campaign trail between anti-abortion allies and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.

“Donald Trump on the campaign trail tried to have it both ways — bragging about his role in overturning Roe v. Wade while saying he wasn’t going to take action on abortion,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations for the national abortion rights organization Reproductive Freedom for All. “We never believed that that was true, and this shows us that we were right.”

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser thanked Trump for “immediately delivering on his promise” to pardon the protesters, arguing their prosecutions were political.

The legal group Thomas More Society argued the FACE Act defendants they represent had been “unjustly imprisoned” in a January letter to Trump. The group had assured the defendants that Trump would review their cases and pardon them when he took office, according to the letter.

“Today, freedom rings in our great nation,” Steve Crampton, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, said Thursday, adding, ”What happened to them can never be erased, but today’s pardons are a huge step towards restoring justice.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, among Trump’s most loyal supporters, called the prosecution of anti-abortion protesters “a grotesque assault on the principles of this country” and urged Trump to pardon them while reading the stories of such anti-abortion protesters on the Senate floor Thursday. He highlighted Eva Edl, who was involved in a 2021 Tennessee clinic blockade and whose story has garnered attention from the largest national anti-abortion groups.

Hawley said he “had a great conversation” Thursday morning with Trump about the protesters.

The news of the pardons comes ahead of Friday’s annual anti-abortion protest March for Life in Washington, where the president is expected to address the crowd in a video.

​ Orange County Register 

Horse racing notes: Big ’Cap prospects run in San Pasqual Stakes

• January 23, 2025

SANTA ANITA LEADERS

Through Monday

Jockeys / Wins

Flavien Prat / 22

Juan Hernandez / 16

Umberto Rispoli / 14

Antonio Fresu / 8

Tiago J. Pereira / 7

Trainers / Wins

Mark Glatt / 11

Jeff Mullins / 8

Bob Baffert / 8

Philip D’Amato / 6

Doug F. O’Neill / 6

UPCOMING STAKES (SANTA ANITA)

Saturday

• $200,000, Grade II San Pasqual Stakes, 4-year-olds and up, 1⅛ miles

Sunday

• $100,000 Clockers’ Corner Stakes, 4 and up, about 6½ furlongs on turf

DOWN THE STRETCH

• Saturday’s San Pasqual Stakes should help to sort out prospects for the March 1 Santa Anita Handicap. The seven-horse field includes Imagination (Diego Herrera riding), in gear after a good third-place finish in the Malibu Stakes; Tarantino (Edwin Maldonado), second to JB Strikes Back in the Laffit Pincay Handicap, and Express Train (Hector Berrios), winner of the San Pasqual in 2021 and 2022 and the Big ’Cap in 2022.

• Trainer Bob Baffert runs two high-rated 3-year-olds in the same maiden sprint Saturday at Santa Anita, giving San Saba (Maldonado) his racing debut and Varney (Berrios) a second try.

• Jockey Kazushi Kimura was to ride Imagination and San Saba but remains sidelined with a leg injury from a Jan. 16 starting gate accident. Kimura was tied for fourth in the Santa Anita jockey standings before he got hurt.

• The $3 million, Grade I Pegasus World Cup Invitational, the richest North American race of the winter, drew a field of 12 for Saturday’s running at Gulfstream Park near Miami. Locked (John Velazquez), a 5-2 morning-line favorite, can be beaten by 2023 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner White Abarrio (Irad Ortiz Jr.), Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan (Brian Hernandez Jr.), Pacific Classic winner Mixto (Frankie Dettori) and Santa Anita Derby winner Stronghold (Antonio Fresu) on their best days. Also entered is Newgrange (Emisael Jaramillo), the 2023 and 2024 San Pasqual winner.

• Santa Anita’s top two jockeys will be in Arkansas on Saturday to ride in the Grade III Southwest Stakes, a step toward the May 3 Kentucky Derby. Juan Hernandez takes over 2-1 morning-line favorite Gaming for Baffert. Flavien Prat, who won the Del Mar Futurity with Gaming, moves to 5-2 Patch Adams for trainer Brad Cox.

• Cox-trained Disco Time ($5.80) and Florent Geroux rallied on the outside to beat Built and Jareth Loveberry by a neck in the Grade III Lecomte Stakes in New Orleans last Saturday. The first 1-1/16-mile race on the 2025 Derby prep calendar went in a slow 1:47.07 on a sloppy track. Admiral Dennis was scratched but won at the allowance level the next day.

• Most popular horses in last week’s round of Kentucky Derby future betting: Barnes (6-1), Patch Adams (12-1), East Avenue (15-1), Citizen Bull (17-1), Journalism (20-1).

• Favorites won 48% of races (61 of 127) in the first 13 days of the Santa Anita season, even higher than the unprecedented 46% rate that carried into March at this meet in 2024. Now, as then, this reflects the challenges Santa Anita faces in putting together competitive races.

• Los Alamitos quarter-horse racing this weekend features trials Saturday for the Feb. 15 Los Alamitos Winter Derby and Sunday for the Feb. 16 Brad McKinzie Los Alamitos Winter Championship for 4-year-olds and up.

– Kevin Modesti

​ Orange County Register 

Fryer: Cheer for this sport that has its CIF-SS championships this weekend

• January 23, 2025

For years at high school basketball games, someone from one team’s cheerleaders would do a series of handsprings and then someone from the other team’s cheerleaders would do a longer series of handsprings.

It was a form of competition, although no medals or trophies were rewarded.

That changed a few years ago.

The CIF Southern Section competitive cheer championships are being held Friday and Saturday.

Yes, cheerleading is a CIF sport. The CIF Southern Section has held cheer championships since 2019.

Yes, cheerleaders are athletes. Some of those moves they make during breaks of a basketball game are basically gymnastic floor exercises, but on a hardwood floor and not on that padded surface we see during the Olympics.

Orange County cheer teams that won CIF-SS championships last season were Garden Grove, Mater Dei, Marina and Santa Margarita. This season’s CIF-SS Traditional Competitive Cheer Championships are at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside.

Then comes the CIF State Cheer Invitational on Feb. 1 at Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach, then the National High School Cheer Championships at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 7 and 8. The national event has been going on for more than 40 years.

Marina’s team last season that won a third straight CIF championship was a senior-heavy group. This year’s team has one senior returnee.

“It’s a very dedicated group,” said Marina cheer coach Lexy Gutierrez. “We practice almost every day, getting in our extra reps.”

Although a young team, Marina still finished second, to Woodbridge, in its division in last month’s UCA West Coast Challenge at UC Irvine. Other Orange County varsity winners there were Beckman, El Dorado, Los Alamitos, Santa Margarita and Villa Park.

Gutierrez was a cheerleader at Marina and later at Long Beach State. As a cheer athlete and now a coach, she knows what it takes to excel at it.

“These kids are athletes and they work extremely hard,” she said. “We’re in the weight room. We put them through everything that other sports athletes go through.”

NOTES

The three leaders for Orange County boys basketball player of the year are Santa Margarita junior guard Kaiden Bailey, Mater Dei junior guard Luke Barnett and Canyon senior forward Brandon Benjamin. …

The list of candidates for All-County boys basketball first team is a long one. San Juan Hills 6-8 senior Mason Hodges moved up the list Wednesday when he scored 38 points with six 3-pointers and 10 rebounds in theStallions’ 77-66 win over San Clemente in a South Coast League game. San Juan Hills improved to 5-0 with the win over the Tritons, who are 3-1 in league. …

Of all the transfer moves in Orange County football, the move of quarterback Ryan Hopkins from JSerra to Mater Dei could be the most significant one so far. Hopkins, who can run and throw with equal effectiveness, was All-Trinity League first team as a junior last season for JSerra. This past season’s Mater Dei quarterback Dash Beierly was a senior. …

County football has a strong group of returning quarterbacks. Brady Edmunds of Huntington Beach was All-County first team this past season as a sophomore and San Juan Hills’ Timmy Herr was All-County third team as a junior. Other standout non-senior quarterbacks of the 2024 season are Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo, Travis Frazier of Esperanza, DJ Mitchell of La Habra, Noah Nam of Beckman, Tristan Zale of Trabuco Hills. …

It is sad that three excellent county girls soccer players – Peyton Trayer of Santa Margarita, Zamorah Malinoski of Los Alamitos and Kai Tsakiris of Corona del Mar – are ineligible for the remainder of the season because they participated in a training camp in Brazil that was organized by a professional team. The rule that was violated reads: “A student shall become ineligible for CIF competition if he/she participates in any tryout for a professional team in any CIF-approved sport during the high school season of sport.” Parents and students should consider calling the CIF State or Southern Section office before getting involved in any outside-if-school activity, just to be safe. …

The top two teams in the Orange County boys soccer Top 10 scored crucial wins Wednesday when No. 1 JSerra beat No. 3 Servite 4-0 and No. 2 Mater Dei beat Santa Margarita 5-2 in Trinity League games. JSerra is 6-0 and Mater Dei is 5-1 in league. They play each other at Mater Dei on Wednesday at 5 p.m. JSerra beat Mater Dei 4-0 at JSerra on Jan. 10. …

This week’s Orange County girls soccer rankings that were published Monday have Santa Margarita at No. 1, JSerra at No. 2. On Tuesday, JSerra and Santa Margarita played to a 1-1 tie. …

The Boras Classic South, the best high school baseball tournament in California, is March 25-28 at, as usual, JSerra and Mater Dei high schools. In addition to the host schools, other teams in it include Corona, La Mirada, Cypress, Huntington Beach and Santa Margarita. The winner of the Boras Classic South and the winner of the the Boras Classic North tournament meet in the Boras Classic championship game in San Diego on April 26.

​ Orange County Register