Beckman girls volleyball sweeps Marina, advances to CIF-SS quarterfinals

• October 22, 2023

HUNTINGTON BEACH — The Beckman girls volleyball team came into the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs as the division’s top seed and it was easy to see why as the Patriots swept Marina, 25-18, 25-9, 25-14, in a second-round match Saturday at Marina High School.

The Patriots served 14 aces and got contributions from multiple players from the outside, opposite and middle positions at the net.

Beckman (31-5), which also swept Santa Monica in the first round, will play at No. 9 seed Village Christian of Sun Valley in the quarterfinals Wednesday.

Patriots coach Darin McBain said serving is his team’s biggest strength.

With Beckman leading, 11-9, and Kristine Tran serving, the Patriots scored six points in a row, with four of those points coming on aces.

The Patriots served five aces in the second set, including three from Joy Lee and two from Stacy Reeves, who also had eight kills.

Lee set the school record for aces this season.

Camryn Hayek served three aces in the third set for the Patriots.

“That’s what I think we do better than just about everybody,” McBain said. “All six girls go back there and serve tough.”

Beckman players celebrates after sweeping Marina in the second round of the CIF-SS girls volleyball playoffs Saturday, Oct. 21. (Photo by Lou Ponsi)

Sophia Saad and Victoria Turner had seven and six kills, respectively, for the Patriots.

“I don’t think we have any offensive players that are going to jump out at you,” McBain said. “But we have four or five girls that are very solid.”

Beckman’s strategy going into the match was to try keep Marina’s freshman standout, Korynn Mayo, from getting too many touches.

The strategy worked at times, but Mayo still had 14 kills for the Vikings (18-13), who finished in a second-place tie with Laguna Beach in the Wave League.

In the first set, four of the Vikings’ first eight points came from Mayo’s kills and the freshman also had four kills down the stretch to help keep her team alive in the third set.

“She’s going to be an incredible player,” McBain said. “If she puts two or three balls away in a row, she can get going. She put the first two or three balls away in the match, and that first timeout we said, hey, we’ve got to do a better job. We’re not going to stop her. She’s going to score. We’ve got to just slow her down on occasion.”

Marina first-year coach Ryan Parker said the Patriots don’t seem to have any weaknesses.

“There is just no point of attack,” Parker said. “I look at their schedule and by my account, they probably would have been a favored team in Division 2. I fully expect them to go out and win Division 3.”

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​ Orange County Register 

USC’s climb towards College Football Playoff collapses in loss to Utah

• October 22, 2023

LOS ANGELES — For weeks, after cracks have broken open USC’s facade through a variety of sloppy wins and sloppy losses, Lincoln Riley has preached of the climb – that ambiguous, non-linear journey towards glory that holds little accountability towards a clear-cut goal.

That goal, at least placed upon this program by fans and national expectations, has been a College Football Playoff, that true-powerhouse barometer USC has never hit in its existence.

A goal that seemed to stick true in Riley’s second season as head coach, through quarterback Caleb Williams’ expressed goals at immortality,  through comments like Riley’s thoughts on the run-game in late-September.

“Keep progressing ourselves towards that point to where we can be, hopefully, a championship team,” he said then.

But Saturday night, in a 34-32 loss to Utah, that particular climb ended in freefall – crashing down with one play that showed, quite simply, there’d been little change from where they’d begun.

Travel back to Aug. 26 for just a moment, USC’s first game of Riley’s second season against San Jose State, where Williams threw for four touchdowns and all was merry despite obvious issues with the Trojans’ defense. Back, simply, to one play that Saturday in the second quarter, when agile Spartans quarterback Chevan Cordeiro took off on a 3rd-and-22 and somehow picked up 28 yards for an ultimately inconsequential first down.

Travel forward to Saturday night, 16 seconds left and USC’s defense scrapping valiantly after an equally-valiant comeback, 16 precious seconds from preserving a 32-31 win. Ball at the 45. 2nd-and-15, after a penalty. Utes quarterback Bryson Barnes dropping back, facing pressure, and moving.

Skidding through USC’s defense, everybody in cardinal-and-gold calculating SAT-failing angles to try to run him down, Barnes freewheeling for 26 yards before finally being brought down.

Utah’s Cole Becker banged a 38-yarder. Ballgame.

College Football Playoff hopes, in a system that has never rewarded a two-loss team gone.

Trojans standing, shell-shocked, for a moment, adrenaline suddenly vacuumed out of the Coliseum.

“As gut-wrenching a defeat,” Riley said postgame, “as I can remember in my career.”

Gut-wrenching, because there was, truly, an overwhelming amount of good that had come from the muck of this Saturday night. Muck of a first half, of a reformed offensive line finally giving MarShawn Lloyd and the running game some room, only for the defense to get burned time and time again by safety-turned-Deebo-Samuel-esque-weapon Sione Vaki.

Through three quarters, USC was getting lit up by the quarterback son of a pig farmer and a guy who hadn’t really played offense in college until about two games ago. Down 28-17. Riley’s Air Raid shot down by the aerial-assault missiles in Utah’s secondary. Williams, coming off the worst game of his career against Notre Dame, without a touchdown.

And then Calen Bullock seemingly brought a defibrillator to a flatlining USC season.

In the fourth quarter, a ball from Barnes floated just long enough for Bullock to step in front, streaking 20 yards to the house with a pick. Momentum changed hands – even after a Utah field goal, even after USC could only match with a kick through the uprights after a third-down pass just improbably slipped out of Williams’ hands, the game broadcast showing the quarterback looking to the sky and holding his hands out as if to question a higher power on the return to the sideline.

“We had a couple of throws we’d love to have back,” Riley said postgame, when asked if he felt he went away from the run too much. “I don’t think any group was terrible, but everybody including me had a few mistakes, and you can’t make that against good teams.”

Thus, the burden of proof, yet again, was placed on this defense to get a stop. This maligned, criticized – heck, antagonized unit, coordinator Alex Grinch and company bearing the brunt of the fandom’s fury for an inconsistent start. They’d been shredded for much of the night by Vaki, the sudden two-way superstar taking a third-quarter pass for his second touchdown, making linebacker Tackett Curtis look like the recipient of an Allen Iverson crossover.

And they delivered triumphantly in waning minutes, forcing a stifling three-and-out, electrifying freshman Zachariah Branch igniting the Coliseum with a long kick return and Williams darting in for a score to give USC the lead.

But the Trojans had gone for two-point conversions twice in the fourth quarter. Missed both. And with a one-point lead that could’ve been three, defensive lineman Bear Alexander committed a targeting penalty on a third-and-nine for Utah, setting in motion the drive that’d kill national-championship hopes.

Hopes Riley deflected back around, to the faces sitting in front of him, in postgame availability. When asked if it felt as if USC had fallen short of a goal – no national championship, no CFP appearance in play – he responded, “We’re in the middle of a season. That’s a dream world.”

“We don’t come in every single week talking about winning a national championship, going to the playoffs,” Riley continued. “I don’t know where that narrative starts.”

It started in the summer of 2022, when Riley professed to the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke his goal to “win the championship.” It continued with comments on championship aspirations. A narrative impossible to turn back, as Riley continues to profess the role of outside expectations on the team’s season, continuing to tighten a leash on media – with no players made available to speak after USC’s loss Saturday night.

So where does the climb lead, from here?

​ Orange County Register 

Santa Anita horse racing consensus picks for Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023

• October 22, 2023

The consensus box of Santa Anita horse racing picks comes from handicappers Bob Mieszerski, Art Wilson, Terry Turrell and Eddie Wilson. Here are the picks for thoroughbred races on Sunday, October 22, 2023.

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Laiatu Latu, UCLA football live updates vs. Stanford

• October 22, 2023

Follow along for live updates from UCLA football reporter James H. Williams before, during and after UCLA’s game against the Stanford Cardinal.

Redshirt junior quarterback Ethan Garbers is likely to start against Stanford, according to reports. Garbers started the season opener before true freshman Dante Moore took over the role in the last five games. Moore has thrown a pick-six in each of the last three games during Pac-12 Conference play.

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The UCLA Bruins are coming off another Pac-12 road loss as the Stanford Cardinal ride the high of a thrilling double-overtime win. https://t.co/jec47YYomZ

— James H. Williams covers UCLA football (@JHWreporter) October 20, 2023

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Long Beach’s Airport’s Festival of Flight celebrates aeronautics history

• October 22, 2023

History took flight at the Long Beach Airport on Saturday, Oct. 21.

The annual Festival of Flight, a free celebration of aeronautics, took place on the west end of the air field, featuring myriad planes from different eras — and this year’s iteration of the event was particularly poignant. The Long Beach Airport, after all, will celebrate its 100th anniversary next month.

The airport lined up a special show to display several historic aircraft built in the city, among them one of only four in the world still active that was manufactured for combat during World War II: a B-17 bomber called Sentimental Journey.

The B-17 was a heavy bomber used by the United States Army Air Forces to bombard Germany’s industrial and military targets to help secure air superiority over Western European cities, factories and battlefields before the invasion of France in 1944, according to the plane’s description compiled by the Commemorative Airforce on its website. It also flew missions in the Pacific.

About 12,000 of the aircraft were produced by Boeing in Long Beach from 1936 to 1945 to fight during WWII.

Sentimental Journey, in particular, is a heavy bomber used by the United States Army Air Force to bombard Germany’s industrial and military targets to help secure air superiority over Western European cities, factories and battlefields before the invasion of France in 1944.

“It’s challenging to get these military aircrafts to our event,” LGB spokesperson Kate Kuykendall said in a previous interview. “It was really special we were able to get it this year.”

It is “extremely rare,” she said, to have the B-17 bomber on display and available for flyovers.

Other airplanes on display as part of the the centennial celebration were a C-17, a KC-10 and a P-51, the latter flown by a group of African American military pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.

The C-17 Globemaster III, meanwhile, is also a large military plane manufactured by McDonnell Douglas/Boeing at a Long Beach plant. The U.S. Air Force used the C-17 in famous operations, such as in the evacuations of personnel and civilians from Afghanistan in August 2021, and during the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011.

More than 250 C-17s were assembled in Long Beach over the course of two decades. But with a lack of foreign orders, Boeing announced in 2013 that it would close the plant. The final C-17 Globemaster III built in Long Beach flew away in November 2015.

There are 200 C-17 active planes in the world, Kuykendall said.

“We are also very excited by the C-17,” she said previously. “It is a huge massive aircraft for people to check its belly.”

Saturday’s festival drew thousands of visitors, with airport officials saying before the event that they expected around 15,000.

Besides static airplan displays and flyovers, the festival, which launched in 2013 to celebrate the airport’s 90th anniversary, also featured games for children, live music, food and beer trucks and helicopter flyovers for purchase.

The musical acts included the Satin Dollz, Brazilian funk singer and producer DJ Dennis and blues, jazz and ragtime band the California Feet Warmers.

“Festival of Flight is the perfect way to showcase our historic airport,” Fifth District Councilmember Megan Kerr said previously, “by allowing the public to walk directly onto the airfield to see and interact with aircraft up close.

“It’s a truly special community event,” she added, “that has become an annual tradition for many families in Long Beach.”

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers’ LeBron James sustaining self-motivation entering Year 21

• October 22, 2023

EL SEGUNDO — By the time Tuesday’s regular-season opener rolls around, it would’ve been 156 days since the Lakers were eliminated by the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals.

Plenty of time for the Lakers to reflect on the four-game sweep and the aftermath of the series – including the Nuggets eventually beating the Miami Heat to win the NBA title.

The Lakers’ matchup against the Nuggets at Ball Arena in Colorado will also be Denver’s ring night.

“I’m looking forward to the game,” coach Darvin Ham said after Saturday’s practice. “It’s been a huge motivational factor. It’s been on our minds as far as trying to come together as a group and making sure we lay the right foundation and start off on the right foot. Just playing the right way on both sides of the ball.

“Definitely losing, getting swept or whatever…it’s a motivational piece for us. Just seeing how much we had turned it around and then now bringing the core back and adding what we’ve added. It’s a huge motivation for a chance to taste the conference finals and now the chance to really go beyond that.”

Because of how last season ended and the offseason chatter, some of the Lakers have had their eyes set on the regular-season opener for weeks – if not months.

Nuggets coach Michael Malone was introduced as “the Lakers’ daddy” during the Nuggets’ championship parade celebration.

Malone also joked that he was “thinking about retiring” during an offseason interview – seemingly making a joke at the expense of LeBron James, who cryptically hinted at retiring after the Lakers-Nuggets series ended.

James didn’t directly respond to the quip but appeared to address Malone on Instagram during the offseason. When asked how he’s decided whether or not to respond to trash talk, he responded “there will be a time.”

“When that time is, I don’t know,” James added. “I don’t know if it’s now or…there will be a time. There will be a time when everybody will get it, for sure.”

James, who’s entering his 21st NBA season, said the external noise doesn’t motivate him anymore.

“I don’t need it,” James added. “I don’t want to say I don’t get motivated to play, because I do get motivated to go against the competition, I love competing against the best. But I don’t need an individual or a team to motivate me.”

What motivates James – outside of his family – is simple.

“It’s just my motivation to continue to be as great as I can be and solidify what I want to do in my career and still seeing that Larry O’Brien trophy in my mind on a daily basis,” James said. “That’s one of the best four moments of my career, being able to hoist up that trophy. [That’s] motivation alone. But also wanting to be legendary in this game and let my game speak for itself long after I’ve played. But this team has motivated me as well.”

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INJURY UPDATES

Ham said guard Gabe Vincent will be available against the Nuggets after missing the last three preseason games because of lower back soreness.

Jarred Vanderbilt (left heel soreness) and Jalen Hood-Schifino (right knee contusion) remain day-to-day.

It’s unlikely Vanderbilt will be available against the Nuggets.

“We’ll see,” Ham said. “There’s some hurdles that we got to go through and some boxes that we got to check with him and in all likelihood he probably won’t be available.”

Taurean Prince will be the fifth starter alongside James, Anthony Davis, D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves against Denver, Ham said.

That quintet started all three preseason games James and Reaves played.

​ Orange County Register 

Lukas Dostal’s 25 saves not enough in Ducks’ 2-1 loss to Coyotes

• October 22, 2023

TEMPE, Ariz. — Lukas Dostal made 25 saves in his second start of the season but it wasn’t enough as the Ducks fell 2-1 to the Arizona Coyotes in a Saturday matinee at 5,000-seat Mullett Arena on the Arizona State University campus.

The Ducks’ Frank Vatrano tipped in a cross-ice pass from Jakob Silfverberg for his fourth goal of the season on a power play to cut the Coyotes’ lead to 2-1 at 7:47 of the third period.

Pulling Dostal with two minutes remaining proved fruitless for the Ducks (1-3), who could not score again in a contentious game that included 14 penalties – eight by the Ducks – and a fight between Coyotes forward Liam O’Brien and Ducks forward Ross Johnston that knocked the goal off its moorings midway through the second period. Both were given five-minute fighting penalties.

Playing in their home opener, the Coyotes (3-2) have won three of their first five games for the first time since the 2015-16 season when they won their first three, and they won their home opener for the first time since 2016-17.

Clayton Keller and Jason Zucker scored in the victory and Karel Vejmelka made 29 saves.

Keller gave the Coyotes a 2-0 lead with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle at 14:01 of the second period. The Coyotes spent almost a minute working the puck around in their offensive zone before Keller’s score following a delayed penalty call.

Just nine seconds into a power play, Zucker opened the scoring with a quick wrist shot from the top of the right circle that squeaked under Dostal’s glove with 2:19 remaining in the first period.

Dostal saved two shots from Nick Schmaltz from point-blank range minutes earlier on the first of the Coyotes’ two power plays.

The most consistent pressure from the Ducks on Vejmelka came during a power play early in the second period. Vejmelka turned aside three shots, two by Trevor Zegras, and the defense blocked three others in the first 80 seconds.

Center Adam Henrique, who missed the previous game with an illness, returned for the Ducks, who were without forward Brock McGinn (lower body), center Alex Kilorn (broken finger) and defenseman Jamie Drysdale (lower body).

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The Ducks have six rookies on the roster, the most in the league, and also have the most players who are 19 and under (three), 20 and under (four), and 22 and under (seven). Leo Carlsson, at 18 years and 297 days, is the third-youngest player in the league and the third-youngest player in Ducks’ history.

The Ducks return home for a 5:30 p.m. clash Sunday the Boston Bruins at Honda Center.

​ Orange County Register 

Caleb Williams, USC football live updates vs. Utah

• October 22, 2023

Follow along for live updates from USC football reporter Luca Evans before, during and after the Trojans’ game against Utah

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USC safety Bryson Shaw (#27) exited last week’s game with injury — he’s warming up with the rest of the secondary pregame for USC-Utah. pic.twitter.com/102f0YVsqJ

— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) October 21, 2023

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