Orange County baseball stat leaders through April 1

• April 4, 2023

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Orange County baseball stats leaders through Saturday, April 1.

To be included, teams must have their stats up to date on the MaxPreps.com leaderboards.

BATTING AVERAGE

Name, school
Avg.
Hits
AB

John Uchytil, Estancia
.545
30
55

Keenan Anzai, Mission Viejo
.521
25
48

Jack Boucher, Mission Viejo
.520
26
50

Cole Lefebvre, Estancia
.500
30
60

Spencer Carty, La Habra
.500
9
18

Connor Sunderland, Fullerton
.489
23
47

Waylon Pipia, Calvary Chapel
.485
16
33

Jonathan Rodriguez, Valencia
.478
11
23

Anthony Lopez, Saddleback
.476
10
21

RUNS BATTED IN

Name, school
RBI
PA
GP

Grady Jackson, Costa Mesa
26
70
16

John Uchytil, Estancia
21
66
16

Sam Stute, Costa Mesa
20
64
15

James De La O, Estancia
20
64
16

Connor Sunderland, Fullerton
20
58
14

Wylan Rottschafer, Costa Mesa
18
72
16

Malachi Meni, Fullerton
18
54
14

Matt Anderson, Costa Mesa
17
60
16

Nate Norman, Fullerton
17
57
14

Rylan Morris, Sunny Hills
16
53
13

Caleb Robeck, Costa Mesa
16
53
16

Tyler Holland, Mission Viejo
16
52
16

Cole Lefebvre, Costa Mesa
15
70
16

Gavin Grahovac, Villa Park
14
66
15

Michael Joyce, Costa Mesa
14
62
16

Anthony DeMarco, Woodbridge
14
58
16

Zach Brown, Villa Park
14
56
15

Aidan Espinoza, Huntington Beach
13
71
18

Austen Barnett, University
13
53
15

Aiden Comte, Costa Mesa
13
51
16

SLUGGING PERCENTAGE

Name, school
Slugging %
AB
TB

Connor Sunderland, Fullerton
.915
47
43

Chase Brunson, San Clemente
.854
41
35

John Uchytil, Estancia
.836
55
46

Joshua Delgado, Santa Ana
.821
28
23

Lucas Marinelli, Portola
.794
34
27

Waylon Pipia, Calvary Chapel
.788
33
26

Gavin Grahovac, Villa Park
.764
55
42

Anthony Lopez, Saddleback
.762
21
16

Cole Lefebvre, Estancia
.700
60
42

David Domingo, Valencia
.690
29
20

Julien Juarez, Bolsa Grande
.667
36
24

EARNED-RUN AVERAGE

Name, school
ERA
IP
ER

Griffin Naess, Laguna Beach
0.00
26.0
0

Jaden Yoon, Buena Park
0.00
13.1
0

Nick Sandstedt, El Dorado
0.28
24.2
1

Andrew Mits, Estancia
0.34
41.2
2

Tyler Onofre, Kennedy
0.42
16.2
1

Luke Acuna, San Clemente
0.43
16.1
1

Andrew Parker, Foothill
0.47
44.1
3

Anthony Lopez, Buena Park
0.47
15.0
1

Matthew Kuromoto, Woodbridge
0.55
38.0
3

Andrew Grove, Villa Park
0.58
12.0
1

Tyler Bellerose, Huntington Beach
0.68
20.2
2

Cooper Berger, University
0.70
30.0
3

Jared Day, La Habra
0.76
27.2
3

Brandon Luu, Villa Park
0.80
35.0
4

Joon Lee, Irvine
0.81
43.1
4

Alex Mascaro, El Modena
0.84
25.0
3

STRIKEOUTS

Name, school
K
BF
IP

Andrew Mits, Estancia
58
166
41.2

Brandon Luu, Villa Park
51
137
35.0

Landon Martin, Sonora
50
172
42.2

Dominic Viglione, Newport Harbor
49
160
34.1

Joon Lee, Irvine
45
175
43.1

Zach Brown, Villa Park
41
114
28.2

Andrew Parker, Foothill
40
189
44.1

Matthew Kuromoto, Woodbridge
39
148
38.0

Michael Joyce, Costa Mesa
38
155
35.1

Griffin Naess, Laguna Beach
37
99
26.0

Carson Lane, Huntington Beach
35
115
24.2

Matthew Viveros, La Habra
35
49
25.0

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County pharmacist sentenced to 15 years for her role in $11 million scheme

• April 3, 2023

A former Orange County pharmacist was sentenced on Monday, April 3, to 15 years behind bars for her role in a fraud that bilked the U.S. military’s healthcare plan out of more than $11 million.

Sandy Mai Trang Nguyen, 43, of Irvine was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II. He also ordered her to pay $11.1 million in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Nguyen was convicted in November of 21 counts of healthcare fraud and one count of obstruction of a federal audit.

The scheme involved the filling of more than 1,000 bogus prescriptions for compounded medications at the expense of the Tricare healthcare plan.

Compounded drugs are tailor-made products doctors may prescribe when the Food and Drug Administration-approved alternative does not meet the health needs of a patient.

Nguyen was the lead pharmacist at the now-shuttered Irvine Wellness Pharmacy. From late 2014 to May 2015, Nguyen and others under her supervision filled about 1,150 compounded prescriptions for pain, scarring and migraines with Tricare funding reimbursements of tens of thousands of dollars per prescription.

Prosecutors said the bulk of the prescriptions were directed to the pharmacy by so-called marketers who received kickbacks of nearly 50% of the Tricare reimbursements.

According to prosecutors, beneficiaries were solicited to provide their Tricare insurance information for medications they did not need, and most were never examined by a physician.

The jury in Los Angeles federal court heard that Nguyen knew the prescriptions were written by doctors who didn’t live in the same state as the supposed beneficiaries. In some cases multiple members of the same families received the same medications. In one case, a 13-year-old boy in Chicago received the same prescription as an 86-year-old woman in Orange County who turned out to be Nguyen’s grandmother, prosecutors said.

The pharmacy billed beneficiaries for hundreds of dollars in required co-payments, but they balked at the payments, saying they understood the medications were fully covered by Tricare. The total co-payments due during the scheme exceeded $16,000, but the pharmacy never collected them.

Nguyen obstructed a federal audit by providing bogus, cut-and-pasted prescriptions to cover-up Tricare’s effort to validate millions of dollars paid for the same prescriptions.

Last month, Marcus Armstrong, 56, of Miami was sentenced by Wright to 9 1/2 years in federal prison for his role in the scheme. Armstrong was once the director of operations at the Irvine pharmacy. He pleaded guilty in October to two counts of paying illegal kickbacks for healthcare referrals.

Co-defendants Leslie Andre Ezidore, 53, of West Los Angeles and Alexander Michael Semenik, 51, of Las Vegas have pleaded guilty to felony charges in this case and await sentencing.

​ Orange County Register 

The BeachLife Ranch country music fest will return to Redondo Beach in the fall

• April 3, 2023

The boots will be hitting the sand at Redondo Beach’s Seaside Lagoon once again as the BeachLife Ranch Country & Americana Festival makes a comeback this fall.

The three-day BeachLife Ranch event is the sister fest of the more modern rock and reggae-focused BeachLife Festival, which also takes place at Seaside Lagoon May 5-7.

Festival promoters have yet to announce the lineup for the 2023 edition of BeachLife Ranch, but tickets are now on sale for the event, which is slated to take place Sept. 22-24. Passes are $299 for general three-day admission; $379 for general admission plus; $699 for weekend VIP; $995 for weekend Admiral passes; and $2,999 for Outlaw three-day passes. All ticket options are available now at beachliferanch.frontgatetickets.com.

Besides multiple music stages, BeachLife Ranch will include the SideStage Experience, a pop-up restaurant on the side of the main stage where people eat a prix-fixe menu created by well-known chefs. For the country version of BeachLife, the food will feature barbecue and smoked meats.

The festival made its debut last year with three stages and a lineup that included Brandi Carlile, Dierks Bentley, Lukas Nelson & Promise of The Real, Greensky Bluegrass and Songs of Waylon Jennings, which featured Shooter Jennings and other musicians performing songs by his late father.

It also featured non-country acts as well, including folk rock band The Lumineers, alternative rock band Wilco and day one headliners, soul-pop stars Daryl Hall & John Oates. There was mechanical bull riding and since line dancing is a staple at country fests, it included a hootenanny held in a barn area where instructors taught guests how to move in those boots.

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​ Orange County Register 

It’s official: California Sierra snowpack ties all-time record

• April 3, 2023

California water officials gathered at Echo Summit south of Lake Tahoe this morning for a high-profile snowpack reading, which confirmed what an army of snow-sensors scattered across the Sierra already show: the statewide snowpack is tied with 1952 as the biggest haul since official records began in 1950.

On Monday, the statewide snowpack reached an astonishing 237% of normal compared to historical data for this date. The record-tying snowpack is a stunning turnaround from a year ago, when the official April snowpack measure was one of the lowest readings ever, at just 35% of normal.

Technically Monday’s snowpack reading came two days after April 1 — the typical date against which snowpack readings are compared. On April 1, the statewide snowpack measure was at 233% of normal, which was a few percentage points shy of the 1952 record.

But here’s the thing about all these snowpack readings; California has way more stations collecting snowpack data now than it did in 1952. And the data they collect with modern technology is far more accurate.

Also, what’s considered ‘normal’ for an April 1 snowpack reading has changed over time. “Normal” April 1 snowpack in 1952 was calculated based on data from 1946 to 1995. But “normal” nowadays is calculated based on data from 1991 to 2020. The California Department of Water Resources, which compiles all the snowpack data, has used five different definitions of ‘normal’ since 1950, making it difficult to easily compare years. Why, you may ask, do they keep changing the definition of what’s considered normal come April 1? The shifting average is designed “to keep pace with climate change,” according to Sean de Guzman, manager of the California Department of Water Resources’ monthly snow surveys.

Regardless of how you measure it, though, this year’s massive bounty is great news for the drought, which has ended in most of the Golden State. Around a third of California’s water supply comes from melting snowpack.

But many experts are expressing growing concern that warm temperatures in the Sierra this spring could trigger cataclysmic flooding. They are particularly worried about snowmelt-fueled flooding in the Southern Sierra, where the snowpack was at a record-breaking 306% of normal on Monday.

“Once you get up above some level, you are mostly concerned with how fast it melts rather than how big is the snowpack,” said Jay Lund, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis. “If we get a real warm spell that comes through and melts it all real fast, you’ll see much more flooding potential.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Former LA Clippers’ Luke Kennard selling Tarzana home for $6 million

• April 3, 2023

NBA guard Luke Kennard is selling his modern farmhouse in Tarzana for $5.995 million.

Shortly after the Los Angeles Clippers sent Kennard to the Memphis Grizzlies in February, he listed his five-bedroom, 7,015-square-foot residence with eight bathrooms.

Property records show he bought it newly built in July 2021 for $5.5 million.

Sited on a half-acre lot, the house opens onto a two-story foyer with a staircase.

European oak flooring and cedar add finishing touches to the expansive floor plan for everyday living and entertaining.

Amenities include a wet bar, a movie theater and a gym. There’s a living room, dining room and gourmet kitchen with two central islands that flows into the family room. There, pocket doors open to the outdoor living space.

Upstairs is the primary suite, which is anchored by a fireplace and features a custom walk-in closet and a bathroom with a soaking tub, a double shower and a makeup vanity. A balcony overlooks the resort-style backyard with an infinity pool and spa, a full outdoor kitchen, a cabana with a bathroom and an expansive grassy area.

Kevin Stewart and Jon Grauman of Bond Collective hold the listing.

Kennard, 26, is a 6-foot-5-inch left-hander who played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils. His professional career began in 2017 when the Detroit Pistons drafted him. In 2020, he was traded to the L.A. Clippers.

He has played for the Memphis Grizzlies since February.

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​ Orange County Register 

Teacher shot by 6-year-old student files $40 million suit

• April 3, 2023

By Denise Lavoie

RICHMOND, Va. — A first-grade Virginia teacher who was shot and seriously wounded by her 6-year-old student filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $40 million in damages from school officials, accusing them of gross negligence for allegedly ignoring multiple warnings on the day of the shooting that the boy had a gun and was in a “violent mood.”

Abby Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia was shot in the hand and chest on Jan. 6 as she sat at a reading table in her classroom. She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and has had four surgeries since the shooting.

The shooting rattled the military shipbuilding community and sent shock waves around the country, with many wondering how a child so young could get access to a gun and shoot his teacher.

The lawsuit names as defendants the Newport News School Board, former Superintendent George Parker III, former Richneck principal Briana Foster Newton and former Richneck assistant principal Ebony Parker.

Michelle Price, a spokesperson for the school board, Lisa Surles-Law, chair of the school board, and other board members did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the lawsuit. The former superintendent did not immediately return a message seeking comment left on his cellphone.

A message left on a cellphone listing for Ebony Parker was not immediately returned.

The Associated Press couldn’t immediately find a working phone number for Newton. Her attorney, Pamela Branch, has said that Newton was unaware of reports that the boy had a gun at school on the day of the shooting.

No one, including the boy, has been charged in the shooting. The superintendent was fired by the school board after the shooting, while the assistant principal resigned. A school district spokesperson has said Newton is still employed by the school district, but declined to say what position she holds. The board also voted to install metal detectors in every school in the district, beginning with Richneck, and to purchase clear backpacks for all students.

In the lawsuit, Zwerner’s attorneys say all of the defendants knew the boy “had a history of random violence” at school and at home, including an episode the year before, when he “strangled and choked” his kindergarten teacher.

“All Defendants knew that John Doe attacked students and teachers alike, and his motivation to injure was directed toward anyone in his path, both in and out of school, and was not limited to teachers while at the school,” the lawsuit states.

School officials removed the boy from Richneck and sent him to another school for the remainder of the year, but allowed him to return for first grade in the fall of 2022, the lawsuit states. He was placed on a modified schedule “because he was chasing students around the playground with a belt in an effort to whip them with it,” and was cursing staff and teachers, it says. Under the modified schedule, one of the boy’s parents was required to accompany him during the school day.

“Teachers’ concerns with John Doe’s behavior (were) regularly brought to the attention of Richneck Elementary School administration, and the concerns were always dismissed,” the lawsuit states. Often after he was taken to the office, “he would return to class shortly thereafter with some type of reward, such as a piece of candy,” according to the lawsuit.

The boy’s parents did not agree to put him in special education classes where he would be with other students with behavioral issues, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit describes a series of warnings school employees gave administrators in the hours before the shooting, beginning with Zwerner, who went to the office of assistant principal Ebony Parker between 11:15 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. and told her the boy “was in a violent mood,” threatened to beat up a kindergartener and stared down a security officer in the lunchroom. The lawsuit alleges that Parker “had no response, refusing even to look up at (Zwerner) when she expressed her concerns.”

At about 11:45 a.m., two students told Amy Kovac, a reading specialist, that the boy had a gun in his backpack. The boy denied it, but refused to provide his backpack to Kovac, the lawsuit states.

Zwerner told Kovac that she had seen the boy take something out of his backpack and put it into the pocket of his sweatshirt. Kovac then searched the backpack but did not find a weapon.

Kovac told Ebony Parker that the boy had told students he had a gun. Parker responded his “pockets were too small to hold a handgun and did nothing,” the lawsuit states.

Another first-grade boy, who was crying, told a teacher the boy “had shown him a firearm he had in his pocket during recess.” That teacher then contacted the office and told a music teacher, who answered the phone, what the boy told her about seeing the gun.

The music teacher said that when he informed Parker, she said the backpack had already been searched and “took no further action,” according to the lawsuit. A guidance counselor then went to Parker’s office and asked permission to search the boy for a gun, but Parker forbade him from doing so, “and stated that John Doe’s mother would be arriving soon to pick him up,” it states. About an hour later, the boy pulled the gun out of his pocket, aimed it at Zwerner and shot her, the lawsuit states.

Zwerner suffered permanent bodily injuries, physical pain, mental anguish, lost earnings and other damages, the lawsuit states. It seeks $40 million in compensatory damages.

Last month, Newport News prosecutor Howard Gwynn said his office will not criminally charge the boy because he is too young to understand the legal system and what a charge means. Gwynn has yet to decide if any adults will be charged.

The boy used his mother’s gun, which police said was purchased legally. An attorney for the boy’s family has said that the firearm was secured on a high closet shelf and had a lock on it

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​ Orange County Register 

Game Day: March Madness stars march on

• April 3, 2023

Editor’s note: This is the Monday, April 3, edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning. Raise your hand if you knew that the most talked about basketball players in America during the Final Four were going to be Caitlin Clark and Lamont Butler. I didn’t think so.

In other sports news:

Anthony Davis’ 40 points led the Lakers to a win in Houston, putting them within a half game of the sixth-place Warriors.
Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and rookie Logan O’Hoppe homered and the Angels got more sharp starting pitching to beat the Athletics.
Hard-luck hitting wasted a sharp outing by Noah Syndergaard in his Dodgers debut against Arizona.
The Kings clinched a playoff spot as Alex Iafallo scored twice versus Vancouver.
The Ducks lost a lead and a season-high eighth game in a row in Calgary.
Angel City FC got its first NWSL victory of  the season on Katie Johnson’s late header.
UCLA’s third-ranked softball team swept No. 6 Stanford to move into first place in the Pac-12.
Justin Ashley beat Austin Prock at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona for his second straight top-fuel win.
And China’s Ruoning Yin, 20, won the L.A. Open by one stroke, her first LPGA tour victory.

Back to Clark, the Associated Press national player of the year whose record-setting scoring in the tournament led Iowa to yesterday’s women’s championship game, and Butler, whose buzzer-beater on Saturday put San Diego State in tonight’s men’s title game.

The NCAA tournaments have a way of introducing us to the stars and creating new ones.

Clark’s amazing 2023 run ended with a one-sided loss to LSU in Dallas, where she was upstaged first by Jasmine Carson’s 21 first-half points off the bench and then by Final Four Most Outstanding Player Angel Reese’s all-around play.

That the game ended with Reese taunting Clark didn’t detract from either woman’s performance and gave old and new fans of women’s college basketball at least two personalities to look forward to watching next season, since neither is eligible for the WNBA draft until 2024.

Butler’s story is different, few fans having heard of the career 7.0-points-a game scorer before his heroics for San Diego State against Florida Atlantic put the Aztecs in the final against Connecticut tonight in Houston.

Few fans outside Riverside County, that is. And even at that, as columnist Mirjam Swanson says in her piece about Butler in today’s papers, the guard has a way to go to eclipse the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard as the most famous San Diego State player from Moreno Valley and a Riverside high school.

Swanson talked yesterday with Butler’s mother, Carmicha, and father, Lamont Sr., and with Tim Cook, the Life Pacific University (San Dimas) coach whose son Austin played with Butler in AAU.

Butler, from Riverside Poly, where he broke Reggie Miller’s school career scoring record, comes off as a likable person shaped by the large family and coaches and teammates who rallied around him after his older sister Asasha Lache Hall was murdered in March 2022.

“His pedigree is part of what makes it really special,” Cook said. “He’s a really special young man. He treats people the right way, he plays with a smile, he plays the right way and he’s just so easy to root for.”

None of the individuals on the men’s All-America first, second and third teams named by the Associated Press for 2023 made it to the Final Four, let alone starred there. But Lamont Butler did.

Just as nice, this isn’t the end for Butler, as it isn’t for Clark and Reese. He’s eligible to play on for San Diego State next season, because he’s a junior and not considered a candidate for the NBA draft.

The NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments were merely the introductions.

TODAY

Angels and Reid Detmers visit Seattle, which the left-hander dominated in both meetings last season (6:40 p.m., BSW).
Dodgers give Michael Grove a start in the first of two against the Rockies at Dodger Stadium (7:10 p.m., SNLA).
San Diego State plays in its first NCAA men’s basketball final against Connecticut in Houston (6:20 p.m., Ch. 2).

BETWEEN THE LINES

UConn is favored over San Diego State by 7½ points this morning. According to a list posted at betfirm.com, that matches the biggest spread for an NCAA men’s basketball title game since 1999, when, coincidentally, UConn was a 9½-point underdog and upset Duke. Since 1985, underdogs by 7 or more in the NCAA final are 6-3 against the spread (4-5 on the scoreboard).

280 CHARACTERS

“People hating on Angel Reese or Caitlin Clark. Stop. Unapologetically confident young women should be celebrated NOT hated. Get used to it.” – ESPN broadcaster Holly Rowe (@sportsiren) tweeting about the LSU and Iowa basketball players.

1,000 WORDS

Dangerous drive-through: Driver J.R. Todd has the body explode off his funny car as he races in the opening round of eliminations in the NHRA Winternationals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona yesterday. Todd wasn’t injured. Photo is by Will Lester of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and SCNG.

TALK BACK

Thanks for reading. Send suggestions, comments and questions by email at kmodesti@scng.com and via Twitter @KevinModesti.

Editor’s note: Thanks for reading the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

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​ Orange County Register 

Activision Blizzard to settle DOJ esports salary claims

• April 3, 2023

By Emily Birnbaum and Cecilia D’Anastasio | Bloomberg

Video game company Activision Blizzard agreed to a settlement with the Justice Department ensuring the company doesn’t suppress the wages of esports players even if it is acquired by Microsoft Corp.

The agreement, which the Justice Department filed in federal court in Washington Monday, comes after a long investigation into Activision’s efforts to limit compensation for players in professional esport leagues it owns and operates. The US is asking the court to approve the settlement, which would prevent the Santa Monica-based company from ever imposing a similar tax on its esports teams.

“Video games and esports are among the most popular and fastest growing forms of entertainment in the world today, and professional esports players  — like all workers — deserve the benefits of competition for their services,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division.

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Activision Blizzard in a statement said it believes that the salary agreements, which it suspended under pressure from the Justice Department in 2021, were “lawful” and “did not have an adverse impact on player salaries.”

“We remain committed to a player ecosystem with fair pay and healthcare,” said Activision Blizzard spokesperson Joe Christinat.

The Justice Department is asking the court for a consent decree that ensures Activision Blizzard is not allowed to enforce a “competitive balance tax,” which penalized teams for paying esports players above a certain threshold set by the company. The department opened its probe into esports leagues last year.

​ Orange County Register