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Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Marina doubles team repeat bid ends in CIF Individuals boys' tennis semifinals
CLAREMONT — Marina High senior Trevor Nguyen and junior David Tran helped orchestrate a historic season for the boys' tennis team. The Vikings advanced to their first CIF championship match in program history. Individually, Nguyen and Tran were not quite able to repeat as the best doubles team in the CIF Southern Section. They lost to the top-seeded JSerra duo of Brady Schaefgen and Riley Anson, 6-3, 7-5, in the semifinals of the CIF Individuals tournament on Thursday morning at Biszantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont. 'I think we all played well this year, us and our team,' Tran said. 'We came really close. The Ojai final, that could have gone either way, and also the team final. We all played really well, got really close. We just wish we could have pulled it through, winning.' Nguyen, the powerful left-hander, exits as possibly the most accomplished tennis player in school history, coach Chuck Kingman said, at least on par with 2023 graduate Mika Ikemori on the girls' side. Nguyen is attending UC San Diego next year and hopes to walk on to the men's tennis team there. Nguyen and Tran, the Sunset League champions, started well against Trinity League champions Schaefgen and Anson. The defending CIF doubles champions from Marina quickly earned a 3-0 lead in the first set. But the JSerra tandem ran off six straight games to capture the set. 'We started slow, but they were also playing unbelievable for the first three games,' Anson said. 'Everything was working. After 0-3, I think we just slowed our game down a little bit, made the right shots. Didn't go for anything flashy, just played basic doubles and played the right high-percentage shots. 'I played Trevor previously, and I know he's a monster at the net. The plan was just to try to keep it away from him, extend the points and try to have us attack the net and finish.' The second set stayed on serve until the very end. Serving to stay in the match at 4-5, Tran held in a game that went to three deuces. Schaefgen then quickly held serve at love himself, putting the pressure back on Marina. Nguyen went up 30-love on his serve, but JSerra rallied to capture the game and the match. A good return by Anson on match point forced Nguyen's subsequent shot long. JSerra's duo had its serve broken just once all match. 'Credit to our guys, they hung in there and didn't get disillusioned and batted,' Kingman said. 'And all credit to Riley and his partner, they played really well from the third game on. They never had any lapses. Our guys never really got a look at anything. They served well, they returned well, our guys just never quite got a look.' Nguyen and Tran got to the CIF semifinals with a pair of wins Wednesday, beating a team from University in the round of 16 and a team from Palos Verdes in the quarterfinals. In two years together as a doubles team, they advanced to at least the semifinals twice at both the prestigious Ojai Tournament and the CIF Individuals tournament. 'I'm really proud of what we've achieved over my career,' Nguyen said. 'I'm sad that this is my last chance. We came so close. We got to the finals of Ojai, the [team] finals of CIF and the semifinals of this tournament. It's just kind of sad that we couldn't pull it through with all of those chances.' Edison's Dylan Trinh and Kai Stolaruk were the other local players to advance to the final stages of the tournament. Trinh and Stolaruk, the Sunset League runners up, fell to Langston Walter-Wu and Humam Alajeely of University 6-4, 6-4 in the round of 16.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Prep sports roundup: El Modena rallies for softball win over Sherman Oaks Notre Dame
With the bases loaded and her team down by one run in the seventh inning, JuJu Brower stood in the batter's box for El Modena in a Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinal playoff game Wednesday. Her team was trying to rally against one of the hottest softball teams, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame. Brower hadn't been fully cleared by her doctors to play catcher because of a torn ACL injury in August suffered while playing flag football. She had been cleared to hit, something she was doing for four weeks. Then came her most important at bat of the season. She delivered a two-run single up the middle to help El Modena come away with a 6-4 victory and advance to Saturday's semifinals against Temescal Canyon. Advertisement "It means a lot," Brower said of her hit and the comeback. She had to go through months of rehab just to get back on the field, from stretching to leg exercises. El Modena started the game with consecutive home runs by Kaitlyn Galasso and Kylie Tafua. After that, Notre Dame pitcher Aliyah Garcia threw five consecutive scoreless innings to help the Knights take a 4-2 lead going into the seventh. Charley Tapia had a home run and triple. But the fifth inning was the key moment for the Knights. They had the bases loaded and none out against No. 2 pitcher Ashley Driskill. She got a 1-2-3 double play, then a fly out to end the threat. Then El Modena scored four runs in the top of the seventh to take the lead and eliminate the Knights, Monica Garcia had an RBI single to support Brower's hit. Notre Dame had been hitting home runs in bunches during playoff wins over Orange Lutheran and El Segundo. Advertisement El Modena coach Bobby Calderon praised Brower. for her dedication to make it back to the field this season. "For her to come through at that moment shows how much she believes in our team," he said. Norco 9, Chino Hills 1: Ashley Duran had three hits for the top-seeded Cougars, who will play Ayala on Saturday in the other Division 1 semifinal. JSerra 7, Palos Verdes 1: Melia Munoz had a two-run home run and Annabel Raftery had four hits to lead JSerra in Division 2. JSerra will play Great Oak in the semifinals. Santa Margarita 2, Ganesha 1: Sawyer Denser pitched the Eagles into the Division 2 semifinals. She struck out eight. Sofia Zavarella had a solo home run. Santa Margarita will play Los Alamitos, a 7-1 winner over La Serna. Baseball Carson 4, Taft 2: Xavier Allen hit a walk-off two-run home run in the bottom of the 11th inning to enable the Colts to advance to Saturday's 10 a.m. City Section Division I championship game at Dodger Stadium. Advertisement Sign up for the L.A. Times SoCal high school sports newsletter to get scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Prep sports roundup: El Modena rallies for softball win over Sherman Oaks Notre Dame
With the bases loaded and her team down by one run in the seventh inning, JuJu Brower stood in the batter's box for El Modena in a Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinal playoff game Wednesday. Her team was trying to rally against one of the hottest softball teams, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame. Brower hadn't been fully cleared by her doctors to play catcher because of a torn ACL injury in August suffered while playing flag football. She had been cleared to hit, something she was doing for four weeks. Then came her most important at bat of the season. She delivered a two-run single up the middle to help El Modena come away with a 6-4 victory and advance to Saturday's semifinals against Temescal Canyon. 'It means a lot,' Brower said of her hit and the comeback. She had to go through months of rehab just to get back on the field, from stretching to leg exercises. El Modena started the game with consecutive home runs by Kaitlyn Galasso and Kylie Tafua. After that, Notre Dame pitcher Aliyah Garcia threw five consecutive scoreless innings to help the Knights take a 4-2 lead going into the seventh. Charley Tapia had a home run and triple. But the fifth inning was the key moment for the Knights. They had the bases loaded and none out against No. 2 pitcher Ashley Driskill. She got a 1-2-3 double play, then a fly out to end the threat. Then El Modena scored four runs in the top of the seventh to take the lead and eliminate the Knights, who had been hitting home runs in bunches during playoff wins over Orange Lutheran and El Segundo. El Modena coach Robert Calderon praised Brower. for her dedication to make it back to the field this season. 'For her to come through at that moment shows how much she believes in our team,' he said. Norco 9, Chino Hills 1: Ashley Duran had three hits for the top-seeded Cougars, who will play Ayala on Saturday in the other Division 1 semifinal. JSerra 7, Palos Verdes 1: Melia Munoz had a two-run home run and Annabel Raftery had four hits to lead JSerra in Division 2. JSerra will play Great Oak in the semifinals. Santa Margarita 2, Ganesha 1: Sawyer Denser pitched the Eagles into the Division 2 semifinals. She struck out eight. Sofia Zavarella had a solo home run. Santa Margarita will play Los Alamitos, a 7-1 winner over La Serna. Carson 4, Taft 2: Xavier Allen hit a walk-off two-run home run in the bottom of the 11th inning to enable the Colts to advance to Saturday's 10 a.m. City Section Division I championship game at Dodger Stadium.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Prep talk: Final Trinity League baseball playoff spot to be decided Friday
Get ready for a day of drama in Trinity League baseball as Santa Margarita (6-8), Servite (5-9) and JSerra (5-9) battle to finish in third place and claim the league's final automatic playoff spot. St. John Bosco and Orange Lutheran clinched the first two spots. Santa Margarita plays host to Servite in a 2:30 game Friday. The Eagles would finish third with a win. A Servite win would give the Friars two wins out of three games against Santa Margarita and the tiebreaker edge to claim third. But if JSerra upsets St. John Bosco and Servite beats Santa Margarita, there would be a three-way tie for third place, resulting in a possible play-in game next week. Advertisement Santa Margarita and Servite are in position to get an at-large playoff berth with a .500 or better overall record. JSerra is in jeopardy of not making the playoffs if it doesn't get an automatic spot. Playoff pairings will be announced May 12. … The City Section Open Division baseball playoffs will have eight teams instead of 12 this season. The playoff games will be spread out with a Wednesday-Tuesday-Saturday schedule, giving an advantage to a school that relies on one top pitcher. Pairings will be announced May 10. The Open Division semifinals will be played at Cal State Northridge in a doubleheader. This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email Advertisement Sign up for the L.A. Times SoCal high school sports newsletter to get scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
02-05-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Prep talk: Final Trinity League baseball playoff spot to be decided Friday
Get ready for a day of drama in Trinity League baseball as Santa Margarita (6-8), Servite (5-9) and JSerra (5-9) battle to finish in third place and claim the league's final automatic playoff spot. St. John Bosco and Orange Lutheran clinched the first two spots. Santa Margarita plays host to Servite in a 2:30 game Friday. The Eagles would finish third with a win. A Servite win would give the Friars two wins out of three games against Santa Margarita and the tiebreaker edge to claim third. But if JSerra upsets St. John Bosco and Servite beats Santa Margarita, there would be a three-way tie for third place, resulting in a possible play-in game next week. Santa Margarita and Servite are in position to get an at-large playoff berth with a .500 or better overall record. JSerra is in jeopardy of not making the playoffs if it doesn't get an automatic spot. Playoff pairings will be announced May 12. … The City Section Open Division baseball playoffs will have eight teams instead of 12 this season. The playoff games will be spread out with a Wednesday-Tuesday-Saturday schedule, giving an advantage to a school that relies on one top pitcher. Pairings will be announced May 10. The Open Division semifinals will be played at Cal State Northridge in a doubleheader. This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email
