Latest news with #JSerra
Los Angeles Times
23-07-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
North Irvine prevents Newport Beach 18U ‘three-peat' at USA Water Polo Junior Olympics
IRVINE — Luke Harris called it a really hard decision to leave his brothers on the Newport Harbor High boys' water polo team, competing for a different club team before heading off to college. What made the decision a bit easier was knowing that his good friend and fellow goalkeeper, incoming senior Connor Clougherty, was more than capable of taking the reins in the cage. 'That's my true team, my alma mater,' said Harris, who helped the Sailors claim the CIF Southern Section Open Division title last fall. 'I will always love them to death and be supportive of them. All I want for them is for them to get better and succeed.' Harris left to play with a 'super team,' North Irvine Beast Boys, made up of players from different high schools, this summer. On Tuesday afternoon, he faced many of his Sailors teammates in the boys' 18-and-under gold medal match of the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics. Harris prevented Newport Beach Water Polo Club from winning the division three years in a row, though his own personal streak is intact. The USC-bound goalie made 12 saves as the Beast Boys beat Newport Beach 9-5 for the title at Woollett Aquatics Center. It's the third straight Junior Olympics title for Harris, who helped the Newport Beach 18s win it in 2023 and again last year. 'It felt like it was all or nothing,' Harris said. 'If we didn't win, we were going to feel like a bunch of dogs, honestly. Our whole persona was big, almost a little cocky, everyone kind of hated us. If we didn't win this, it was all for nothing. That was our mindset the whole time.' JSerra graduate Gavin Conant, who, like Harris, will be a Trojan next year, scored a match-high four goals and earned MVP honors. North Irvine, which avenged a loss to Newport Beach in the Junior Olympics quarterfinals on Monday, also featured Corona del Mar graduate Jackson Harlan and Newport Harbor graduate Santino Rossi. Harlan, the 2024-25 Daily Pilot Dream Team Player of the Year, had a field block and a drawn exclusion in the win. 'Coming together and training for three months, going out and getting the job done, there's no better feeling,' Harlan said. 'A surreal feeling.' Sean Anderson, an incoming sophomore transfer from JSerra, had two goals for team-high honors for Newport Beach. Coach Ross Sinclair said that Anderson and his older brother, Tyler, an incoming senior center who starred for the Lions last season, are now both officially enrolled at Newport Harbor. Kai Kaneko, Declan Bartlett and Fletcher Appeldorn added goals for Newport Beach. Clougherty made four saves. Harris said that North Irvine, which led 6-2 at halftime, effectively utilized an 'M-drop' zone defense. 'They just played a little faster, a little more intense, and they had some big moments from big-time players,' Sinclair said. 'I love Luke; I thought he was great. I've seen that before. I'm bummed that we lost, but I'm happy for the way that he goes out his last year. He was fantastic.' Newport Beach missed incoming senior standout Connor Ohl, who has been playing with the U.S. men's senior national team at the World Aquatics World Championships in Singapore. Team USA plays Italy in the seventh-place match on Thursday morning. The Sailors, who Sinclair has guided to the CIF finals in the top division for six straight years, will get back to high school water polo soon enough this fall. 'We have a good group, it's going to be fun,' Sinclair said. 'It's more, 'how do we stay focused, stay hungry and use experiences like this to get better?' It's going to be a fun high school season. There's a lot of good teams out there. We'll enjoy a little break, come back and chip away.' Session Two of the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics, featuring girls' and co-ed divisions, runs Thursday through Sunday in Orange County.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Jaden Bailes, JSerra win California Live Grip Spritz bracket title
Get ready for yet another big year from JSerra boys basketball. Despite graduating impact seniors such as BJ Davis-Ray and Grayson Sinek, the Lions look like a CIF-Southern Section Open Division playoff team once again. With returning senior Brannon Martinsen and St. Augustine senior transfer Jaiden Bailes leading the way, JSerra handled fellow CIF-SS Open Division team Redondo Union 69-56 to cap off a title run at California Live 2025 in the Grip Spritz bracket. Bailes had 31 points, six rebounds, three assists, and two steals, and Martinsen added 11 points. Before that, JSerra opened with a 68-33 rout of Riverside Poly, a 57-55 win over St. Joseph (Santa Maria), and a 73-66 victory against Corona Centennial. Advertisement The rest of the bracket had many more big-name programs: Archbishop Riordan, La Mirada, Cathedral Catholic, San Joaquin Memorial, Archbishop Mitty, Sunnyslope (AZ), Olympian, Central Catholic, Destiny Christian, San Joaquin Memorial, Mission Bay, Fairmont Prep, and Mountain Pointe (AZ). Bailes received an offer from Cal right after the tournament. RELATED:
Los Angeles Times
29-05-2025
- 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.
