EL SEGUNDO HERALD January 20, 2022 Page 3
High School Sports
Resumes in 2022….Kinda
By Gregg McMullin
Before we turned the page on 2021 and the
Eagles returned to their respective sports, the
uptick in Covid and the new Omicron virus
changed things again to start 2022. High school
games were canceled or rescheduled, and
alternative plans were considered for winter
sports to complete their respective seasons.
The Eagles play in the Pioneer League with
the four Torrance schools and Lawndale.
Each of the athletic directors came up with a
solution to play a five-game schedule instead
of the typical ten-game schedule. It meant
playing each team once instead of twice.
Holden Coulter controls the opening tip for the Eagles in their Pioneer League opener; the Eagles defeated North 49-35.
The high school sports world all but shut
down the first two weeks of the New Year.
The CIF Southern Section office has monitored
the cancellations and revised scheduling
and offered an additional alternative. Previously,
high school sports were restricted from
playing contests or practicing on Sundays.
They are in meetings that allow games to be
played on Sundays, but no practicing would
still be the rule. According to Athletic Director
Steve Shevlin, this would only be put into
action in an emergency of canceled games
or a scheduling conflict.
So, what has happened in the past several
weeks for the high school sports world to
make alterations? The rising positive tests
of students have concerned to the point that
there were nearly 700 students absent in one
day. “It was like a ghost town around here,”
said Shevlin.
It’s no surprise that other school districts
are facing similar situations. In fact, there
was one report that the Culver City school
district was shutting down in-person classroom
learning for a week to get a hold of
the pandemic. According to Shevlin, El
Segundo tests each week, and every student
gets validated to attend school in person.
With the increase in positive tests, maybe
it is time to reconsider getting vaccinated if
you haven’t done so already.
Eagles Win Opener
It’s been 21 days since the Eagles last
played a basketball game. It also means that
the team hasn’t practiced much, if at all, in
that same time period. So with the revamped
Pioneer League, El Segundo traveled to North
Torrance for their league opener against the
Saxons. In front of a masked-up crowd, the
Pioneer League’s defending champions played
a solid game on both ends and came away
with a 49-35.
Head coach David March was relieved to
win after such a long layoff. “Seriously, I
had some doubts about us playing after not
playing for so long.” Coach March had set the
season up by playing in a tough tournament
after Christmas. “We played some really good
teams that pushed us to be better. Tonight,
we shook off the rust as if we’d been playing
without missing a beat.”
In the first quarter, El Segundo showed
off their mettle with their play on both
ends. Jesse Gutierrez started the offense
going with a jumper followed by Preston
Engle’s long-range jumper to make it 4-0.
North’s Josh Eguchi and Kai Bradley gave
the Saxon’s their only lead of the game when
they connected on back-to-back baskets for
a short-lived 6-4 lead. Gutierrez connected
from beyond the arch to give the Eagles a
7-6 lead. Good passing from Holden Coulter
to Nolan Kelly for an easy layup and two
free throws by Farren Affel closed out the
first quarter.
It was the tenacious defense the Eagles
displayed that was impressive. The Eagles
controlled the rebounding, and when the
Saxons had second-chance shots, the tight
web the Eagles put up caused shots to come
up short. It was a preview of what would be
the theme of the night.
In the second quarter, the Eagles took their
game to another level by controlling the
tempo. With Holden Coulter, Jack Pintens,
and Nolan Kelly controlling the defensive
rebounds and starting fast breaks, it made
scoring by Preston Engle, and Farren Affel
look easy. On offense, the Eagles made
unselfish moves by getting the ball to open
teammates. Kelly’s passed on an open twopoint
attempt and fed Coulter, who drained
a three-pointer. Affel connected on a 17-foot
See Sports, page 10
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Preferred Parking
Discussed at Council
By Liz Spear
Holiday awards, the city’s new police chief,
updates on COVID-19 and the Hyperion Plant,
a standing wave facility, reports from the city’s
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee as
well as the new non-profit economic development
corporation, creating permit parking in a
specific area, and the organization and direction
of city committees and commissions were most
of the topics tackled by the El Segundo City
Council at its regularly scheduled Tuesday
night meeting.
In a COVID-19 update, Marc Cohen, M.D.
and a member of the city’s Incident Management
Team that has been dealing with the
virus’ deadly outbreak since early 2020 (his
other credentials include EMS/Fire Department
Medical Director for the cities of Torrance,
Manhattan Beach and El Segundo; regular
emergency department practitioner in a level
1 trauma center; a clinical faculty member
with UCLA, and the medical director for the
paramedic training program at Mt. San Antonio
College), said the city and its residents and
visitors are “in the middle of the 5th wave”
of the virus. He advised community members
to no longer wear gaiters and cloth masks
and to instead use surgical masks, N95, and
KN95 masks, given the high transmissibility
of Omicron. He noted that local hospitals are
“overwhelmed” and overcrowded in spite of
the fact that Omicron appears to be less deadly
than previous variants of COVID-19. And
while fewer deaths and fewer complications
are seen in Omicron patients, being vaccinated
and having a booster shot on top of the
first vaccinations ( two doses for Pfizer and
Moderna; one for Johnson & Johnson) does
translate into preventing those individuals from
needing to be hospitalized or have complications
from infection by Omicron. He said that
hospital intensive care units are admitting and
treating people with Omicron who did not
receive any vaccinations or received just two
doses (or one is J&J) without a booster dose.
He recommended “very, very strongly” that
community members wear surgical and N95
and KN95 makes to protect themselves, make
sure they fit properly and get a booster shot
6-8 months post your first vaccination(s). He
said that the PCR test to determine COVID-19
infection is the best and that antigen screen tests
are “crude” and not very reliable. He credited
the city’s Incident Management Team with
“saving lives” during the pandemic.
During a public hearing during its meeting,
City Council also discussed an application
from residents of Holly Avenue and California
and Kansas streets for a “preferential parking
zone” to deal with employee parking from
nearby businesses, LAX travelers who leave
their vehicles for several days while they are
out of town, Uber and Lyft drivers who wait
in the area for their next ride assignment, and
residents of nearby condominiums and apartments
who use the parking in front of the
petitioning residents’ homes. The petition was
submitted in February 2021, and in August,
staff held an online community meeting with
20 residents attending, according to the city
staff report in the agenda packet. While the
petitioning residents asked for daytime and
nighttime preferential parking zone, the city’s
Public Works Director Elias Sassoon told the
council that in keeping with the city’s only
other such parking zone, city staff recommended
only prohibiting parking without a permit between
the hours of 10 and 11 a.m. and 2 and
3 p.m. The proposed preferential parking zone
is about two blocks toward the ocean from
Pacific Coast Highway and between Grand
See City Council, page 4