EL SEGUNDO HERALD March 9, 2017 Page 5 Burkley Brandlin Swatik & Keesey LLP AT T O R N E Y S AT L AW Lifetime El Segundo Residents Living Trusts/Wills, Probate, Employment Law, Personal Injury Trust and Estates Litigation, Business Litigation, Civil Litigation 310-540-6000 *AV Rated (Highest) Martindale - Hubbell / **Certified Specialist Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law, State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization Eagles Rolling to Start the Season By Gregg McMullin Baseball is back, thankfully, and the El Segundo Eagles are off to a quick start. The third-ranked Eagles are hosting their own tournament that has been going for the past 46 years. Though they’ve won a handful of the El Segundo Tournaments, the Eagles are poised to make the finals after convincing wins in the first two rounds against CIF powerhouse Palos Verdes and City section powerhouse Palisades. They played a hapless Carson team this past Monday and were expected to defeat the Colts, sending the Eagles to a semifinal appearance. The Eagles faced Palos Verdes to open the season. It pitted two storied and successful programs against each other with first-time head coaches making their debuts as well. Derrek Duarte, who played for the Eagles from 2002-04, has taken over the Sea Kings’ top baseball position. Billy Traber, who pitched for the Eagles 1994-96, is in his first year as head coach. Pitting two former Eagles against each other wasn’t what was at stake. It was two programs starting the season on a high note. For Coach Traber, he takes over a team that is loaded with senior talent. For Coach Duarte, he takes over a program that has young talent. The Eagles prevailed 11-6 in a first-game jitters contest. El Segundo has a potent hitting lineup and they came up with an eight-run second inning when they sent 12 hitters to the plate. Jake Palmer had a two-run single while Nico Celestial and Spencer Long each contributed two-run doubles to highlight the big inning. Spencer Palmer added a two-run homer in the sixth inning to essentially put the game out of reach. Jake Palmer paced the Eagles’ attack with three hits and a walk. Celestial had a single and a double while Brenden Casillas had two hits two hits as well. Spencer Long started for the Eagles and went five innings, giving up four runs on five hits while striking out three. Sean Emery looked sharp, finishing up the last two innings and giving up two runs on three hits. Facing Palisades, a City Section team that figures to vie for the Western League crown, the Eagles took an early 3-0 lead on their way to a 16-2 win over the Dolphins. It was a showcase of offense that included six doubles and two home runs by the Eagles. It also featured a dominant pitching performance by Jimmy Galicia. In the first inning Jackson Stone led off the game with a single, the first of El Segundo’s 16 hits, and the Eagles went on to score three runs highlighted by Spencer Long’s two-run double. Palisades scored their only runs in the second inning on two hits and an error. One of the runs was balked home to make it 3-2. The Eagles responded by scoring three more runs. Jake Palmer singled, Celestial walked and Long drove them home with a double down the left field line. Sean Emery’s two-run double made it 6-2. The Eagles exploded for eight runs in the sixth inning. Jake Palmer blasted a two-run Spencer Long threw five strong innings against Palos Verdes to notch his first win of the season. home run to make it 10-2. For good measure, Spencer Palmer’s mammoth solo blast made it 11-2. Matt Romero had an RBI double and later in the inning Jake McDonnell’s RBI single eventually made it 15-2. CJ Shevlin, who was hit by a pitch to start the inning, had an RBI single to make it 16-2. This Year, Dodgers Could Win it All By Adam Serrao The Los Angeles Dodgers’ last World Series appearance came in 1988 when the Boys in Blue beat a heavily favored Oakland Athletics ballclub in five games. Though that was almost 30 years ago, the Dodgers have been consistently knocking on the World Series door for years now and may finally have what it takes to break that door down. Los Angeles has won over 90 games in each of the last four seasons and has won six division championships in the last nine years. This time, though, brings the feeling of a season that will mold youth together with veteran leadership to push the Dodgers up and over the ledge that they have been stuck on for years now. If you’ve been a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers over the past few years, then the team that you will see take the field at the beginning of this regular season should be one that looks rather familiar. After a 91-71 record and a first place finish in the NL West one year ago, Dodgers General Manager Farhan Zaidi and President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman didn’t have to do much to a roster that was already laden with talent. The biggest enemy of the Dodgers and their success, though, has been health. If the team can simply stay on the field, it will have as good of a chance as ever to capture a championship trophy this season. Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher on the entire planet. Naturally, his health is the key to any Dodgers prolonged postseason success. Last year, Kershaw suffered a back injury that caused the ace to miss over two months of game action heading right into the playoffs. All indications are that the Cy Young Award winner has looked like his old self this preseason and should be poised to rack up more awards of the like in the very near future. Along with Kershaw, the Dodger pitching staff should be one that instills fear in opponents this season. Last year 16-gamewinner Kenta Maeda will slide down to be the team’s number three starter and should come into 2017 with much more strength after undergoing an offseason conditioning program that has caused the former Nippon Professional League standout to put on much more weight and muscle mass. With a 2.12 ERA last season, Rich Hill will take over the number two spot behind Kershaw, leaving Julio Urias, who won’t turn 21 until August, to slide in at the back end of the rotation at the four spot. With another year of maturity behind him, Urias should be poised to experience a breakout season. That will leave Scott Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Alex Wood, Brock Stewart and Ross Stripling to all contend for the final spot in the rotation. For once, the Dodgers are incredibly deep on the mound. Backing up the pitching staff, the Dodgers have the luxury to rely on the services of new second baseman Logan Forsythe this year. Despite Forsythe’s addition, the Dodgers kept Chase Utley around to be the incredible clubhouse presence that he is and to fill in as a utility player at most any spot in the infield. Forsythe, however, will bring even more power to an already deep batting order. The ex-Tampa Bay Ray hit 20 home runs one year ago. His presence, along with shortstop Corey Seager, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, and Justin Turner at the hot corner, should make for one of the most formidable infields in the entire league. The Dodgers’ outfield presents a mess of sorts, but a good mess at that. Joc Pederson will hold down centerfield and may perhaps be the only everyday player to patrol the outfield for Los Angeles this season. Andre Ethier will be back to fight with Yasiel Puig for time in right field--which could be a good problem to have--while the speedy Andrew Toles, who played in 48 big-league games one year ago, will most likely have the left field job to himself. Scott Van Slyke, Enrique Hernandez, Trayce Thompson and the newly acquired Franklin Gutierrez will all battle for fill-in time, should they all make the Opening Day roster. As we know from one year ago, secondyear manager Dave Robert’s most prized possession is his bullpen. Kenley Jansen will fortunately be back to anchor that pen, while Pedro Baez will unfortunately be back to incredibly slow down the pace of play by taking at least 30 seconds to throw each pitch. Roberts seems to get the most out of his relievers, though, even if nobody has ever heard of them before. Look for names like Adam Liberatore, Josh Fields, Grant Dayton and a newly acquired Sergio Romo from the San Francisco Giants to receive a lot of the nods from Roberts as he walks out of the dugout this season. The team will also most likely rely on whichever pitchers do not make the starting rotation to fill in for long relief, giving the bullpen some of the most talented depth in the league. The Guggenheim ownership group has certainly not held back when it has come to the idea of spending money on their Los Angeles Dodgers team. That’s why it’s easy for the owners to control great talent on offense, a great pitching staff, and great talent on defense. What cannot be controlled, however, is health. If this year’s Dodgers team can somehow stay healthy throughout an entire 162-game regular season, then it will remain one of the favorites to win the World Series. It has been a long and difficult 29 years for Dodger fans, but this just may be the season that a championship trophy arrives back in L.A. – Asixlion@earthlink.net • Visit us online: www.heraldpublications.com See Eagles, page 6 Aquatics Program Is Back in the Swim By Gregg McMullin The El Segundo Recreation and Parks Department interviewed three teams to rebuild the swim team at the Urho Saari Swim Stadium (The Plunge). A committee was created from the Recreation and Parks staff and members of the community to interview interested teams. Alpha Aquatics, under the supervision of Octavio Alessi, was selected to take over the El Segundo coaching responsibilities. Since then, the team has grown to over 50 members strong and has a very bright future. Currently the team has swimmers from five to 14 years of age at The Plunge, with older swimmers competing at the LMU site. Coaches Katia Alyabyeva and Alex Hubbard can be found at The Plunge nearly each evening training the team. The next swim competition will be a Junior Olympic qualifying meet at San Fernando Regional Pool on Friday. The Junior Olympics will be back at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center from March 16- 19. In April the club will start training for the long course, 50-meter season. The club looks forward to the time when the new Aquatics Center will allow the swimmers to train in a new 50-meter pool. •
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