EL SEGUNDO HERALD April 20, 2017 Page 5 Davis & DeRosa Physical Therapy, Inc. Davis & DeRosa Physical Therapy, established in 2003, provides a quaint boutique practice located in El Segundo, California. The 4,000 square foot facility is a well known practice offering its patients private, personal treatment by a licensed therapist at every visit. Patients are guaranteed one-on-one attention for their 45-minute treatment. THE PRACTICE SPECIALIZES IN DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT FOR: Chronic Neck and Back Pain Pre and Post Surgical Rehabilitation Sports Injuries Work Injuries Neurological Disorders Foot and Ankle Disorders (including orthotics) Osteoporosis and other Age Related Disorders Balance and Vestibular Disorders Injury Prevention Troy Davis Owner, PT, DPT • Chris DeRosa Owner, PT, OCS Leo Valenzuela, PT, DPT • Lianne Nakazaki, PT, DPT • Garret Wong, PT, DPT Rachael D’Angelo, PT, DPT • Tami Chang, PT 325 Main Street El Segundo, CA 90245 310.648.3167 www.davisandderosa.com 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 Start Ocean League Play By Gregg McMullin The Ocean League schedule for the El Segundo Eagles is in full swing. The baseball, softball and volleyball teams have all started their league schedules on a positive note. This is the time of the season that teams focus on today and learn from yesterday so their tomorrows can lead to success. Each team is expected to challenge for a league title and at least a CIF playoff berth. The baseball team is looking for its first outright league title since 2012. The Eagles were co-champions two seasons ago. Fresh off their Santa Ana Elks Tournament championship El Segundo faced Culver City, the defending Ocean League champions. The Eagles had dismantled five teams in the tournament with their bats and outscored their opponents 50-7. But Culver City was not intimidated, as the Eagles were shut out 3-0 and held to just two hits. Jimmy Galicia has been outstanding on the mound this season. He has a 1.36 ERA on the year. Against the Centaurs the junior right-hander pitched well enough to win, giving up three earned runs on four hits with just one walk. But the offense was held to just two singles and was shut out for just the second time this season. The Eagles responded to their first league loss by exacting their revenge with a 19-1 romping over the Centaurs. The loss was a wakeup call for a team loaded with hitters throughout the lineup. The bats awoke and Culver City suffered the nightmare. The Eagles batted around in three straight innings and took a 16-1 lead after four innings. In the second inning, the Eagles scored six runs on five hits and took advantage of an error. In the third, Jake Palmer highlighted another six-run inning with a two-run home run to give El Segundo a 10-1 lead. The Eagles would score two more runs in the inning for a 12-1 lead. With El Segundo leading 16-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Sean Emery unloaded on a 390-foot blast to left centerfield for a three-run home run and a 19-1 lead. It capped a big offensive day for the Eagles, who had 22 hits. CJ Shevlin and Spencer Palmer each had four hits while Jake Palmer had five RBIs to lead the Eagles’ bats. The Eagles, ranked third in the CIF Southern Section Division 3 polls, improved to 16-5 on the year and played host to Beverly Hills on Tuesday. They play the Normans today on the road. Saturday the Eagles face Redondo on the road at 11 a.m. in the Redondo Sea Hawk Tournament. Next Tuesday, the Eagles host Lawndale at 3:15 p.m. The softball team is 7-9 overall on the season, but 3-1 in Ocean League play. After an inauspicious 0-5-1 start to the season, the Lady Eagles have gone 7-4. They faced Culver City, a team El Segundo had already defeated in the Torrance TNT Tournament 6-5. However, the Centaurs delivered the Lady Eagles a blow by winning 6-2. Perhaps it was a week layoff due to the Spring Break, but the Lady Eagles got roughed up in giving up the six runs on nine hits. El Segundo trailed 2-1 in the fourth inning, but tied it up after Bailey Ernest, who had singled earlier in the inning, came home on an RBI single by Kaili Reitano. The Eagles’ offense would go silent and went scoreless the rest of the way. Culver City would go on to score twice in its half of the fourth inning and added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth to put the game out of reach. The Lady Eagles responded to their first league loss by scoring a 16-0 win over Beverly Hills. In the shortened mercy rule game, El Segundo scored five runs in each of the first two innings and three runs in both the third and fourth innings. Kaili Reitano had a perfect day at the plate going three for three with five RBIs, while Nena Hylander went three for three with four RBIs. Sarah Bergren had a big day with two hits, including a triple and two RBIs. On the day the Eagles pounded out 16 hits, including five doubles and one triple. Is the MVP Race Even a Race at All? By Adam Serrao Now that the NBA’s regular season is officially over, it’s time for an entirely new set of storylines to begin. Not only will basketball fans everywhere begin to focus their attentions on the playoff race, but there is another race of particular importance that has been garnering headlines as of late. This season may be one of the most hotly debated in basketball history as it relates to the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. Four of the league’s superstars are involved in the conversation, but only one can walk home with the hardware. Will it be LeBron James? The Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard may be the best two-way player in the league. Then there are James Harden and Russell Westbrook, who are facing off in an epic first-round battle in this year’s playoffs that will most likely have just a little bit more riding on the outcome than any usual playoff series. In the end, though, there can only be one winner--but when it comes down to it, this year’s race really isn’t even a race at all. There may not be any one player in the league who is better at both ends of the court than Kawhi Leonard. Leonard has led a consistently great Spurs team for years now and has improved his game consistently year after year. In the final five games that Leonard played in the regular season, he averaged 23 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game, proving just how much of an all-around player that he can be. When it comes to the national conversation of MVP candidates, though, Leonard simply falls short. As quiet and reserved as they come, Leonard and the Spurs are labeled as boring, year after year. Head coach Greg Popovich embraces that label, as he keeps his players out of trouble and on top of the standings as consistently as any other head coach has done in the history of the league. Leonard, despite his talent and ability (particularly on the defensive end) to lead his team to 61 wins this year, doesn’t impact the game on a national level enough to gain the votes necessary to win the award. There is a certain group of fans around the league whose easy (and lazy) choice to win MVP is LeBron James. Sure, James is always a candidate to take home the MVP award because as he proved in the Finals last year, he is, in fact, the best player in the entire NBA. Unfortunately for James and his supporters, the MVP award isn’t about who is the best player in the league right now. It’s about who is having the best season this year. Westbrook and Harden have both had better seasons than James this year. Even still, that doesn’t mean that either Westbrook or Harden will start next year’s regular season as the best player in the league. That designation will clearly still go to James. In a season when the Cavaliers have struggled down the stretch in the second half, though, it is almost impossible to give the award to James, despite the fact that he is putting up some of the best all-around personal numbers of his career. The Heat, Nuggets, Bucks and the Thunder, to name a few, all have better records than LeBron’s Cavs in the second half of the season. He may be the best player in the league, and may even take home another title at the end of the postseason, but LeBron is not the MVP of the 2016-’17 NBA season. There might not be any more efficient player in the NBA than James Harden. After new head coach Mike D’Antoni came in and Harden switched positions to point guard, “The Beard” has simply been able to do it all. Harden scores, gets assists, and his team finished with a better record than Westbrook’s Thunder. Houston, however, was built around Harden so that he could accrue the kind of numbers that he has averaged this season. The Rockets were built for Harden to succeed and even still, Westbrook has the better season-long averages in virtually every major category this year except for assists (10.4 for Westbrook, 11.2 for Harden). Harden certainly deserves recognition for his accomplishments and should maybe even be in the running for the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award. Unfortunately for Harden, there should only be one winner of the MVP. There hasn’t been a player to average a tripledouble in the NBA since Oscar Robertson 55 years ago. If your vote is for any other player to win the NBA MVP, then naturally you’ll dispute the triple-double as being a major accomplishment. No matter how you want to twist the numbers, though, there is no disputing the fact that Westbrook has made history in a season in which everyone expected the Thunder to fail with the departure of Kevin Durant. Not only has Westbrook willed his team to victory and back into the playoffs almost single-handedly, but he has made this NBA season one that will be looked back on and remembered as the one in which the Oklahoma City star simply went crazy. One of the main reasons Westbrook doesn’t get his due from certain people around the NBA is because he makes it look so easy. The point guard has been so consistent this season that he has made what was once a spectacular feat look commonplace. Everyone who wishes to root against Westbrook is simply wishing to be different and have their own, unique opinion. But ask yourself this: If your favorite player in the NBA had the same exact season as Westbrook has had this year, wouldn’t you expect him to win the MVP? Unfortunately for fans of the game, you’ll have to wait over a month to see the results of the season-long MVP race when they will be announced live for the first time ever on an NBA awards show held June 25 in Manhattan, New York. Filling out a ballot will certainly be an unenviable task for members of the media who are entrusted to do so this season. Those ballots should be cast before postseason play begins in what is one of the more thrilling MVP races that the league has ever seen. At the end of the day, voters can’t ignore history. That’s why Russell Westbrook will be named this year’s NBA MVP. – Asixlion@earthlink.net • See Eagles, page 16
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