EL SEGUNDO HERALD May 19, 2016 Page 5 Eagles Volleyball Bow in CIF Quarterfinals By Gregg McMullin The El Segundo high school boys’ volleyball team won’t have the opportunity to defend their CIF-Southern Section Division 3 title after bowing to Valley Christian of Cerritos 20-25, 20-25, 25-23, 25-16, 8-15 in the CIFSS Division 3 quarterfinals. The match was reminiscent of the Eagle’s championship match with Quartz Hills last season. In that historic comeback, the Eagles were down two sets to zero when El Segundo came back to win three consecutive sets and win the program’s second CIF title. The Eagles, who jumped out to a 10-8 lead in the first set, allowed Valley Christian to gain momentum and run off a series of points and eventually the first set. The Crusaders and Eagles played evenly for most of the second set before Valley Christian ran off the last five points to win the second set after the teams were tied at 20 apiece. With the Eagle’s backs to the wall, Stanford bound Stephen Moye played like the CIF Player of the Year that he is. In the third set, Valley Christian came out strong and built an 8-4 lead. Moye and his teammates weren’t about to get swept in their own gym so the Eagles fought back behind Moye’s six straight points on kills to help El Segundo take a 10-8 lead. The Eagles relentless inspired play helped them pound out an 22-14 advantage. However Valley Christian, the Olympic League champions, scored nine of the next 10 points to tie the score at 23. Moye came up with a kill, one of 38 on the night, to give the Eagles the advantage. Then he made a diving dig that set up a Noah Mayeda’s kill to help El Segundo win the set. Valley Christian had an early 9-6 lead in the fourth set and seemed to have the momentum when the Eagles turned the tide. Moye continued his assault with kill after kill and the Eagles outscored the Crusaders 19-7 to take the fourth set. In the fifth and deciding set Valley Christian put the Eagles away essentially from the beginning by not allowing any momentum shifts, and, just like that the season was over. Besides Moye’s 38 kills, who had 11 in the third set, senior setter Joe Kelly had 54 assists and six kills for the Eagles who ended the season 20-8. Afterwards El Segundo captain Stephen Moye was upbeat albeit extremely disappointed. “We came out slow, but we were able to step it up later,” Moye said. He added that he thought Valley Christian played a perfect match that the Eagles couldn’t make one more comeback. Baseball The Eagles split their two game series with Santa Monica and secured second place in the Ocean League. El Segundo allowed an unearned run in the first inning then went on to hold off the Vikings, 6-4. Nico Celestial’s big day at the plate included going 2-for-3 with three RBIs and scored a run. Spencer Long, who stared for the Eagles, helped himself at the plate with an RBI single. Long, who improved to 3-0 in the Ocean League, gave up four runs (three earned) on three hits and struck out five in five innings. The Eagles were downed by the third place finishing Vikings, 8-1 in the regular season finale. They managed just three hits and scored its only run in the fourth inning when CJ Shevlin tripled and scored on Jake Palmer’s RBI single. Santa Monica countered with a run off starting pitcher Albert Galicia in their half of the fourth. The Vikings would put together a five-run fifth inning and add two more in the sixth inning off Bradley Heckman. The Eagles will enter the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs having won six out of their last eight games. They’ll face a familiar foe on Friday afternoon at 3:15 p.m. when they visit Mira Costa. The Mustangs finished second in the Bay League and have an overall record of 24-6. These two teams have faced each other 24 times over the past 12 years but this will be the first time they’ve faced each other in the CIF playoffs. The winner will play the winner of the Temescal Canyon/ Corona Del Mar game on Tuesday at a site TBD Softball The Lady Eagles are the Ocean League champions. “It has a nice ring to it said head coach Keith Cameron after his team’s 11-0 win over Lawndale to secure at least a share of the title. Then for good measures the Eagles won the Ocean League title outright by throttling Santa Monica 10-0 on the road. After a runners-up finish last season The Eagles won its first league title outright since 2009; they shared the 2014 Pioneer League title with North Torrance. The Eagles hammered out nine hits and benefitted by four walks against Lawndale to win 11-0 on Senior Day. Alyssa Pelegrin launched a two run homerun to leftfield in the first inning, walked and scored in the second inning and had a two-run single in the fourth inning. Jasmine Krauss had a two-homerun while Gianna Taormina had a two-run single to pace El Segundo’s offensive attack. Against Santa Monica the Eagles played with plenty of motivation and in the midst of their biggest game so far of the season seemed to have fun in the process. Megan Truesdale was virtually unhittable as she was the first time these two teams me. The senior, who signed a letter of intent to pitch for Whitworth University (Spokane, Washington) scattered three hits while striking out 12. The Eagles got on the scoreboard with a third inning solo homerun by Truesdale. In the fourth inning Allison Tatnal and Cierra Kessler both singled. On the play, Tatnal scored on a throwing error and Pelegrin drove in Kessler on an RBI single. In the fifth inning Nayeli Diaz, who has fully recovered from what was once thought a season ending injury, singled followed by a single to Tatnal and a walk to Kessler. Pelegrin then sent a 2-1 fastball into orbit for a grand slam to make it 7-0. In the seventh inning Julie Roach pounded a threerun homerun to give the Eagles a 10-0. The 10 runs the Eagles scored at Santa Monica were the most in over a decade the Vikings had given up to a visiting team in Ocean League play at home. • Douglass M O R T U A R Y “Our Family Serving Yours Since 1954” B U R I A L - C R E M A T I O N - W O R L D W I D E T R A N S F E R P E T M E M O R I A L P R O D U C T S 500 EAST IMPERIAL AVENUE EL SEGUNDO, CALIFORNIA 90245 Telephone (310) 640-9325 • Fax (310) 640-0778 • FD658 You Should Be Happy That Spurs Are Gone By Adam Serrao Last Thursday night, the unexpected happened. While everyone was sitting around waiting for the San Antonio Spurs to meet up with the Golden State Warriors in this year’s NBA Western Conference Finals, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and the rest of the Oklahoma City Thunder had something to say about it. The Thunder have always looked like a good team on paper. Sporting arguably two of the NBA’s current Top 5 players in the league, their only flaw was that Durant and more notably, Westbrook, needed to utilize more of their team. The Spurs, on the other hand, lost only 15 games all season and behind head coach Greg Popovich, were a lock to give the Warriors a run for their money to reach this year’s NBA Finals and maybe even take home a ring. With a 113-99 victory, the Thunder not only added to the Spurs loss total on the year, but also surprisingly eliminated their adversaries from the playoffs. Now that they are gone, it’s easy to see why we should all be happy of the Spurs demise. The San Antonio Spurs have never been a fun team to watch. A quiet and cerebral Tim Duncan is aided by an emotionless superstar in Kawhi Leonard and a coach that prides himself on speaking in sentences of two words or fewer. Despite what they provide for the eye, however, the Spurs have been one of the league’s most successful teams and an utter dynasty for almost 20 years now. One of the main reasons to be happy that the Thunder eliminated them from playoff contention though, if for nothing else, is to see parity in the game. On one hand, you have the slow and lumbering Spurs, who offer nothing towards excitement, yet always find a way to pull out a victory. On the other hand, you have the hot, young, Oklahoma City Thunder with the amazing Kevin Durant and an unrelenting Russell Westbrook who seems to give the Energizer Bunny a run for his money. Westbrook, a product of Southern California’s Leuzinger High School and UCLA, is constantly on full-go. He is one of the most up-tempo players and point guards in the league, stopping at nothing to get to the rim as he speeds past opponents like the Roadrunner and hops over his challengers with the seeming ability of Bugs Bunny. That’s right, he seems like a cartoon-player, but much to an NBA fan’s delight, he is of real flesh and blood and on display for us to watch and appreciate on almost a nightly basis. Then, there are the coaches of the two teams. Billy Donovan, the coach of the Thunder, is a young and intense first-year leader that formerly coached the game at the college level at the University of Florida. Donovan has instilled belief and tenacity into his team that undoubtedly led, in part, to their victory over the Spurs. Then, there’s Popovich. Popovich has been in the NBA for 28 years now and as a head coach, has won the NBA title five times and coach of the year three times. All of those accolades have unquestionably led to his over-the-top pompous attitude and “betterthan thou” way of thinking. Popovich gives nothing to media on the sidelines and nothing to anyone who asks a question of him after the game. It has gotten so ridiculous and out of control now that not only has he become used to acting in such a foolish manner, but the media has gotten used to simply taking it, mind-numbingly labeling him as charming. There is absolutely nothing charming about Popovich; a head coach who Spurs fans should most certainly be interested in hearing what he has to say and think about the game, yet he undeniably and consistently responds with returns such as, “That’s a correct statement”, or “Why don’t you figure it out yourself”. I’d rather see Marshawn Lynch at the podium who is known to say, “I’m just here so I won’t get fined”, than to see an egotistical, millionaire head coach who constantly takes subtle jabs at the media for simply doing their jobs and cares not about the fans of his team who just prematurely got eliminated from the playoffs after a 67 win season, yet offers no explanation for his poor performance. See Spurs, page 13
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