EL SEGUNDO HERALD July 7, 2016 Page 5 Story and Photos by Gregg McMullin You can certainly tell that it is baseball All-Star time of the year. Major League baseball will hold their 87th All Star game next Tuesday in San Diego. The El Segundo Little League has been the host to this year’s District 36 11-12 year old all-stars. The 10- 11 year old all-stars are currently playing at the Valmonte Early Learning Center field located in Rolling Hills while the 9-10 year old All-Stars are competing at Perry Park in Redondo Beach. The Babe Ruth League has three All-Star teams competing in the state tournament including the 14 year old team hosting at Stevenson Field. On top of all that El Segundo’s American Legion team is competing in the Area playoffs. If all teams advance this could be a ghost town with everyone following these teams. The 11-12 year old all-stars started slow but found their rhythm in their 10-1 win over Rolling Hills Little League. The win was important and kept El Segundo in the winner’s bracket. It gave the team the opportunity to have the weekend free and come back with a totally rested pitching staff for Tuesday’s game. A win would propel the team into the championship game next Saturday. A loss on Tuesday would mean playing an elimination game on Friday at 6 p.m. ESLL relied on the arm of Connor Smith against Rolling Hills Little League. Unlike the team’s close opening round win over Hermosa Beach Little League, the win over RHLL was much easier. They ended up scoring three runs from wild pitches and of the 10 runs scored only three of those runners reached on a base hit. In the second inning ESLL took a 1-0 lead when Cooper Katskee walked and later scored on a past ball. In the third inning Jack Stoker struck out but when the ball got by the catcher Stoker raced to first base and scored on an RBI single by Eddie Grant. Rolling Hills Little League would score their lone run in the bottom of the third on a long RBI single by Noah Wahl to make it 2-1. ESLL broke the game open in the fourth inning by sending ten hitters to the plate and scoring seven runs. Second baseman Conrad Bernstein led off the inning by getting hit by a pitch. Brenden McAndrews singled and Stoker stroked an RBI double to make it 3-1. McAndrews and Stoker would each score on wild pitches to make it 5-1. Smith drew a walk and Cooper Stolnack hammered a double. With runners on second and third base Katskee belted a 275 foot three-run home run to give El Segundo an 8-1 advantage. Bernstein’s RBI single scored Grant to end the seven run fourth inning. ESLL would tack on a run in the fifth inning on Stolnack’s single to make it 10-1. El Segundo’s defense played error free behind Smith who threw five innings before giving way to Stolnack. Smith kept RHLL off balance with a wicked off speed pitch that accounted for five strike outs; he gave up just four hits, walked none and hit one batter. The win set up Tuesday’s game and sets the stage for what could be another District See Little League, page 7 Lakers Tab Ingram, Free Agents By Adam Serrao After a 17-win season, a franchise tends to set its sights on making a splash the following offseason. That’s exactly what the Los Angeles Lakers were intent on doing. The worst year in franchise history was quickly followed by the signing of a new head coach: Luke Walton. With Walton’s signing, the Lakers hoped to bring about stability and a new direction to a franchise that was once the most powerful and well respected in the league. The signing of Brandon Ingram in this year’s NBA draft helped move the Lakers along in their new direction, but the team’s odd choices and misses on this year’s free agency market certainly don’t help the franchises overall respect factor. If you can’t land Kevin Durant, you might as well draft Brandon Ingram, right? Durant and Ingram are not actually the same two players. In fact, the only similarity that the two share is their comparable build and stature. For the Lakers, though, Ingram was not a bad choice at No. 2 in this year’s draft, at all. The 6-foot-9, 190 pound Ingram has a 7-foot-3 wingspan and a 9-foot-2 standing reach and can drain it from the outside. The Lakers need help everywhere on the court, but especially in the frontcourt where Ingram should certainly fit the bill. His mobility should mold right into Coach Walton’s up-tempo style of play. “I know Coach Walton is a player’s coach,” Ingram said. “I just want to come in and make a big impact.” Ingram isn’t the only one excited, though. “We got the player that I wanted in the draft,” Walton explained of his new player. “I don’t know if he’s the best or not, but he’s the player that I wanted, for sure.” While Ingram should fit right in with the rest of the Lakers young core right away, he’s about the only player that the Lakers have coveted that they’ve actually received at the end of the day. Free Agency hasn’t been nice to Los Angeles, to say the least. Durant didn’t even grant the Lakers a meeting. DeMar DeRozan, who was long rumored to love the Lakers, decided to return to the Toronto Raptors instead. Hassan Whiteside didn’t give L.A. the time of day. Nicolas Batum granted the team a phone call. Chandler Parson raised his ears before walking away from the Lakers. Finally, Kent Bazemore, who was a Laker just two years ago, turned down more money to return to the Lakers, and instead decided to play with Dwight Howard and the Atlanta Hawks. Ouch. So, who did the Lakers actually get in free agency? Well, they re-signed Jordan Clarkson to a four-year, $50 million deal, which at least means that the young core is willing to stick around for the long run. Clarkson, however, may have been the teams only good free agent signing this offseason. After learning that Whiteside would stay in Miami, the Lakers aggressively pursued Timofey Mozgov, formerly of the Cleveland Cavaliers. What’s more striking than the team’s aggressive pursuit of Mozgov, is the amount of money that they threw his way. The Lakers gave four years and $64 million to a center who rode the bench on this year’s championship team. On the surface, the deal looks horrible. Keep in mind, however, that last season, Lakers centers ranked worst in the NBA at rebounds per game (4.9), and second worst in the league at points per game (5.9) and field goal percentage (44.1). While the Lakers knew that they needed a center badly, though, was Mozgov really the right choice? His 6.9 career points per game and five career rebounds per game aren’t much better than the Lakers season averages of last year that made them one of the worst teams in the league at that position. On top of that, a four-year deal is a rather lengthy deal to give to someone who has not proven himself at the professional level. $64 million owed to Mozgov means that in next year’s free agency period, the Lakers (should they get a wider, more advanced audience in free agency) will only be allowed to hand out one max contract deal, as opposed to two. Everything about the Mozgov deal stinks to high heaven and reeks of desperation in the Lakers case. The only saving grace would be to give Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak credit in knowing that come mid-season, he is going to trade Mozgov and a youngster (likely D’Angelo Russell) to the Sacramento Kings for DeMarcus Cousins. We’ll all hold our collective breathes as we wait for that to happen. Los Angeles did manage to pick up one good player in the latter stages of free agency by attaining Luol Deng. Formerly of the Chicago Bulls and most recently, the Miami Heat, Deng averaged over 15 points, 8 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game after the All-Star break for the Heat last season. Long coveted by the Lakers, Deng should bring versatility and veteran leadership to a team that is desperately in need of both. “He’s a great leader. We love him,” Heat president pat Riley explained of Deng. “He’s a high character guy. I consider him one of our core people.” Deng will waste no time fitting in as one of the core people on the Lakers now. His four-year, $72 million deal ensures that like Mozgov, Deng will plan to be around for quite a while. When stepping back to look at the Los Angeles Lakers as a macrocosm, it becomes Little League All-Stars Keep Winning Wyatt Coulter tosses his bat as he worked a nine pitch walk in the second inning. See Lakers, page 6
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