EL SEGUNDO HERALD October 13, 2016 Page 5 Business credit lines. Cash management services. Commercial RE, construction and equipment loans. Ed Myska Senior Vice President 310.321.3285 emyska@grandpointbank.com 1960 E. Grand Avenue, Suite 1200 El Segundo, CA 90245 grandpointbank.com Five-Star Superior Rating by Bauer Financial Eagles Fall to Culver City By Gregg McMullin Any thoughts of an undefeated regular season went by the wayside when they allowed Culver City to come from behind to defeat the formerly top ranked El Segundo Eagles, 24-19, in a physical football game that was also spirited in the stands. It was a game the Eagles had control of in the first half but penalties, miscues and interceptions were their downfall. The Centaurs would take advantage and score 24 second half points to hand the Eagles a deflating loss. The Centaurs have an explosive offense that combines speedy receivers and a good quarterback to average nearly 300 yards per game. On their first possession to open the game, Jonathon Martin completed 5 of 5 passes for 26 yards. A holding penalty and Adrian Johnson’s sack pushed the Centaurs back to the 41-yard line. The Eagles would score the only points of the first half on their second possession. On their longest time of possession of the night, the Eagles ran 12 plays, going 88 yards to get in the end zone. The Eagles went with a smash-mouthed run game with Taz Tauaese and Ashton Saltz doing the damage. Tauaese carried the ball eight times for 47 yards including a 2-yard touchdown run with 9:46 left in the second quarter. The Eagles stumbled on their next possession. When it seemed they were on the path for another score, a dropped pass, penalties and a quarterback sack stymied the possession. A long 46-yard field goal attempt sailed wide and the Eagles came away empty handed. Their final possession of the first half stalled at the Culver City 34-yard line. The teams went to the half-time break with the Eagles dominating Eagles to Host First Cross- Country Meet in 25 Years By Gregg McMullin The El Segundo High School cross-country program will host its first meet in 25 years on Wednesday Oct. 19, starting at 1:30 p.m. The Eagles will host the Ocean League meet No. 2 at El Segundo Recreation Park. The meet will include each Ocean League school including Beverly Hills, Culver City, Hawthorne, Lawndale, Santa Monica besides El Segundo. Nearly 175 athletes will descend on Rec Park to run the streets of El Segundo. El Segundo High School’s cross-country program goes back to 1953 under coach Frank Craven. Over the next 63 years, the program would be discontinued and restarted for a variety of reasons. In the fall of 1965, Terry Crystal would make sure the program would be a mainstay sport up until 1992 when interest waned and because of declining enrollment. It would take 15 years for interest to jumpstart the program again. El Segundo reestablished both a girls’ and boys’ team under coach Holly Lipscomb in 2007. Coach Doug Sersun helped elevate the program’s status by guiding the girls’ team to the California State Cross Country Championships in the two years he was the head coach, in 2010 and 2011. In 2012 Marcos Bolanos took over the program and both teams continued their meteoric rise. In fact, last season both boys’ and girls’ teams competed for a CIF championship. Gavin Glenn became the first Eagle boys’ runner to run at the California State Championships and currently holds most of the school’s distance records. The ESHS cross-country program has produced a number of runners to compete at the colligate level. 1966 Eagle alum Steve Wennerstrom competed at El Camino and then at Cal State Fullerton. Marla Fisher, a 1979 graduate, ran for El Camino’s team. The Eagle’s first Division I runner was 1978 graduate Alfredo Rosas. He started at El Camino became the one of Kansas State’s top runners. He was elected to the El Camino Sports Hall of Fame. Amy Reaser, a 2010 graduate, continued her cross-country running at San Diego State. Anna Farello (2013) is currently running for the University of Portland. Both women represented their respective universities at the NCAA Division I West Region Cross Country Championships. Farello holds every log-distance record at El Segundo high school. This season, both the boys’ and girls’ teams are doing well. The boys’ team won the White Division of the Woodbridge Classic while the girls’ finished third. Currently the boys’ team is ranked sixth in the latest CIF-Southern Section Division 4 polls while the girls’ team is ranked eighth. If you have the chance to come out next Wednesday to support the cross country teams, it would be a great opportunity to support a thriving program and watch some top high school athletes. • Lakers Prepare for Season of Maturation By Adam Serrao As the beginning of the 2016-17 NBA season steadily approaches, all eyes in Los Angeles are naturally turning toward the hometown Lakers. The story of the season for the Lakers will have to deal with the end of the Kobe Bryant era and how the team moves on without their once-in-a-generation, Hall of Fame star. A 17-65 overall record was literally the worst season that the Los Angeles Lakers have ever experienced in franchise history, so logically, there is nowhere for this team to go but up. Now that the distractions surrounding the team should certainly be at a minimum, new head coach Luke Walton and the Lakers young core can now turn their focus to the overall development of the team as a whole. Kobe’s farewell tour was certainly one for the ages, and in a season of mediocrity, it brought at least some entertainment value into view. Despite the send-off of one of basketball’s alltime greats, however, there is no denying that the atmosphere surrounding the team somewhat resembled that of one seen at a circus. “He deserved it; it was his time,” Lakers starting point guard D’Angelo Russell said of Bryant’s season long departure from the team. “We put everything we had, expectations for everyone else, on hold. We gotta get through Kobe’s farewell tour and then we can continue with our process. So we kind of accepted that.” Now that the farewell tour is finally over and the circus surround the tour has officially left town, this year now becomes a year of progress and maturation for a young Lakers team that must take a step forward within a competitive division and an extremely competitive league. Along with Bryant leaving the team, so does previous head coach Byron Scott. Enter Luke Walton and a new playing style and new feeling in the locker room. “I feel like everyone’s buying in and wants to take steps forward in winning and coming together as a team,” Russell continued. After an obviously rocky rookie season in which Russell has insinuated that his growth was stunted by Scott, the point guard has thus far been one of Walton’s most vocal supporters. With an entire year now under his belt, Russell is just one of the Lakers players who expects to take major steps forward this season. “I think D’Angelo is young, but at the point guard position he’s starting to realize the importance of having a voice and being a leader in that spot, which I think he has the skills to do,” Coach Walton explained. Russell will be only 20 years old this season, but looks to learn from a long a frustrating first year in the league to mature and get better going forward. In addition to Russell, the Lakers have a young core of high draft picks in rookie Brandon Ingram and Julius Randle, in addition to a pair of young players who are outperforming their expectations and draft status in Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr. Despite the expectations for the players on a team that has relied heavily on the draft in recent years, none of the Lakers players selected have ranked in the top 15 first-andsecond year players in Player Efficiency Rating. That means that Russell, Ingram and the rest of the Lakers bunch still need a ton of time to develop, grow, and hopefully one day pan out into what they are expected to become. Coming off a 17 win season, this year – a year in which expectations should be extremely low – should provide the perfect opportunity for the young team to do precisely that. What’s good news for the Lakers young core is that the incessant feeding of Kobe Bryant will now be eliminated from the team’s game plan. This year, there will certainly be much more opportunity to accumulate stats and efficiency for everyone else involved. In addition to the players all looking to prove themselves, so too is Walton in his first year of coaching. Walton came from a winning team (a team with the most wins in NBA history, actually) and is out to prove that he can create the same culture for a team that has gone 151-243 since the departure of Phil Jackson in 2011. While anything more than 17 wins will be considered successful with the way things have gone for the Lakers lately, doubling up their win total from a season ago is not out of the realm of possibility and with the talent inherent on the team, should, in fact, be expected. In a league full of teams like the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs and even the Los Angeles Clippers, expectations for the Lakers to make the playoffs this season should certainly be tempered. This year is a year of maturation for an extremely young team with extremely young stars. If the Lakers take a step forward, specifically in the win column, they may finally begin to recruit high-quality players from other teams around the league. While the current core of young players on the team is certainly deserving of high expectations, the addition of a top-tier veteran could certainly expedite an otherwise lengthy process of getting back into the class of elite teams for the Lakers. This year shouldn’t be looked at as a championship year for the Los Angeles. With added success and a step forward, though, it could certainly lead to a season like that sooner, rather than later. • See Eagles, page 6
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