Page 4 January 1, 2015 Local Teams, Athletes Shine in 2014 By Joe Snyder The year 2014 has drawn to a close and 2015 has just started. Last year has been good for some local athletic teams and athletes with others struggling but doing the best they could. Perhaps the best was accomplished by a former Leuzinger High and Hawthorne resident boys’ soccer player, who is now with the National Soccer League Los Angeles Galaxy. It was Gyasi Zardes that helped the Galaxy get started to their 2-1 overtime Major League Soccer championship victory over the New England Revolution on December 7 at the StubHub Center in Carson. He gave L.A. a 1-0 lead in the 52nd minute with a goal off a pass from midfielder Stefan Ishizaki. The Revolution tied the match in the 79th minute on Leonardo’s goal and both teams were forced to go into overtime. It was in the 111th minute (sixth minute of the second overtime period) where Robbie Kaene put in what would be the winning goal. For the Galaxy, it was its sixth Major League Soccer title, and a good sendoff gift for top soccer star Landon Donovan, who played his final match as he moved into retirement. Donovan announced that he would retire after the 2014 season in July, a few months after he was left off the United States National team that played in the World Cup in Brazil during June. The Galaxy won four of the championships with Donovan. It was the first for Zardes. There were some mixed results for local high schools but Lawndale High’s boys enjoyed a good 2013-14 winter with Pioneer League crowns in basketball and soccer. The Cardinals used their height led by juniors, six-foot-10 Chimeze Metu, who earlier this year committed to playing at University of Southern California next fall, and six-foot-nine Brodricks Jones. Lawndale won the league and advanced to the CIFSouthern Section Division IA quarterfinals. The Cardinals’ boys’ soccer team also captured the highly competitive Pioneer and made it to the second round of the Southern Section Division IV playoffs. Hawthorne’s boys’ soccer team tied Santa Monica for the Ocean League title. It lost in the second round of the Division IV playoffs to Ontario. Leuzinger made the playoffs in boys’ basketball and soccer, losing in the first round in both sports. Inglewood High’s boys’ basketball team placed third in the Ocean behind champion Beverly Hills and runner-up Santa Monica but advanced to the Southern Section Division IAA semifinals before losing a heartbreaking 48-47 game to eventual champion Long Beach Poly. Key returning starters Terrell Gomez and Darae Elliott hope to help the Sentinels in the highly competitive Bay League, led by Redondo which already captured a premiere Platinum Division of the Tarkanian Classic in Las Vegas with a 66-51 win over Putnam West from Oklahoma on December 20. The Sentinels are coming off winning the Clovis West Tournament by topping the host team on the same day. Over the spring, Hawthorne’s baseball and softball squads advanced to the playoffs. The Cougar baseball team lost to Palmdale in a wildcard game and their softball lost in the first round. The year was also highlighted by local league changes that saw Leuzinger, which struggled in most sports in the rigorous Bay, move with West Torrance to the Pioneer where they joined three other Torrance schools, North, South and Torrance, and Compton Centennial. The Olympians and the Warriors were replaced by Inglewood and Morningside from the Ocean, and Lawndale and El Segundo both moved from the Pioneer to Ocean to join Hawthorne, Beverly Hills, Culver City and Santa Monica. Lawndale’s football team enjoyed its best showing since its Part I years of the 1970’s with a second place finish behind El Segundo in Ocean play. The Cardinals played eventual champion Palos Verdes tough before falling short 35-28 in the first round of the Southern Section Western Division playoffs on November 14 at Mira Costa High. The Sea Kings went on to rally from a two-touchdown halftime deficit to defeat host Ventura 32-24 on December 5. Lawndale was led by junior quarterback Chris Murray, who had very good passing and rushing records. Murray was recently named to first team all-Ocean League. So far in the winter sports, Morningside High’s boys’ basketball team is off to a good start at 7-2 after winning the Pioneer High Tournament in Whittier with a 63-59 win over Villa Park on December 20. Inglewood won at Clovis West, improving to 4-6. Lawndale is 6-3 and recently was tested in the prestigious Under Armour Classic at Torrey Pines High in San Diego (Del Mar). Leuzinger is struggling some but also playing in another premiere tournament, the Maxpreps Holiday Classic in Palm Springs. The Olympian boys’ soccer team is playing well with a 7-2-2 record and already has wins over their Centinela Valley rivals, Hawthorne and Lawndale. Leuzinger, in fact, defeated the Cardinals twice, once in non-league and the other in the South Torrance Christmas Classic. The Olympians hope to contend in the very tough Pioneer League with all four Torrance schools. • Looking Up “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” - ralph waldo emerson Venus Express Goes Gently into the Night Based on a press release from the European Space Agency, provided by Bob Eklund The European Space Agency’s Venus Express has ended its eight-year mission after far exceeding its planned life. The spacecraft exhausted its propellant during a series of thruster burns to raise its orbit following the low-altitude aerobraking earlier this year. Since its arrival at Venus in 2006, Venus Express had been on an elliptical 24-hour orbit, traveling 66,000 km above the south pole at its furthest point and to within 200 km over the north pole on its closest approach, conducting a detailed study of the planet and its atmosphere. However, after eight years in orbit and with propellant for its propulsion system running low, Venus Express was tasked in mid-2014 with a daring aerobraking campaign, during which it dipped progressively lower into the atmosphere on its closest approaches to the planet. Normally, the spacecraft would perform routine thruster burns to ensure that it did not come too close to Venus and risk being lost in the atmosphere. But this unique adventure was aimed at achieving the opposite, namely reducing the altitude and allowing an exploration of previously uncharted regions of the atmosphere. “During its mission at Venus, the spacecraft provided a comprehensive study of the planet’s ionosphere and atmosphere, and has enabled us to draw important conclusions about its surface,” says Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s Venus Express project scientist. Venus has a surface temperature of over 450°C, far hotter than a normal kitchen oven, and its atmosphere is an extremely dense, choking mixture of noxious gases. One highlight from the mission is the tantalizing hint that the planet may well be still geologically active today. One study found numerous lava flows that must have been created no more than 2.5 million years ago—just yesterday on geological timescales—and possibly even much less than that. Indeed, measurements of sulfur dioxide in the upper atmosphere have shown large variations over the course of the mission. Although peculiarities in the atmospheric circulation may produce a similar result, it is the most convincing argument to date of active volcanism. Even though the conditions on the surface of Venus are extremely inhospitable today, a survey of the amount of hydrogen and deuterium in the atmosphere suggests that Venus once had a lot of water in the atmosphere, which is now mostly gone, and possibly even oceans of water like the Earth. Studies of the planet’s ‘super-rotating’ atmosphere—it whips around the planet in only four Earth-days, much faster than the 243 days the planet takes to complete one rotation about its axis—also turned up some intriguing surprises. When studying the winds, by tracking clouds in images, average wind speeds were found to have increased from roughly 300 km/h to 400 km/h over a period of six Earth years. At the same time, a separate study found that the rotation of the planet had slowed by 6.5 minutes since NASA’s Magellan measured it before completing its five-year mission at Venus 20 years ago. However, it remains unknown if there is a direct relationship between the increasing wind speeds and the slowing rotation. How to see Venus: Venus is just coming back into view in our evening sky, after spending several months as a “morning star.” It first became visible soon after sunset in mid-December, just 4 degrees above the southwest horizon, and is steadily gaining elevation each night. By January 6, it will be 9 degrees above the horizon in mid-twilight. And you can continue to enjoy Venus as an “evening star” in the western sky for the next several months. • Artist’s representation of Venus Express as it orbits Venus during June and July 2015. The Venus Express will exhibit its “aerobrake” maneuver, which will reduce its viewing altitude from 200 to 130km. Credit: European Space Agency – C. Carreau.h.
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