Page 4 May 1, 2014 Hawthorne Keeps Pace by Routing Inglewood By Joe Snyder Hawthorne High’s softball team remained in second place in the Ocean League with a five-inning mercy rule 16-2 win over Inglewood last Thursday at Hawthorne. The Cougars, who improved to 3-1 in league and 11-5 overall, dominated the Sentinels right from the start. They blew the game open with six runs in the bottom of the third inning. Kerri Ludman sparked Hawthorne’s offense by going three-for-three with four runs batted in and two runs scored. Casandra Perez hit a three-run home run for the Cougars. Winning pitcher went five innings, allowing four hits to Inglewood, which is 0-4 in Ocean play. Two days earlier at Hawthorne, first place Santa Monica rolled over the Cougars 12-5. The game started out close with the Vikings leading 5-4 after two innings, but Santa Monica let loose for two runs in the top of the fourth and five in the fifth to break the game open. The Vikings accumulated 17 hits off Cougar pitching. On April 15 at Culver City, Hawthorne downed the Centaurs 12-6. The Cougars surged out to a 10-1 fifth inning lead, then coasted to an easy win. Hawthorne will visit Morningside next Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. before showing down at Santa Monica next Thursday at the same time. SOUTH PITCHERS SHUT DOWN LAWNDALE After splitting two games with North Torrance two weeks ago, the Cardinals began going through a series of Pioneer League powers, the first of those being South Torrance last week. At South on April 23, Lawndale was downed by the Spartans Hawthorne pitcher Natalie Rocha prepares to pitch to an Inglewood batter during last Thursday’s Ocean League softball game. The Cougars rolled over the Sentinels 16-2. Photo by Joe Snyder. 8-1. At Lawndale last Friday, the Cardinals were shut out 4-0. On April 23, Lawndale, which is 6-11 overall and 1-3 in league, mustered just two hits and one run off winning pitcher Matt Mogollon. The Cardinals started with a 1-0 lead with two outs in the top of the second inning, when Jesus Sanchez drove in George Escobedo with a base hit, but from there, it was all Spartans as they scored eight unanswered runs. “We ran into South’s number one starter,” Lawndale head coach Jeff Prihode said. “He had a good fastball and off speed. It was the errors and walks that hurt us. They would capitalize on them.” Last Friday, the Cardinals ran into South’s unbeaten pitcher Drake Pingel, who increased his record to 5-0. Pingel allowed just three hits over six innings. “He was a crafty pitcher,” Prihold said of Pingel. “He did a good job. We had a lot of fly ball outs.” Prihold was pleased with the strong defense that kept Lawndale in the game most of the way. According to Prihold, the Cardinals had nine fly ball outs. For Lawndale, it is the second week of facing three power squads. After visiting El Segundo at Stevenson Field on Wednesday, the Cardinals host the traditional power Eagles Friday at 3:15 p.m. After that, it’s on to Torrance, which came off sweeping El Segundo in Pioneer action last week, as the Cardinals host the Tartars next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. Also on Saturday, Torrance, which improved to 14-8 overall and 3-1 in league and is ranked seventh in the CIFSouthern Section Division IV, added an impressive 7-6 win over usual Moore League and Southern California power Lakewood in the Redondo Tournament last Saturday, and, the Saturday before (April 19) rolled over Redondo 11-4. MIRA COSTA PROVES TOO MUCH FOR LEUZINGER Leuzinger High’s baseball team was able to go the distance in a 7-0 loss to last season’s CIF-Southern Section Division III runner-up Mira Costa on April 23 at Leuzinger, but was crushed by the host Mustangs 22-0 in a five-inning mercy rule game last Friday in Manhattan Beach. At Leuzinger, Edgar Gutierrez and Angel Vital combined for a six-hitter despite the loss. Vital struck out six batters in four innings. Francisco Rubio went one-for-two and had four running catches on defense. Last Friday, Angel Vital was a bright spot as he got the first hit to break up a no-hitter in the top of the fourth inning with a single. Sergio Hernandez had the Olympians’ other hit in the fifth. Leuzinger, which is 3-17 overall and 0-4 in Bay action, will host Palos Verdes in league Friday, then visit Peninsula in Rolling Hills Estates next Wednesday. Both league games begin at 3:15 p.m. The Sea Kings are coming off an impressive two-game Bay sweep of Redondo by scores of 2-0 on April 23 at Redondo and 5-2 last Friday at P.V. The Panthers, who entered last week ranked second in the CIF-Southern Section Division III, split their two games with West Torrance winning 4-2 at West on April 23 but falling 3-2 last Friday at Peninsula. COUGARS FALL TO CULVER Hawthorne High’s baseball team fell to 0-4 in Ocean League play after a pair of losses to Culver City last week. At Culver on April 22, the Cougars lost to the Centaurs 9-4. At Hawthorne last Thursday, Culver shut out the Cougars 2-0. After visiting Beverly Hills at La Cienega Park last Tuesday, Hawthorne (0-4 in league) will host the Normans today at 3:15 p.m. The Cougars, then, are at home against Inglewood next Tuesday at the same time. • One Man’s Opinion Another Man’s Opinion By Gerry Chong Just went a’flippin’ through the papers this morning, hoping against hope that this is the day…. the one day the government that wants to make all decisions for us individually, can finally do something right. My good old boy buddy from Texas often laughed and said, “Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while” so keep your hopes up. Maybe today is the day. Anyway, on to page one: it seems President Obama said he would respond to the Ukrainian crisis in a measured way, with no boots on the ground. Well, guess what? Today the Pentagon announced 6,000 U.S. paratroopers would be sent to Eastern Europe in response to the crisis. Maybe these troops won’t wear boots, thus rationalizing the president’s prior message. Seems to me most people would want a president to respond in a clear and unequivocal way, but this president wants to so nuance his message that there is no meaningful message. Well, on to page two we go. The IRS had given $2.8 million in bonuses to 2,800 employees who had not paid their income taxes. While that is a violation of federal law, it is not a violation in the union contract so the government must enter a grievance procedure with the union to require employees pay income taxes. Otherwise they can keep their bonuses for their good work. Now to news about the environment: Having tracked cows for years, the EPA has concluded methane is a greenhouse gas that pollutes the environment, and that cow flatulence is a major source of methane. In late March the EPA has proposed cutting methane by 25% by 2020, no doubt laying the groundwork for a new federal law requiring cows to conduct themselves in a more ladylike manner. After all, the human race depends on it. Flip the page again to state and local news: 26 states have found a win-win solution to the growing cost of paying for their prison population while promoting government health insurance. First, prisoners are enrolled in Medicaid so their costs are transferred to the Feds. Then when prisoners are released they will be automatically enrolled to a healthcare plan at taxpayer cost. Voila! Fewer uninsured people so it’s a “two-fer”one winner. And finally, on to the last page of the paper: The Cato Institute released its report entitled “The Work versus Welfare Tradeoff,” which concluded that in 35 states welfare paid more than the minimum wage, and in some places like Hawaii, welfare paid over $60,000 per year! Yet, The New York Times bemoans the fact that the poor and middle class are falling behind the rest of the world in per capita revenue. Clearly the solution to poverty is to raise the minimum wage to the level of welfare. Oh, well, I’ll just throw today’s paper in the trash, and hope tomorrow we’ll see stories of the government’s successes. • In Need of Trustworthy News Outlets By Cristian Vasquez This week there has been a feud going on between two cable-television stars. Anchor of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show Jon Stewart and Fox News anchor Sean Hannity have been in the middle of an entertaining back-and-forth that was triggered by comments made by Stewart. Naturally, Hannity responded and now we have an entertaining exchange between one of the loudest conservative voices on television and one of the funniest late-night comedians on TV. As funny as it is to see Stewart and his team of writers tear Hannity apart one clip at a time, it is a reminder that the biggest sources of news for Americans are beyond inefficient. In honor of full transparency, I will admit that I am not a fan of Fox News. They are irresponsible in using fear to reinforce conservative principals with their viewers, with absolute disregard for honesty. Also, I do enjoy The Daily Show because it makes fun of the absurd flaws in the media, among conservatives and liberals, and anything pop culture related. Yet, this exchange highlights what a short attention span we have as a society and the desperate need for real fair and balanced news. Considering MSNBC, Fox News, or even CNN, as unbiased, fair, or balanced news sources is a horrible mistake. The truth is that when a 30-minute news satire can accurately ridicule and highlight the hypocrisy and inefficiency in our major news outlets, then we have a huge problem. In this world of the 24-hour news cycle, a half-an-hour comedy show is infinitely better at sorting out the lies and propaganda packaged by these news outlets. However, because Stewart and his staff of writers are in it for the comedy and entertainment value of things, they are not the answer to this lack of efficient information. The Daily Show’s writers compile some great investigative pieces that are informative and worth the 30-minute investment each night, four times a week, 40 weeks out of the year. Still, the show airs on a network that is home to comedian Daniel Tosh and his collection of internet videos featuring people falling off roofs, getting hit by cars or anything resembling a typical frat party on a Saturday night. So we have to take their programming for what it is: entertainment. The frustrating thing is that the biggest news outlets that exist on cable television are a failure. They fail to simply provide the news and instead serve to promote liberal or conservative agendas. MSNBC is to the liberals what Fox News is to conservatives: a source of information meant to reaffirm their beliefs and biases. So instead of giving us quality news coverage, productive analysis of events, or constructive criticism of any sort, these news agencies provide all of the material needed for The Daily Show to succeed. I am sure the Hannity/Stewart feud will eventually settle down; each side will believe they won the feud but Americans will continue to lack a dependable news source. •
Lawndale 05_01_14
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