TORRANCE TRIBUNE November 3, 2016 Page 5 No Kobe, No Problem By Adam Serrao For the first time in 20 years the Los Angeles Lakers took the court without Kobe Bryant on their Opening Day roster. It was a peculiar sight to behold. Jack Nicholson was there, looking on from his normal seat. Denzel Washington was wearing his normal sweat suit and hat, ready to take in the game. The Staples Center was packed to the rafters with Lakers fans, ready to root their team on to victory. Yet, still, no Kobe. Despite the five-time NBA champion not being in the house and an obvious lack of superstar power emanating from center court, Opening Day 2016 was still a success for the Lakers. The young pups on the team were finally able to spread their wings and play the game that they wanted to play. The result? A 120-114 victory over the Houston Rockets. Last year, it took the Los Angeles Lakers five games to finally get their first win of the season when they beat the Brooklyn Nets by six points on Nov. 6. This year, the Lakers got their first win of the season in their very first game, almost assuring their fan-base that they will surpass last year’s franchise worst final record of 17 wins and 65 losses. “A big part of what we are trying to do here is develop this identity, this culture,” Lakers firstyear head coach Luke Walton explained. “We keep using [that] word and learning how to win games is part of figuring out who we are and it’s a skill at this level.” Walton, the NBA’s youngest head coach at the age of 36, experienced success last season while filling in for Steve Kerr as interim head coach with the Golden State Warriors. Walton posted a 36-4 record through 40 total games, but the young coach knows that he has an entirely different beast ahead of him with a Lakers team that hasn’t had success in years. While this year’s Lakers certainly don’t figure to be a championship team by any means, the young core does figure to be able to electrify the Staples Center crowd. On opening night alone, Jordan Clarkson recorded 25 points off of the bench while D’Angelo Russell contributed 20. The performances by those two and the rest of the team gave fans a glimpse into what they can expect the future of this team to be. “It’s not like we’re rebuilding from the first step,” Walton explained. “[The Lakers have] put in some pain already.” Three consecutive NBA Draft Lottery picks are evidence of that pain as an extremely young L.A. squad looks to mature quickly in order to begin competing for a playoff spot once again. This year may just be the year that the maturation takes place. While one win doesn’t speak too loudly in the grand scheme of an 82 game season, it is certainly an encouraging sign. A team full of young players can stick together, play together, and fight together against an opponent featuring one of the NBA’s best players in James Harden. “Tonight is a baby step,” Walton continued. “It’s just one game. But it’s a step in the right direction of what we are trying to do.” Julius Randle, another one of the Lakers young studs, echoed Walton’s feelings. “It’s just one game,” he said. “It’s not the dang Super Bowl.” It may just be one game, but after only winning 17 of them last year, starting the regular season out with a victory becomes a rather enormous accomplishment. When Kobe Bryant is in the game, he obviously dominates the ball and decides what he’s going to do with it. Now, without Kobe, it is evident that these new-look Lakers play selflessly and have no problem distributing the ball around the court. While it may just be one game and not the Super Bowl, like Randle explained, one win has the ability to give fans and players hope. Hope that a team as young as the Lakers can, indeed, blossom into a contender in the West. Hope that even without Bryant, Los Angeles is capable of gathering wins. This season is clearly one of rebuilding for Los Angeles. But one win can maybe make the rebuilding era something that is fun and entertaining to watch, in stark contrast to the wreck that was last season. The post-Kobe Bryant era has officially begun and the Lakers started it off the right way with a win. The team has officially turned the page on the next chapter in the history of the franchise and it should be entitled, “Rebuilding”. Though that word often comes along with negative feelings, this year’s Lakers team may have what it takes to compete on a nightly basis, which is much more than we could have said for the team last year. Inspired basketball is back in Los Angeles and now, with these Lakers, the game may actually be fun to watch again. • Saxons Separate From Tartars in Pioneer League By Adam Serrao There’s nothing like football in the fall. Teams fighting for playoff positioning in inter-division battle under the Friday night lights tend to bring out the competitive edge in all of us. The feelings were no different this past Friday night when the Torrance Tartars traveled to North High to take on their cross-town rivals, the Saxons. Despite a season mostly full of turmoil, Torrance fought hard against North High. Ultimately, Saxons starting quarterback Glenn Searcy proved to be the difference as North notched a nail-biting 28-21 victory. Searcy was heavily involved in the game from start to finish and continued to challenge opposing head coach Rock Hollis and his Tartars to stop him. Early on in the first quarter, Hollis and company proved to have no answer. Searcy got the scoring started on the night with a short-yardage rush into the end zone for a 7-0 North High lead. Searcy then abandoned the rushing game and decided to take it to the air when he launched a 40-yard pass to his wide receiver, Sebastian Mataele, which resulted in another touchdown. Just like that, the Saxons were up by two touchdowns and looking to run away with the game. Torrance never gave up. The team, led by starting quarterback Ryan Carroll, continuously capitalized off of Saxons miscues. The trend began with a fumble recovery that led to a Carroll touchdown cut into North’s lead just before halftime at 14-7. “We could have done a lot better,” Searcy explained of his team’s performance. “We should have been able to put a lot more points on the board.” Searcy and the Saxons came out of halftime and did put more points on the board, starting with a 60-yard touchdown pass from the quarterback to receiver, Beau Maglinti. Determined to strike again, North head coach Todd Croce called for an onside kick that actually worked. The result? Another touchdown pass from the quarterback, this time to Malik Welch, making the score 28-14, basically putting things out of reach for the Tartars. Despite the victory, the Saxons came away from the game with areas for obvious improvement. The team was flagged for 12 penalties, four of which, to Searcy’s point, would have been touchdowns to put more points on the board. “You think you’re doing well and next thing you know, it’s third and forever,” Croce said. Torrance, on the other hand, showed grit by staying in the game, but still needs to find ways to pull out the victory in the end. “We’ve had a long season,” coach Hollis said. “Lots of problems, lots of injuries. We’ve just needed to finish.” Tackle Tony Dacosta finished as he plunged into the end zone in the fourth quarter to account for the Tartars third touchdown of the night to pull his team to within seven points of North. Mistakes hurt the Tartars too, though, as a touchdown to even the score from Carroll to Eric Suarez was called back with six minutes left due to a penalty. Ultimately, it was too little, too late for Torrance as the game finished at 28-21 in favor of the Saxons. Searcy was the standout player on the night accounting for every one of the Saxons touchdown. The quarterback threw for 248 yards and three touchdowns while also rushing for a fourth touchdown. Carroll, on the other hand, passed for 239 yards and a touchdown while also rushing for a second touchdown for the Tartars. Torrance (1-8, 1-3) will look to finish the season off with a victory as they take on the second place West High Warriors (6-3, 3-1) in a rivalry game. North will look to stay in playoff contention as they take on South. Both the Saxons (5-4, 2-2) and the Spartans (4-5, 2-2) are currently tied for third place in the Pioneer League standings. West High In a shocking turn of events, the West High Warriors lost their first game of league play last Friday night when they traveled to Leuzinger to take on the Olympians in a game that would decide first place in the Pioneer League standings. The Leuzinger defense stepped up in the second half, holding the Warriors scoreless for the final two quarters of play. The 25-10 final score not only captured a win for the Olympians, but most likely captured the Pioneer League title, as well. The Warriors started the scoring off early and looked to be in control of the game when running back EJ Hatter plunged into the end zone with four minutes to go in the first quarter to give West a 7-0 lead. Leuzinger responded with 80 and 88-yard rushing touchdowns, all before the first quarter was over, to take a 12-7 advantage. A field goal to start the second quarter brought West to within two points, but Leuzinger’s defense would buckle down. From that point on, the Warriors remained scoreless in the game. Two more touchdowns from Leuzinger in the second and fourth quarters proved to be the difference as the Olympians took control of the Pioneer League in a matchup for first place with a 25-10 victory over the Warriors. With one game left in the regular season, West (6-3, 3-1) will travel to Torrance (1-8, 1-3) looking for a win and some help from the winless Centennial Apaches (0-9, 0-4). First place Leuzinger (7-2, 4-0) will close their season out at home vs. Centennial. South High The South High Spartans stayed in contention for both third place and a playoff spot with their 37-20 win over Centennial last Friday night at home. A winless Centennial team was never a real threat to South on the night. In what has been an up and down season for first year head coach Matt Mishler, he now finds himself and his team in position to make a postseason run. The one game remaining on the schedule for Mishler and his Spartans is a matchup with the North High Saxons at South High. Currently, South and North are deadlocked in a tie for third place in the Pioneer League standings. What a better way to end the regular season than with a matchup between two cross-town, division rivals in what will be a winner-take-all battle for third place in the league? • Up and Adam
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