Statmeister on LHS Winter Sports; Tsunami; YFL

Braves Lose Grip on Bearcats

By Mike "The Statmeister" Loney

The winter sports season for LHS began Monday night before a small but enthusiastic crowd at Paisola Pavilion as the Brave wrestlers hosted the Paso Robles Bearcats in a non-league dual meet.

Unfortunately for the home team, they made several "rookie" mistakes resulting in the match slipping away. The final score, a lop-sided 52-21, did not reflect the close start to the match or the intensity of the Lompoc effort against a very good Paso squad.

After eight matches, Paso had a narrow 22-15 lead. And although they managed to stretch it to 28-15 with a pin, it seemed like Lompoc was coming back, when they suffered a stunning defeat at 130 lbs and the Bearcats never looked back. Head coach Patrick "Pat" Corbett, while noting that Paso Robles is traditionally very good and that the Braves were thin on numbers, summed up the evening by saying "We're young , inexperienced, and we made a lot of mistakes."

The evening started off with a perfunctory JV contest in which only three matches were held due to the shortage of available grapplers for Lompoc. The Braves will be sending a team to the Santa Maria Novice Tournament this weekend and any varsity or JV action disqualifies wrestlers from that tournament. The varsity will be in action at the Nipomo Tournament.

Here's how the varsity matches went: 160 lb: Lompoc's Adolpho Robles zipped out to a 9-4 lead in the 1st period, and then pinned Dylan Godwin with 1:28 gone in the 2nd.

171 lb: Double forfeit - neither team fielded a competitor.

189 lb: Lompoc's Favi Vargas was pinned by Dylan Sells at 1:14 of the first period.

215 lb: Pete Hernandez of Lompoc received a forfeit.

275 lb: The Braves’ Francisco Garcia gave up 35 lbs and a pin to Juslin Machaffrey, 1:09 into the first period. After the match Lompoc received a one point match score reduction penalty. 103 lb: 59 seconds into the match Rory Slikker got caught and pinned by Paso's Jovani Salazar.

112 lb: With PR on a roll Ed Pelkey tried to be the stopper. But he lost a three round war with Ryan Miller on a 7-5 decision, putting the Bearcats up 22-12.

119 lb: Kyle Pickles was able to cut the lead to 22-15 with a dominating performance over Coleman Stout, winning 7-1.

125 lb: The crowd was prepared for another all out war, but PR's Anthony Montgomery performed a truly superb mid-air reversal while being taken down, and was able to get a quick pin on Marcel Blow 1:27 into the first period. PR up 28-15.

130 lb: Joel Robles (Lompoc) was able to get a quick 4-1 lead in the 1st, which he stretched to a comfy 12-2 in the 2nd period. At the start of the 3rd, PR's Anthony Rivera had the choice of position and chose to be on top - much to his coach's very vocal displeasure. [Top puts one wrestler on top of the other allowing for easier control, but making it harder to score points quickly. Frequently the man on the bottom scores instead by 'escaping' that control for a point. Coach Montero had instructed him to take neutral position so that he would have the opportunity for higher-scoring takedowns.] In any event, a highly motivated Rivera managed to catch Robles in a mistake and get the pin only 19 seconds into the last period. This put PR up 34-15 and they cruised through the stunned Braves the rest of the night.

135 lb: Tyler Townsend (L) pinned by Brandon Ziltz (1:12 left 1st) 140 lb: Andrew Smith (L) pinned by Nick Holmes (1:33 left 1st) 145 lb: Forfeit to Eric Mrraz (PR) 152 lb: Masson Blow (L) managed to restore some Lompoc pride by pinning Eli Mina at 1:25 of the first period.

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In JV action Virgil Cortez (L) was pinned by Colby Cox in the 3rd at 112, and Steve Galvan (Cesar Delgado) & Dustin Green (Daniel Kock) were both pinned in the first period at 171 & 189 respectively. Paul Vasquez (103) received a forfeit for the Braves.

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Mixed Results in Soccer and Hoops
In the season openers for the 'dribbling' sports at LHS the results were highly varied. Boys’ Basketball opened on the road at Arroyo Grande, while the girls hosted the Eagles at Paisola Pavilion. In soccer, the boys hosted Righetti at Huyck. The girls, scheduled to play at Righetti, were grounded by a lack of available transportation and instead will play on Wednesday.

SOCCER--- The boys varsity soccer team won 1-0 on a goal by Jesus Aguiano. It was a tight game that they had mostly controlled, but had a hard time putting away. Although both teams had a number of scoring opportunities, many of Righetti's were foiled by good defense , but Lompoc had several shots hit the crossbar, uprights, etc. Coach Phil Galfano had particular praise for his defense (goalie Roberto De Luna and backs Diego Torres, Jairo Magana, Luis Castaneda, and Rudy Bueno), he also remarked that Righetti didn't seem able to match the Braves physical style of play.

While the JV team lost 2-0, Coach Omar Pimentel said that Pedro Hernandez who stepped in to replace the regular goalie played very well. He also was impressed with the effort level of the entire team. He played a lot of kids off the bench to evaluate various combinations in game situations, but that there had been no drop off in terms of effort.

BASKETBALL-- Basketball was not kind to the Braves Tuesday night. The boys varsity team was downed by four (45-41), and the freshmen were reputedly beaten by an unconfirmed score of 70-38 [Yikes! -hope its wrong]. Only the JV’s were able to squeak out a narrow 50- 45 win.

The girls’ side was even more frustrating. The frosh lost 66-35 and the JV lost 64-29. Coach Nic Jansen, while impressed with the Eagles’ size, speed , and shooting prowess, said the key was that, We didn't handle their pressure very well." He added, "We just need to improve". He did find one very bright silver lining however in the play of freshman Kaylin Barnes who had 21 points (or 25 points depending on which scorebook you read) for the frosh team.

The apex of uuuuggghhhh though was achieved by the girls varsity which played 46 minutes of smart, tough, hard-nosed ball - unfortunately the game lasted 48 minutes. After two quarters of see-saw action the Lady Braves managed to take a well-earned one point (25-24) lead into the locker room at half-time, largely due to the play of Jozza Ray. In the third, Lompoc pushed the lead to 40-34 with Denee Lane hitting several 3-pointers. But AG hit a bucket just before the buzzer to cut the score to 40-36 at the end of the period. Most of the fourth session was a back and forth exercise in intense defense. Numerous held balls, blocks, missed shots, steals, etc. meant that with 2:33 left the score was 43-38 in Lompoc's favor.

The Braves then began to falter and by 1:38 remaining the score was 43-42. The Eagles’ backcourt combination of Carly Ikeda (the coach's daughter) and Sara Caywood then took over the game. Ikeda, who had missed much of the third quarter with foul trouble, made several steals and Caywood drilled free throws (5-6 in the 4th) - including two at the 1:08 mark to give AG the 44-43 lead. In the last 2-3 minutes of the game the Braves had approximately half a dozen turnovers, 7-8 consecutive offensive trips that came up empty, and no points. Result: final 49-43 AG (AAAAGGGG) after being outscored in the fourth quarter 13-3.

THE REST OF THE WEEK @ LHS
Wednesday -girls soccer (GSC) team at Righetti -girls water polo (GWP) team hosts Righetti at the LAC

Thursday -girls basketball (GBB) varsity hosts Lompoc TRNY[to sat] & frosh @ Cabrillo TRNY [to sat] -boys basketball (BBB) varsity @ SLO TRNY [to sat] & frosh @ Righetti TRNY [to sat] -soccer vs. Pioneer Valley [boys away & girls home] -GWP varsity @ Mistletoe (Newbury Park) TRNY [to sat]

Friday - ==>Tournaments above continue <=== -boys soccer (BSC) @ Cat/Dog (PR/Atas) TRNY [to sat] -wrestling: varsity @ Nipomo TRNY [to sat] & others @ Santa Maria Novice TRNY [to sat]

Saturday -===>Tournaments above continue <=== -GWP frosh/soph @ Cabrillo f/s TRNY

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Tsunami Gobble Up Awards

The Tsunami Swim Club contingent at the SLO Gobbler Classic [16-18 November 2007] swim meet spent their time winning a bunch of races. The relatively small group (8 girls, 5 boys) won 12 races and placed in nine others at the competition which featured hundreds of swimmers from 6 to 22 years old.

Races at the event were held by gender in various age classes with an open class for the longer distances. Age class races are 'seeded' by previous times into three divisions - Blue (fastest), Red, & White.

The star of the meet for Lompoc was 12 year old Poala Hernandez. Competing in the 11-12 year old Girls class, she won all 8 Blue division races she swam while also beating her qualifying marks (some by incredible margins) in every single race. Her time reductions by race were: 50 yd Free [0.13 sec], 100 yd Free [0.69], 200 yd Free [4.04], 50 yd Back [3.24 in a 30 sec race], 100 yd Back [0.36], 50 yd Bfly [5.04 ], 100 yd Bfly [1.76], and 100 yd IM [5.70]. Her time in the 50 yd Butterfly (28.77, a 15% reduction from 33.81) was the 13th fastest swum by a 12 yo girl in California (243rd in the US) this year, and her 1:07.38 IM the 36th fastest this year.

Erin Gracyk (age 8) won three races (1 blue, 2 red), Erica Gracyk (9) won 1 white div race and swam well in 6 others, finishing 4th-9th in races with between 16 and 31 swimmers. Tiffany Hubbard (12) had five 2nds (all behind Hernandez), and an 3rd, 4th, & 5th in her 8 Blue Div. races.

Top 3 finishes were recorded by Abigail Carpenter [11] (3rd, White div) and Ryan Dang [8] (2nd & 3rd, White div), while Gavin Larson [16] swam in 5 Blue division & 2 Open division races. Other competitors were Rebecca Riley [11]- top 10 finishes in all 5 races, Emily Gracyk [11], Brittany Beidleman [11], Blake Espinosa [11], and Alex Hamner [11]. Congratulations to all !!

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YFL FINAL WRAP

Senior Level [13 teams/ 2 div]

Lompoc Braves 4-3 2nd-Div A 6th seed 1-1 lost SF to champs

VV Conquistadors 5-3 4th-Div B 5th seed 0-1 lost QF to 4 seed

Intermediate Level [25 teams/ 4 divisions]

VV Conquistadors 6-2 1st-Div B 3rd seed 0-1 BYE,lost QF - 6 seed

Lompoc Titans 3-5 5th-Div C None

Lompoc Scorpions 6-1 2nd-Div D 2nd seed 3-0 BYE,WON CHAMP

Junior Level [27 teams/ 4 Divisions]

Lompoc Panthers 5-3 3rd-B Div 8th seed 0-1 lost 1RD to 9 seed

Lompoc Pistons 8-0 1st-C Div 3nd?seed 1-1 BYE,lost SF-?10 sd

VV Conqs 5-3 3rd-C Div 11th?seed 1-1 lost QF to Pistons

VV Cabrillo 6-0 1st-D Div 2nd?seed 0-1 BYE,lost QF-?10 sd

Bantam Level [20 teams/ 4 Divisions]

VV Conqs 6-1 1st-B Div 3rd seed 1-1 BYE,lost SF to ? 2 sd

Lompoc Rebels 2-6 4th-B Div None

Lompoc Packers 8-0 1st-D Div 1st seed 0-1 BYE,lost QF to ?8 sd

VV Conquistadors 5-3 2nd-D Div 12th seed 0-1 lost 1RD- ?5th seed