Westlake

It?s a good start for the La Cañada freshman basketball team. La Cañada finished third at the recent Burbank Freshman Basketball Tourney this past week. The Spartans defeated Burbank, 53-14, and Westlake, 46-33, before falling to Harvard-Westlake. The Spartans found redemption though, defeating Notre Dame, 51-40, to take third place. ?I?m extremely proud of my guys,? said La Cañada Coach R.T. Van Valer. ?We played four games in four days before the tournament, so they were tired, but we battled every minute and the hard work paid off. From one to 16, these guys are all talented.

Our ‘Force of Nature’ has left us. Dorothy Louise (nee Ames & Woods) Randall died peacefully last week at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla. Dottie, as she was known to all, was preceded in death by her husband of 47 years, Jack E. Randall, and is survived by her four children, seven grandchildren, and is mourned by numerous in-laws, step-grandchildren, cousins, and friends at home and abroad. Dottie was born a Christmas Eve baby in Long Beach in 1930. A willful and lively single child of Lillian and Homer Ames, she was later adopted by her dad, Leland Woods.

Aaron Berglund and Andrew Yu combined for seven solid innings on the mound and were instrumental in adding two insurance runs on offense in the final frame as the St. Francis boys? baseball team defeated Harvard-Westlake, 7-4, in the Mission League opener on Tuesday at Franklin Field. Despite stranding eight runners on base and committing two key errors early on, the Knights (5-1 overall, 1-0 in league) relied upon timely scoring and solid late game pitching to prevent the Wolverines (1-4-1, 0-1)

"I don't even know how to explain it," said senior defensive specialist Tina Orlandini of Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy's varsity volleyball team, after her team's 3-0 loss to Harvard-Westlake last Thursday. The Wolverines, who are currently tied for first with Sacred Heart in the Mission League standings with 7-1 records, played host to the Tologs, but the visitor's stay was cut short with a three-game upset, 25-19, 25-11 and 25-13. Disappointment and frustration marked the faces of the Sacred Heart players, who had previously defeated Harvard-Westlake, their toughest competitor, 3-1when they last met on Oct. 10. With the regular season quickly coming to an end, it was a significant loss for Sacred Heart, whose defense did not appear to have its usual cohesiveness, a token ingredient necessary to beat a team like Harvard-Westlake.

Spartan Head Coach Rich Wheeler told his La Cañada squad, following their 35-0 loss to Harvard-Westlake last Friday night, what the team was in for the rest of the year. ?This game means absolutely nothing. You played a tough pre-season, and now the real season begins next week against San Marino,? Wheeler said. ?You have no reason to feel ashamed. If you do, you should not be playing on this team. Wheeler continued that this has been the toughest preseason he had encountered in his 11 years of coaching at La Cañada High.

When teams play in the preseason, the games test what each team is capable of doing. In the case of Head Coach Tamar Hill and the La Cañada varsity girls? basketball squad Tuesday evening at Harvard-Westlake, it was a challenge going up against a team who had won five of their last seven league championships. Hill and her team could not rebound from a rather shaky start of the contest and dropped a 49-37 loss to the Wolverines. Overall, the Spartans now post a 3-2 record, and Hill felt that the team has to play one game to beat their opponents, and not a Jekyll-and-Hyde, on-again-off-again seesaw game.

North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake shut out the visiting Flintridge Sacred Heart varsity soccer team, 2-0, in the Mission League finale last Friday. The Wolverines won their fourth consecutive league title while the Tologs, who are now 16-4-4 overall and finished 4-2-4 in league, came in second. However, Sacred Heart will still be going to the CIF playoffs this Saturday, something that it hasn't done before. The Tologs will travel to Los Alamitos, which took second place in the Sunset League, this Saturday for a CIF Southern Section Division I first round lower bracket match.

The St. Francis varsity golf team defeated host North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake, 199-203, in Mission League action on March 21 at Lakeside Country Club. The Golden Knights traveled to the Wilshire Country Club to play Los Angeles Loyola on Tuesday, but no results were available at press time. St. Francis will visit Oakmont Country Club next Monday to battle Crescenta Valley in a nonleague match at 2:45 p.m., will travel to Encino Crespi next Wednesday for a 2:30 p.m. league match and will travel to Porter Valley Golf Course to play Mission Hills Alemany in a 3 p.m. league match.

Rich Wheeler, head varsity football coach at La Cañada High, said at the beginning of the season that this year's schedule of opponents was the toughest he's ever seen in his nearly 10 years at the helm of the Spartans. Well, the season is half over and he has another observation to add to the first one. Because of injuries and lack of experience at the junior varsity level, he now is down to 28 players able to suit up for the varsity, the fewest he has ever had since coming to La Cañada in 1996.

The members of the St. Francis High football team more than held their own during the nonleague portion of their scheduling, going 5-0 and limiting opponents to 6.8 points per game. Looking to replicate that in the Mission League might be a tall order, though the Golden Knights appear to be up to the challenge. St. Francis will get its first look at a league opponent when it meets visiting Harvard-Westlake in a league opener at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Friedman Field. The Golden Knights are ranked No. 4 in the latest CIF Southern Section Western Division poll and one of four league teams earning a top-10 ranking.

NORTH HOLLYWOOD — With a victory needed to clinch an automatic playoff berth, the St. Francis High football team left nothing to chance and wasted no time in determining its own fate. On the strength of a 24-point first half and scoring on its first six drives overall, the Golden Knights trumped host Harvard-Westlake, 34-14, Friday night in both team's Mission League finale. "It couldn't have come at a better time," said St. Francis Coach Jim Bonds of his team's performance, which put the Golden Knights at 6-4 and 3-2 in league and clinched a postseason berth that will be unveiled with Sunday's CIF Southern Section Western Division pairings.

The La Cañada High boys' water polo team dug itself a hole it couldn't swim out of in its first home match of the season Tuesday against visiting Harvard-Westlake at Pasadena City College. The Spartans surrendered four unanswered goals in the first five minutes of the match. They ended up making it a close contest, but couldn't win, as they fell, 12-10, in their first big test of the season. The Spartans went on to score four goals in the last two minutes of the first period, but were unable to close the deficit as the Wolverines answered with four goals of their own. "I wasn't too happy with our execution in the first period," Spartans Coach German Lopez said.

It?s a good start for the La Cañada freshman basketball team. La Cañada finished third at the recent Burbank Freshman Basketball Tourney this past week. The Spartans defeated Burbank, 53-14, and Westlake, 46-33, before falling to Harvard-Westlake. The Spartans found redemption though, defeating Notre Dame, 51-40, to take third place. ?I?m extremely proud of my guys,? said La Cañada Coach R.T. Van Valer. ?We played four games in four days before the tournament, so they were tired, but we battled every minute and the hard work paid off. From one to 16, these guys are all talented.

Aaron Berglund and Andrew Yu combined for seven solid innings on the mound and were instrumental in adding two insurance runs on offense in the final frame as the St. Francis boys? baseball team defeated Harvard-Westlake, 7-4, in the Mission League opener on Tuesday at Franklin Field. Despite stranding eight runners on base and committing two key errors early on, the Knights (5-1 overall, 1-0 in league) relied upon timely scoring and solid late game pitching to prevent the Wolverines (1-4-1, 0-1)

When teams play in the preseason, the games test what each team is capable of doing. In the case of Head Coach Tamar Hill and the La Cañada varsity girls? basketball squad Tuesday evening at Harvard-Westlake, it was a challenge going up against a team who had won five of their last seven league championships. Hill and her team could not rebound from a rather shaky start of the contest and dropped a 49-37 loss to the Wolverines. Overall, the Spartans now post a 3-2 record, and Hill felt that the team has to play one game to beat their opponents, and not a Jekyll-and-Hyde, on-again-off-again seesaw game.

?Third-time?s-the-charm? was the theme for Flintridge Sacred-Heart Academy coming into the CIF Southern Division IA volleyball championship on Nov. 17 at Cypress College. Instead, the Tologs? season came to an end just days after upsetting top-ranked Santa Barbara. Sacred Heart Head Coach Shelli Orlandini said her girls were underdogs all season. The only time they played like one was against Mission League rival the Harvard-Westlake Wolverines, who beat the Tologs in four games in the title match, 24-26, 25-7, 25-21, 25-21, for the program?

So this is what it feels like to go to a championship game. That?s what the girls at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy are thinking, after a thrilling playoff run last week that included a case of déjà vu and a shot at redemption. For redemtion, the team needs to beat Harvard-Westlake at least once this season; they will have their last chance to do so on Saturday, when the two powerhouses meet in the CIF Southern Section I-A Finals at Cypress College. Yet to get to that big game, the Tologs had to redeem themselves Tuesday night against Santa Barbara, who beat them last year in the same semifinal game.

Spartan Head Coach Rich Wheeler told his La Cañada squad, following their 35-0 loss to Harvard-Westlake last Friday night, what the team was in for the rest of the year. ?This game means absolutely nothing. You played a tough pre-season, and now the real season begins next week against San Marino,? Wheeler said. ?You have no reason to feel ashamed. If you do, you should not be playing on this team. Wheeler continued that this has been the toughest preseason he had encountered in his 11 years of coaching at La Cañada High.

"I don't even know how to explain it," said senior defensive specialist Tina Orlandini of Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy's varsity volleyball team, after her team's 3-0 loss to Harvard-Westlake last Thursday. The Wolverines, who are currently tied for first with Sacred Heart in the Mission League standings with 7-1 records, played host to the Tologs, but the visitor's stay was cut short with a three-game upset, 25-19, 25-11 and 25-13. Disappointment and frustration marked the faces of the Sacred Heart players, who had previously defeated Harvard-Westlake, their toughest competitor, 3-1when they last met on Oct. 10. With the regular season quickly coming to an end, it was a significant loss for Sacred Heart, whose defense did not appear to have its usual cohesiveness, a token ingredient necessary to beat a team like Harvard-Westlake.