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Time To Step Up.Larry Anderson and the rest of the 49ers took on Kansas Tuesday. Page 6B

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B49ers Mature With Competition Page 6B

State Volleyball Season Ends Page 9B

LBCC Women Start Strong Page 10B

Check Out On The Web Page 11B

Athletes Of The Week Page 12B

By The Books Page 12B

On The Water Page 5B

Sports Calendar Page 11B

F I N D T H E B E S T V I D E O S , C O L U M N S , G A M E G A L L E R I E S A N D M O R E AT

GAZETTESSPORTS.COM

By Ryan ZumMallenSTAFF WRITER

T.J. Robinson can vividly remember back to when he was just 2 years old, a tod-dler running around in a pair of red Ree-boks, refusing to stop shooting baskets at the hoop at his uncle’s home during family cookouts. “From then on, that was all I wanted to do,” he explained from the seats of an emptied out Walter Pyramid after a recent 79-43 win over BYU-Hawaii. It would be diffi cult for anyone familiar with Robinson’s game to picture this scene. First of all, red Reeboks? Second, it’s hard

to imagine the 6’8” power forward as a child. Robinson has a strong, chiseled face that emits little emotion on the court and speaks matter-of-factly about his game — “I just do what I do” — off of it. Although his laugh is quick and infectious, and he can hardly speak without bursting into an ear-to-ear smile, you would be forgiven for guessing that Robinson has seen a lot more than his 22 years. But that just plays into his style on the court. The mantra following Robinson since his high school days is that he has an “old man game.” What people mean to say is that he works hard, but quietly, not

with overwhelming athleticism — though he certainly can throw it down — but with intelligence and positioning. “My mom and dad were always on me to be the best player you can be and the best person you can be, and don’t show off,” he says. Because he doesn’t scream, pound his chest or pretend to shoot himself in the leg after a big play, it’s easy to be lulled into thinking that Robinson has had a quiet game — only to look up and see that he grabbed 13 rebounds and scored 18 points on 8-9 shooting, as he did against Boise

—Gazette photo by Jim CayerCONCENTRATION. Forward T.J. Robinson prepares to take another rebound Friday against BYU-Hawaii.

By Mike GuardabascioSPORTS EDITOR

The argument could be made that what Sa Iosia did to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference dur-ing the 2011 women’s volleyball season wasn’t fair. Or particularly nice. But in obliterating record books along with opponents, the Long Beach native and Poly grad was just doing what came natural. Because of the level of com-petition and skill in Long Beach, players often leave Moore League high schools and go on to big ca-reers in the NCAA. This is a common story, one that’s led to Long Beach being considered a recruiting hotbed in nearly every sport. But what Iosia did this season at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, in a freshman campaign that came a year after winning a CIF title with Poly in her senior year of high school, is

almost unprecedented. In a season that saw her earn her conference’s Rookie of the Year award, while also taking a spot on the All-Conference First Team, Iosia led the MEAC in kills per-set and hitting percent-age. She was named Player of the Week an astounding 10 times, out of 12 weeks the award was given. She was named the American Vol-leyball Coaching Association’s Division 1 Player of the Week on Nov. 8, the fi rst time a player from either UMES or the MEAC had ever won that award. COBRA Magazine named Iosia their East Region Player of the Year, over athletes from four-time defending national champion Penn State, among others. Iosia led her team in kills (472) and aces (49), was second on the team in digs, and third in blocks. Her hitting percentage was near-ly 10% higher against NCAA competition than it was in high

school. If you’re wondering if Iosia was really the difference in giving the Hawks their best-ever season, consider that they had never won the MEAC before — in

2011, they went undefeated, and breezed through the conference tournament to earn their fi rst-ever NCAA berth. “I would say it was a surprising

year for me,” Iosia said. “I never expected to come in starting, let alone getting National Player of the Week. I don’t know … it didn’t feel like I was working that much harder than normal, so I didn’t expect it. I think all that momentum from last year stayed with me.” She wasn’t the only one, either. Litara Keil, who starred alongside Iosia with the Jackrabbits, made an immediate impact at Loyola Marymount this year, coming in second on the team in kills, and fi rst in hitting percentage on blocks as a freshman. “I learned a lot this year,” Keil saud. “I think we’ll be better next year.” While Keil has been close to home, Iosia has been adjusting to the colder climates of Maryland. She says she was happy to have a security blanket as she did so; the second best player for the Hawks

Poly Alum Iosia Shows East Coast How It Works

—Gazette photo by Stephen DachmanSUPER STAR. Sa Iosia awaits serve Friday against UCLA in the fi rst round of the NCAA Tournament; the fi rst time Maryland East-ern Shore has ever made the tournament.

By Mike Guardabascio and JJ FiddlerSPORTS EDITORS

If you’re looking to get a head start on your winter sports knowledge, never fear, your complete A-Z guide is almost here. In next week’s sports section, you’ll fi nd a comprehensive preview of Long Beach’s high school seasons in boys’ and girls’ bas-ketball, boys’ and girls’ soccer, girls’ water polo and wrestling. Be sure to mark your calendar, you won’t want to miss this one.Boys’ Basketball It was a mixed bag for Moore League basketball teams in the opening week of the season. Usually those fi rst-week tour-naments net two or three teams playing for tournament titles. Last year, for instance, Poly and Compton both advanced to the Pacifi c Shores Tournament championship, which the Jackrabbits won. This year, those two teams showed themselves to both be elite, with the Jack-rabbits falling to Loyola, a national Top 20 team, in the Pac Shores championship, while Compton went 3-1 in the tournament with wins over Westchester, Palisades, and Mayfair. Their only loss? Also to Loyola. The Tarbabes look like a solid team this year who could feasibly beat the Jackrab-bits. Victor Robbins is fi nally cashing in on his considerable potential, with 20 points,

WinterSportsOn Deck

Robinson Model Power Forward

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Page 2B | gRUNION gaZeTTe | December 8, 2011

—Gazette photo by John FajardoCAN I HAVE THAT? Poly High School point guard Chris Croom goes for a steal during his team’s win against Fairfax High School.

18 rebounds, and 10 assists in Compton’s final tournament game. Poly beat Pacific Hills, Santa Monica and Fairfax before losing 70-65 to Loyola. The big story for them is the emergence of Ro-schon Prince and Jordan Bell as junior leaders. Prince is the only remaining starter from last year’s CIF title team, and he wowed most of the remaining recruiters who haven’t offered him a schol-arship yet in the tournament. He averaged more than 20 points and 8 rebounds per game, with a re-markable 28-point performance against the Cubs that almost single-handedly turned the tide. The close Poly loss was espe-cially impressive given that Bell, another major recruit, sat most of the game with foul trouble. Jordan, a perennial Moore League contender, went 2-2 last week in the Cerritos/Gahr Tour-nament, as transfer Kahleal Fer-guson began to make a name for himself, along with Semaj Moore.

One of the more intriguing teams this year will be Millikan, who went 1-2 to start their season. Since the Rams’ talent is so young (led by sophomore transfer Isaac Deese, who scored 25 points in his varsity debut), you can expect some up-and-down this year. The most painful loss was to Great Oak in double overtime. After leading the whole game, Millikan gave up their cushion and lost in overtime. Lakewood graduated an aw-ful lot of athleticism, but hung in there through an 0-3 start that included two close losses, to Cer-ritos and Bell. Cabrillo had a breatkthrough moment at the La Quinta Tournament, after losing their first three games by a com-bined six points. They shook off the heartbreak to beat the tourna-ment’s host by 29 points, led by Tylen Douglas’s 22 points. Wilson starts play this week.Soccer Both boys’ and girls’ soccer in Long Beach has been top heavy over the last few seasons, but af-ter quality results for just about every Moore League team in the first week of the 2011-12 cam-

paign, we could see the top of the league table a little more crowd-ed. The Millikan boys and Wilson girls have been the teams to beat recently, and the early success is proof they’ll be there again. The Bruins opened the season with a 3-0 win at West Torrance on goals by Loren DeMedeiros, Claire Oates and Sara Weismann before they opened the Aliso Cup with a 2-1 comeback win at home over St. Lucy’s on Mon-day. Down by a goal in the 65th minute, defender Deanna Empleo brought the ball up and found Weismann at the top of the box. The senior knocked it home over the goalkeeper and off the cross bar, and three minutes later she poked home a loose ball for the game-winner. The Rams opened the season by beating the defending L.A. City Section champion South East, 1-0, on a goal from Lous Ortega, who worked nice passing on the edge of the box with Luis Cervantes. They then got their second win with another 1-0 de-cision as opponent Loyola could only muster one shot on goal for

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Moore League

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December 8, 2011 | GRUNION GAZETTE | PAGE 3B

this year was senior Zoe Bowens, also a Poly grad and the older sis-ter of Zana Bowens, who was a starter with Iosia and Keil on last year’s CIF team. “She showed me a lot of the differences about the East Coast versus the West,” Iosia said of Bowens. “She’s helped me out a lot throughout the year.” Iosia and Bowens both got to knock away any lingering home-sickness they may have had last Friday, as UMES’s first NCAA Tournament berth just so hap-pened to send them to UCLA, where they faced off against the Bruins in a first-round game. “When I saw the bracket, it was shocking,” Iosia said. Ini-tially, she saw that the regional matches would be played in Lexington, she thought that was where her team would be travel-ing. “When our coach said it was at UCLA, I actually jumped.” So did Poly fans, who came pouring into UCLA’s Wooden Center to see the hometown stars. The No. 4 Bruins easily swept

the Hawks, but UMES kicked their butts proper in the stands. It’s a rare sight for a little-known team from Maryland to have more than 500 fans screaming for them across the country, but Iosia and Bowens’ family and friends, and Poly fans, came out in full throat. The fans that came to see her drowned out the polite applause from UCLA fans even as their team fell further and further be-hind. Bruins head coach Mike Sealy’s strategy showed the re-spect that Iosia has earned this year. UCLA served at her on every single point, regardless of where she was on the floor (the strategy is designed to neutralize a player by forcing them to dig a ball at the start of a play). It was just another reminder, along with the 10 Player of the Week Awards and the rest of her stack of hon-ors, that Iosia is more than just a big fish in a small pond in the MEAC. She’s a Long Beach shark in an aquarium—and she’s not likely to lose her appetite any time soon.

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Iosia

—Gazette photo by Jim CayerMembers of the Long Beach Middle School Boys’ Track and Field teams compete last Saturday during a meet hosted at Lakewood High School.

COMPETITORS BIG AND SMALL

Page 4B | gRUNION gaZeTTe | December 8, 2011

State earlier this season. It would be easy to think that Robinson has had a nice quiet career as a 49er, only to look into the record books and see that he is the school’s all-time leading rebounder and ranks in the top 10 in scoring, field goals made and free throws made. “For some reason I can always

get in the cracks and crevices and find ways to score,” he says. “It’s a little bit God-given talent and a lot of hard work.” The senior spent the offseason flipping tires, pulling ropes and undergoing other intense work-outs with a trainer back in Con-necticut. He has been honored by the Big West in all three sea-sons and became one of just six players in the country to average

a double-double in consecutive years. This season may be his best of all, as Robinson is averag-ing a career-high 11.6 boards and shooting 59.1% from the field, the best rate since his freshman year. Coming from his roots in Bridgeport, Conn., it has taken Robinson a lot of hard work to make it to this point. He grew up surrounded by basketball players: Robinson’s uncle was a domi-nant scorer at Sacred Heart — “He used to school me” — and his younger sister won two high school state championships. His mother and father have 11 broth-ers and sisters, each, so fam-ily gatherings quickly turned into hard-fought driveway battles. To-day, those tough but loving games have shaped the way he plays, unselfish with a quick release and strong defense.

But those qualities, while vir-tuous, don’t always attract the scouts’ eye. Robinson attended a prep school — where he teamed with current 49er Larry Anderson — to work on his game after high school and received attention from a few D-1 programs. But things felt different when Long Beach State assistant Rod Palm-er approached him. Palmer had come to St. Thomas More Prep to recruit Anderson, but liked what he saw in Robinson as well, and told him that he could be part of a revolution on the West Coast. There were a lot of things that brought Robinson to Long Beach — among them, the Pyramid and the fact that “I wanted to be out in the sunshine with the pretty weather and pretty girls” — but what most intrigued him was the idea of creating the next big mid-major. “That was my main goal from the very beginning: to turn this into a big-time program,” Robin-son says. In the four seasons that Rob-inson has played for Long Beach State, the 49ers have recorded wins over major programs like Temple, UCLA, Iowa and Pitts-

burgh. They have played one of the toughest schedules in the na-tion for each of the last three sea-sons and emerged with a 55.7% winning rate. This year, they will face at least five Top 25 teams and are being touted as Cinder-ella candidates for a run into the NCAA Tournament. “We’ve just got to gel, we have a lot of chemistry,” he says. “When we put it together, we can beat anybody in the country.” It’s a tight-knit group — the team spends so much time to-gether that they are not allowed to room with one another — with Robinson as the stone pillar on the court and the first to laugh off it. He wants to have the best season of his career, and give the fans the March Madness dance they have all been waiting for. “[Long Beach] is like a second home to me now,” he says. “It’s a different environment coming to the games now. I love our fans, they’ve been with us from day one. It gets your heart pounding, adrenaline flowing. You just want to play.” When he says that, smiling like a 2-year-old, you can see it in his face.

the game. Hugo Gonzalez set up Cervantes for the game winner in the second minute and Ram senior goalkeeper Steven Bar-rera earned his second shutout. Also on the boys’ side, Ca-brillo dominated Inglewood, 4-0, by outshooting the visi-tors 22-to-4 and getting goals from Jerry Gaskins, Jose Vaca, Luis Garcia and Jesus Cordova off assists from Hector Zepeda, Franklin Aguillera, Mario Marin and Vaca. Lakewood is unbeaten at 2-0 after beating Lynwood and Wilson is 0-1 but played Los Alamitos tough last week. Meanwhile on the girls’ side, Lakewood is 1-1 after losing to highly touted Edison before dominating Downey, 3-0. The biggest surprise has been the struggles of Poly (0-3) and per-formance by Jordan in the Ar-tesia Tournament, where in the third place game, the Panthers showed their claws in a 4-1 vic-tory over Bellflower. Forward Arlene Hernandez got two goals in the 11th and 60th minute, which gives her eight goals on the season. Maritessa Kay scored in the 33rd minute and Vanessa Zarate finished the scoring in the 66th minute while sophomore Elsie Gutierrez had all four as-sists and junior sweeper Jessica Torres kept the defense intact.Girls’ Water Polo Wilson’s young roster began their season the way a new head coach would want them to: by dominating a league opponent and then playing for a title. They came up short in the Benson Tournament final, but their road there (including a 16-1 over Mil-likan) was very impressive. “It’s always tough to lose in the championship game of a tournament, but the girls worked hard and did their jobs,” first-year Wilson coach Katlin Shar-rin said of her 4-2 squad. “They have learned from their mistakes and I know they will use what they have learned to move for-ward with the season.”

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Robinson

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Moore League

December 8, 2011 | GRUNION GAZETTE | PAGE 5B

By Chris Ericksen The recently reopened Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool is hosting part of the 2011 Southern Califor-nia Swimming Winter Age Group Championships this week, which will bring some of the best young swimmers to town from all over the region. Age-group swimming is com-petition for boys and girls ages 18 and younger. They swim in groupings based on age. For most events, the divisions are ages 15 through 18, 13 and 14, 11 and 12 and even a group for ages 5 to 10 years old. In some events, there is a 15-and-up bracket — boys and girls typically swim in gender-specifi c heats. This is a big meet, run by the Santa Barbara Swim Club under the auspices of Southern Cali-fornia Swimming (SCS), the re-gional authority for competitive swimming in our area. Teams from the Coastal, Metro, Orange and Pacifi c divisions will be at

the Plaza Pool. This event covers from Orange County to San Luis Obispo County. Swimmers from other divisions will race at events in Las Vegas and Palm Springs. The meet kicks off tomorrow, Friday, and runs through Sunday, Dec.11. Information on the meet can best be found at the Southern California Swimming website. www.socalswim.org. Click on the link that reads “ SBSC Winter Age Group Champs — Southern Cali-fornia” on the Upcoming Meets section, or call the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool at 570-1806.

Sailing Races Long Beach Yacht Club closes out a busy 2011 schedule this weekend with the annual Cal 20 Fun Run on Saturday, Dec. 10. This is a series of races run within Alamitos Bay among the large fl eet of Cal 20s in our area. While the Cal 20 is more at home in the somewhat more open wa-ters of the Outer Harbor, for this day they’ll race in the same area

of Alamitos Bay used more com-monly by Sabots and Lido 14s. Information on this event can best be found on the Long Beach Yacht Club website, www.lbyc.org. Find the event link on the Up-coming Races link on the Racing menu. Call LBYC at 598-9401. Seal Beach Yacht Club will run the fi nal of three races in the popular fall Sunday Sailors Series on Sunday, Dec. 11. The series has been raced among boats that compete under the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) handicap system for keelboats, but one-design keelboats like the Cal 20 also are invited and at-tend. Go to the Seal Beach Yacht Club website, www.sealbeachyc.org, and click on the Racing link on the left side of the homepage. You’ll fi nd a link entitled “Notice of Race” that lists this regatta. Or call SlBYC at 594-6337.

Rowing The Long Beach Rowing As-

sociation’s Bay Series consists of fi ve rowing races in the fall and winter months. The course, which is 5,000 meters in length, runs around Naples Island in the morning hours, when the winds are generally light, and during at time of year when the motorboat and sailboat traffi c on Alamitos Bay is light as well. The second of the series is set for this Sunday, Dec. 11. It is a

race against the clock, with good friendship but less of the head-to-head competition usually present in rowing regattas. The races start and fi nish at the Pete Archer Boathouse at the end of Marine Stadium. For informa-tion, go to the Long Beach Row-ing Association’s website, www.longbeachrowing.org. There is a link on the homepage to the event. Or call the LBRA at 438-3352.

Brian Walsh has stepped down after seven years as head coach of the St. Anthony Saints football team; he will remain with the school as athletic director. St. Anthony High School of-fi cials made the announcement Monday . “For seven years, Coach Walsh has provided young student-athletes in our community an opportunity to grow as football players and as young men of character, teaching them valu-able life lessons and that football is more than just about wins and losses,” said Mike Schabert, St. Anthony’s principal. “As St. An-thony has experienced signifi cant growth over the past few years, I am confi dent that Mr. Walsh has built a great foundation for years to come. We look forward to his continued guidance of the pro-gram as athletic director.”

Prior to Walsh taking over, the Saints had posted 15-52-2 record under four different coaches. Walsh’s record was 34-39. “I am proud of what we were able to accomplish while also providing much needed stability and continuity within this pro-gram,” Walsh said. “There is a great group of kids here who are ready to take this program to the next level.” St. Anthony will return a young but talented bunch next season, losing only fi ve seniors out of a roster of more than 50. The search for the next St. Anthony head football coach will begin in January.

Saints’ Veteran Coach Steps Down

Young Swimmers Meet At Plaza, Races End

5924 E. Naples Plaza

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Page 6B | gRUNION gaZeTTe | December 8, 2011

By JJ FiddlerSportS Editor

that was so Long Beach State men’s basketball of them. playing on the road against their third top 25 opponent in the last month, the 49ers showcased a never-say-die attitude that’s be-coming a trademark and fell just short of No. 13 Kansas, 88-80, on tuesday night at phog Allen Fieldhouse. “i don’t fault the effort, but there’s a difference between play-ing hard and well,” said Long Beach State head coach dan Monson on the phone after the

game. “We had (Kansas) uncom-fortable and we were right there, but then again, we weren’t.” Kansas jumped out to a 19-point lead in the first half only to have t.J. robinson and Long Beach State claw its way back and get within five points with three min-utes left to play, and four points with 42 seconds remaining. How-ever, the Jayhawks made eight of their last nine free throw attempts while the 49ers missed eight free throws in the second half and only made one of their final four field goal attempts. LBSU junior James Ennis put

the team on his back in the second half with 16 points (4-of-5 from three), six steals, four rebounds and two assists after robinson was the center of the offense in the first half with a team-high 19 points (16 in first half) and seven rebounds. that plus 15 steals still wasn’t enough to earn the 49ers their second major upset of the young season, and the reasons why were all too familiar. Some Long Beach State fans and journalists were asking what was wrong with this team after the stunning upset of pittsburgh was followed by three straight road losses. First, carelessness with the ball and 23 turnovers lead to an overtime loss at San diego State, 77-73. A week later at Montana, the 49ers missed four free throws in the last minutes and fell to the Grizzlies, 73-71. two days later, a slow start and lack of depth/size inside was the Long Beach State undoing at No. 6 Louisville, 79-66, even though they were within five points with less than five

minutes to play. turnovers, free throws and depth have been the bane of the Monson era over the last four seasons. However, through it all there’s been one constant — this group of 49ers will never stop fighting.

in the loss at San diego State, Long Beach State trailed by six with less than two minutes to play and forced overtime, but the lack of depth caused problems when robinson and Edis dervisevic both fouled out less than a minute

Long Beach State Plays Tough, Beats Itself

—Gazette photo by Jim CayerHE’S GOT IT. Long Beach State freshman guard Mike Caffey takes the ball into his own hands last Friday against BYU-Hawaii.

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SOLD

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NEW LISTINGPENDING

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December 8, 2011 | GRUNION GAZETTE | PAGE 7B

into the extra period. The story was the same at Kansas on Tuesday where the 49ers started the game with three turnovers on their first five pos-sessions, allowing the Jayhawks to jump out to a 16-4 lead on near flawless play from forward Thomas Robinson. The 6’9” 237-pound senior scored eight of his teams’ first 14 points, finish-ing the night with 26 points (10-of-14) and 11 rebounds. Monson ran his own Robinson, Eugene

Phelps and Dervisevic at the Kan-sas star — fronting him held Rob-inson scoreless for the first nine minutes of the second half — but when Dervisevic fouled out with three minutes left, there weren’t enough bodies to stop Robinson and his 7’0” teammate Jeff With-ey, who finished with 13 points and 13 rebounds. In the loss at Montana, senior guard Casper Ware missed two free throws with less than 90 sec-onds left with LBSU leading by one. Then after a Grizzly bucket put them up by one, Dervisevic missed two of his own from the

charity stripe, and the next Mon-tana points sealed the win. The story was the same at Kan-sas on Tuesday where the 49ers were 28-of-37 from the free throw line. More importantly, LBSU earned the bonus with more than 10 minutes left, but missed the front end on the next three trips to the charity stripe. In the loss at Louisville, the Cardinals took advantage of four LBSU turnovers in the first five minutes and took a 13-4 lead. The 49ers trailed by as many as 16 points, but they battled and used 17 points from Larry Anderson to

pull within five points. However, when the play was there to be made down the stretch, two costly turnovers quelled the upset. “We’ve got seniors making mistakes they made four years ago,” Monson said. “Taking shots they shouldn’t have taken down the stretch… We need to play for each other better because 12 assists on 80 points isn’t good enough.”

On Saturday, the 49ers will travel to No. 5 North Carolina, and Monson says, “This group has played in major arenas around American. We’ve been through the grind and if we can play to our ability, people will need to have a target on us, not vice versa… “I like this team, but we need to get better. If we do, a win on a neutral floor in March is attain-able.”

If you’ve been keeping a close eye on the Gazette Sports sec-tion, you’ve seen that two Wil-son baseball players, Chase De-Jong and Chris Betts, recently won international gold medals with USA National Teams. DeJong won just a few weeks ago in Colombia, where he was a pitcher with the 18U USA Na-tional Team, while Betts won in September in Venezuela, where he was the starting catcher for the Under-14 USA National Team. DeJong will be a senior for Wilson this spring, while Betts will see varsity field action as a freshman. If you’d like a chance to con-gratulate the athletes, both will be at the Long Beach Century Club’s Tuesday, Dec. 13 meet-ing, where they’ll tell stories and field questions about their in-ternational travels. The Century Club is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting local amateur athletics, including all the high schools and colleges. Tuesday’s meeting, will be at 6 p.m. at Legends in Belmont Shore.

Medalists To TalkAt Century Club

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Basketball

The Poly football team has produced more than a full roster’s worth of NFL alumni. In an effort to help the team’s Booster Club raise money, two of those alumni have contributed signed memora-bilia, which local sports fans are welcome to bid on. Willie McGinest, a multiple Pro Bowl selection and Super Bowl winner, has contributed an autographed football, and cur-rent Pro Bowler and Jackson-ville Jaguar Marcedes Lewis has

contributed two signed footballs and a signed Jaguars jersey, all of which are open to bid on from now until Jan. 13, when bidding will be closed and winners will be announced at the Poly Foot-ball Banquet.

Opening bid on each item is $100, and each increase must be by a minimum of $25. You can bid in one of two ways, ei-ther by emailing the booster club (lbpfboosters@gmail.com) or by calling at 234-8125.

Former Poly Stars Sign Memorabilia To Help Program

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December 8, 2011 | GRUNION GAZETTE | PAGE 9B

By Tyler HendricksonStaff Writer

Over the last 25 years, Long Beach State’s women’s volleyball program has proven their ability to reach the NCaa tournament. the task for the current genera-tion of 49ers is to prove that they are capable of advancing beyond the opening rounds. for the third straight year, Long Beach State ended their season with an opening round loss in the NCaas. the setback (for the second year in a row) came at the hands of the University of San Diego toreros, who took out the ‘Niners in four sets at the Wooden Center on the campus of UCLa. the postseason pressure is now starting to build for this storied program, which hasn’t had a team advance past the second round of the tournament since 2001. alhough the 49ers were faced with a difficult first round draw against a toreros team that was ranked slightly higher in national polls, it still represents a disap-pointing end to the 2011 cam-paign. What adds insult to injury is the fact that the ‘Niners had a great opportunity to take con-trol of the match but squandered it with untimely mistakes. af-ter taking a close first set 25-23, Long Beach appeared poised for a two-set advantage when they took a 24-22 lead in the second frame. But a 4-0 San Diego run, highlighted by a pair of unchar-acteristic overpasses from Long Beach, gave the toreros an easy

road back to a gut-wrenching 26-24 victory in set two. the squandered pair of set points would prove devastating for the 49ers as they came out flat in the third set, lacking the neces-sary intensity and focus that was key to their early success. it never felt as if Long Beach was truly in the match after that, as San Diego was firmly in control for the rest of the evening, winning sets three and four by scores of 25-19 and 25-21. there were a few pieces of his-tory made in the match, which will serve as little comfort to the 49ers but will be recorded none-theless. Haleigh Hampton set a career high with five solo blocks, setting a new school record for NCaa tournament play. Caitlin Ledoux finished her 49er career with 16 kills, which puts her in a fifth-place tie all-time at Long Beach with the great Cheryl Weaver. Ledoux along with libero Lauren Minkel are the lone senior contributors who wore the black & gold for the final time on fri-day. Long Beach will now have to suffer through another long off-season with the memory of a loss to San Diego hanging over them. they will have several months to consider what could have been done differently and what could still lie ahead for the returning players. With the number of un-lucky breaks that have befallen this team by way of serious in-juries to key players, one would

hope that the ‘Niners would be due a fair amount of luck in the coming seasons, but that’s not something they can count on. the best news for Long Beach fans is that a strong young core will return next season, led by sophomore Hampton in the mid-dle. the ‘Niners have their fresh-man setter erin Juley returning, along with freshman tyler Jack-son, who will likely assume libero duties and attempt to fill the void left by Minkel’s departure. re-placing Ledoux is a tougher task, as Long Beach will most likely experiment with multiple options at outside hitter, attempting to establish a consistent offensive weapon. Women’s Basketball following an impressive vic-tory on opening night, the 49ers have been in the midst of a long seven-game road trip that featured a pair of cross-country trips to New York. While the Long Beach show was on the road, they found it difficult to carry their momen-tum with them, going just 1-6 on

their extended vacation. the trip was bookended with games against teams from power conferences, as the ‘Niners lost big at Syracuse and Washing-ton. in between those two losses, the young 49ers played tougher against their competition. the

Beach kept things closer in the four games following the Syra-cuse loss, and earned their lone win over Columbia, 70-61. the Beach used a balanced attack to achieve success, as five different players scored in double figures,

Long Beach State: Notebook

(Continued on Page 10B)

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Page 10B | gRUNION gaZeTTe | December 8, 2011

By Tyler HendricksonStaff Writer

With the fall season now com-pletely in the books, it is officially basketball season at Long Beach City. With the season less than a month old, the men’s and wom-en’s teams have gotten off to anti-thetical starts to the year. Here’s a look at what’s going on with both squads: Men’s Basketball the men’s side has been the victim of some tough breaks in the early going and are still searching for their first win. the Vikings stand at 0-7 on the year in tournament play, including three losses by just a single point. But as we saw from this year’s Vikings football team, preseason struggles can be overcome once league play begins, so the hard-court Vikes will have until the new year to turn the tide on their season. With just two losses by more than four points, and none

greater than 13, there’s reason to believe that this team is just a few key plays away from playing win-ning basketball. Long Beach will be at imperial Valley on friday, looking for that first win, before heading to their final preseason tournament at Saddleback College on Dec, 15.Women’s Basketball this team has made a huge splash onto the Southern Califor-nia scene with an unexpectedly fantastic start to the season. after getting off to one of the best starts in school history, the Vikings suf-fered their first loss of the year in the championship game of the Chaffey College tournament, which leaves them with an 8-1 re-cord. More importantly for this team, is that they proved that they be-long in the rankings as one of the top teams in the area, by beating a pair of teams ranked top 10 in the state with wins against No. 8

Saddleback and No. 5 Chaffey. Long Beach was ranked 12th in SoCal going into the tournament, and one would naturally expect that mark to rise. With the run in the tournament, a pair of Vikings were honored with selections to the all-tournament team as both Keshonda Moore and Kaaron King received that distinction. Moore scored 49 points in the three games to lead the team in scoring, including a game-win-ning three-pointer against Chaffey with 40 seconds left as part of her 21-point performance in the big upset. She has established herself as a go-to player for Long Beach as they look to start playing the role of favorite instead of under-dog. in the championship game loss to Mt. San Jacinto, things fell back to earth a little for the Vi-kings as they allowed their oppo-nents to go on a 15-0 run to take a 28-10 first half lead. LBCC could never dig out of that hole, espe-cially with just a 22% field goal percentage on the game.

even though the Vikings tasted defeat and fell short of the tour-nament championship, they still have a whole lot to be happy with considering nobody expected them to be in this position. the home opener for this upstart squad

will be at 6 p.m. this friday night as the Vikings host east La. it has been exciting so far; now with conference play it will be seen if they can lay the ground-work for a possible run in the postseason.

LBCC: Notebook

including two players off the bench as Chantel Dooley and Jhakia McDonald each chipped in 11 points. Looking at the trip as a whole, the ‘Niners were led in scoring by redshirt freshman alex San-chez, who had 69 total points in the seven games, capped off by a 20-point outburst in the final game against Washington. San-chez was also the team’s leading rebounder with 38 on the trip. after sitting out last season and learning the 49er system, San-chez has established herself as a key component of her team’s outlook moving forward. She is a new face now to 49er fans, but she appears likely to become familiar to Long Beach State supporters over the next four seasons.

this season is about teamwork and dedication, where all players will need to contribute. in the ear-ly part of the season, Long Beach has eight players averaging five or more points per game, led by senior leader tipesa Moorer who is averaging 10.1 PPG. Moorer, who is the only senior to have ap-peared in a game for Long Beach, will have to be the floor leader for head coach Jody Wynn this sea-son, guiding this young team and helping to build a program for the future. it’s these tough road trips that will help pave the road to success for this team, and they’ll get the chance to show off what they’ve learned on thursday night as the ‘Niners (2-6) host Nevada (2-5) at 7 p.m. inside Walter Pyramid. then on Sunday it’s back out on the road for an afternoon match-up at arizona (7-1).

(Continued from Page 9B)

LB State

December 8, 2011 | GRUNION GAZETTE | PAGE 11B

By JJ FiddlerSPORTS EDITOR

It’s December, so you know the calendar is cholk full of basket-ball! While the Long Beach State women’s basketball team comes home and the men’s team hits the road, the local high school teams are all over California in different pre-season tournaments. To follow the tournament re-sults, go to GazettesSports.com, and to know everything you need for this week in 49er hoops, read on below…THURSDAYLBSU Women’s Basketball vs. Ne-vada, @ 7 p.m., Walter Pyramid The 49ers (2-6) are returning to the friendly confi nes tonight to try and break their second three-game losing streak of the season. They’re coming off an 80-46 loss at Washington on Sunday evening in which freshman Alex Sanchez scored a career-high 20 points. The visiting Wolf Pack (2-5) also are trying to break a three-game losing streak after falling to Port-land State, 80-73, on Saturday.

Nevada is led by senior guard Kate Kevorken (#21, 6’0”) who is averaging 16 points per game on 55% shooting from the fi eld and 50% from three-point range. This is really a breakout season for a guard who only started six games last season and set her career high in points against St. Mar-tin’s only to break it three games later against Butler with 23 of her team’s 69 in a two-point loss.

When the Pack tried to claw its way back into the game at Port-land State, it was Kevorken lead-ing the charge, so the 49ers may consider some version of the zone defense to keep the Thousand Oaks native in front of them. However, that will leave the middle open where Kayla Wil-liams (#34, 6’0”) rules the paint for Nevada. The three-year starter is in her fi nal season and playing

like it, leading the team with 54 rebounds (9 RPG) 10 points per game and 10 blocked shots. Ne-vada will stay in Southern Cali-fornia and play Cal State Fuller-ton this weekend, and since they already played Pacifi c (75-70 OT Loss), this will be a good measur-ing stick for Long Beach State as the Big West Conference sched-ule gets closer.LBSU Men’s Basketball, 7 p.m. @ North Carolina One of the toughest non-con-ference schedules in the nation continues this weekend as the 49ers (4-4) travel to Chapel Hill to take on the No. 6 North Caro-lina Tar Heels in their third con-test against a Top 25 team in the last two weeks. The Tar Heels (6-2) opened their season as the top team in the nation on the USS Carl Vinson in the Carrier Classic, where they beat Michigan State, 67-55, with their size advantage. After four more wins, North Car-olina tripped up at home against UNLV in a 90-80 track meet of a game, beat No. 7 Wisconsin in a nail bitter, 60-57, and then

dropped a thriller to now No. 1 ranked Kentucky, 73-72. The Tar Heels are averaging more than 80 points per game with sophomore forward Harri-son Barnes (#40, 6’8” 215 lbs), junior forward John Henson (#31, 6’11” 220 lbs) and senior 7-footer Tyler Zeller (#44, 7’0” 250 lbs) all averaging more than 14 points per game. Barnes is going to be a huge matchup problem for Long Beach State, and you could see head coach Dan Monson switch up his defensive tendencies to hopefully confuse and slow down the Tar Heel attack. Also, and more obviously, the 49ers need to keep Zeller and Henson off the boards. The two have combined for 17 rebounds per game as North Carolina has more than 40 rebounds per game — Long Beach State averages 35 a game. Look for a big game from senior T.J. Robinson, who is aver-aging a double-double this season with 13 points and 11 rebounds per game, and had a career-high 31 points at North Carolina last season.

O N T H E W E B~ If you haven’t already, go to GazettesSports.com right now to watch the extended highlight videos from the 60th Annual Pacifi c Shores Boys’ Basketball Tournament at Redondo Union High School last week. On Saturday, Poly fell to Loyola in the championship game and Compton beat Mayfair in the fi fth-place contest as both games combined to put up 289 points. You can also watch any video on our YouTube Channel under GazettesSports.~ Make sure you listen to SportsNight live at noon today, Thursday, on the KBeach Global Radio airwaves. SportsNight is the one and only sports talk show in Long Beach where we will have the latest reports from the Long Beach State men’s basketball road trip plus a mailbag full of your questions, which you can leave in our comment section, or send to fi ddler@gazettes.com.~ Don’t have a question for SportsNight, but want to make your voice heard around the LBC? The comment section on every story is a perfect place to do so. Send a good luck to your favorite team on a game pre-view, shout out a player on a game recap, or ask Mike and JJ a question about the week in Long Beach sports.

~ If you haven’t already, go to GazettesSports.com right now to watch

Page 12B | gRUNION gaZeTTe | December 8, 2011

By Mike GuardabascioSportS Editor

Welcome back to By the Books, where we break down how all the local teams are doing in polls both local and national.Boys’ Basketball the CiF polls still haven’t come out for basketball yet, but we can pretty easily predict that division 1 will be Mater dei, then Loyola, then poly. that’s how all the state/region rankings are tilting right now, and with Mater dei posting a series of blowouts to start their year, and Loyola edging poly by five in the pacific Shores tournament title game, it’s hard to imagine them coming out any other way. And to nobody’s surprise, the Jackrabbits aren’t being much punished for that loss to Loyola. the Cubs are one of the few Cali-fornia teams ranked higher than poly in the state and national polls, and the Jackrabbits stayed steady at No. 3 in the LA Times’ SoCal poll. Compton is even shown a little love by the LA Times after their pair of upset wins, ranked for the first time in this young season at No. 24. Even though the tarbabes are often overlooked in the rankings and polls, they’ve started well enough, and boast enough pros-pects, that you can expect to see the Moore League’s other elite team towards the top of the di-vision 2 polls when CiF releases them.Girls’ Basketball Some rankings are wary about the height-deficient, young Jack-rabbits squad, but they’re still ranked No. 5 in the state by ESpN, and when the CiF polls come out, they look like a top three team with Mater dei and Brea olinda — business as usual, in other words. You can also expect to see St. Anthony among the top schools in their division.

Boys’ Soccer Millikan may be the most un-noticed athletic powerhouse in Long Beach. When poly’s boys’ basketball or football team is in the nation’s top 10, you hear about it. Same with Wilson water polo or baseball. But the rams are consistently ranked as an elite program in the nation in soccer, without making the list of big-time local programs. Maybe this is the year that begins to change. After all, Mil-likan is No. 6 in the CiF division 1 poll, but all the way up at No. 10 in America on the ESpN rank-ings, where they’re considered the No. 2 team in the state as well.Girls’ Soccer No surprise, Wilson is still the big dog in Long Beach when it comes to girls’ soccer rankings. the Bruins are holding steady in the new CiF division 2 poll at No. 2, as the CiF coaches expect to see Wilson back in the title game this year.Girls’ Water Polo it’s been a relatively strong start to the season for the young Bruins, but CiF voters aren’t tak-ing notice quite yet. in the up-dated CiF poll, Wilson comes in at No. 8, right where they started the season. Furthermore, poly is now listed in the “Also receiving Votes” category, meaning that CiF voters are very intrigued by the league showdown between the two teams on thursday, Feb. 2.LBSU Basketball Long Beach State’s losses have really hurt them in the Mid-Major poll. their 4-3 record all but re-moved the possibility that they’ll ever hit top 25 status this year, unless they pull off a string of upsets, but they were at least No. 10 in the Mid-Major poll — un-til the updated one came out this week, which has them dropping three spots, down to unlucky No. 13. to add insult to injury, they’re now separated by just a razor’s edge from conference rival UC Santa Barbara, who are ranked No. 14.

Roschon Prince, Poly Basketball Prince has been named the No. 26 recruit-ing prospect of his class by ESPN, so it’s no surprise the junior has evolved into the leader of the ‘Rabbits. The only returning starter from last year’s CIF-winning Poly team, Prince av-eraged 23.5 points per game, 8.5 rebounds per game, 3 blocks per game and 2 assists per game at the Pacific Shores Tournament last week.

Alexandria Loveless, Wilson Water Polo Loveless is the senior leader on a Bruins team loaded with underclass talent this year, and her skills shone through in a big way in the season-opening Benson Tournament. In five games, Loveless averaged an eye-pop-ping 3.4 goals per game, 4 assists per game, and 4.2 steals per game. She failed to notch a hat trick in only one game, a very impressive start to the season.

Larry Anderson, LBSU Basketball The Long Beach native is the 49ers’ most athletic playmaker, and the Jordan High product led his team in scoring twice last week. Against nationally-ranked Louisville, he scored 17 points on 60% shooting, and against BYU-Hawaii at home, he dropped 16 points, 5 steals, and 4 assists. They’ll need him to keep it up this week with road games against Kansas and North Carolina.

Keshonda Moore, LBCC Basketball Moore is a Lawndale High product who is partially responsible for the Vikings’ shocking 8-0 start to the season (they finished just 5-20 last year). In the Chaffey Tournament, Moore helped boost LBCC to their second one-point win of the year, 60-59, against the home team. She hit a three with 40 seconds left to give the Vikes the lead; she averaged 16.3 points per-game and was named All-Tournament.

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