July 3, 2014 Page 5 Lennox Repeats as District, Section Champions; Move to Division By Joe Snyder Last season, a more experienced Lennox 50/70 All-Star Baseball team (ages 11-13) won the Southern California (California Division III) crown and advanced to the Western Regional championship before losing out. This year’s Lennox team is mostly young and has lesser experience but went on to pull off the District 37 championship on June 25 and the Section 4 crown last Sunday, both at Jim Thorpe Park in Hawthorne. In the brief two-day sectionals, Lennox downed District 25 champion Santa Monica 5-1 on Sunday. Lennox had fine pitching by starter Julian Diaz and reliever Andrew Gonzalez for a combined one-hitter. Diaz went six and two-thirds innings, allowing the one hit and one run. Gonzalez got the final batter out to preserve the win and the second consecutive crown for Lennox. Lennox started the game with two runs in the top of the first inning and three in the fourth. Highlighting the fourth inning that broke the game open was a two-run double by Chris McFeeter, who had a big tournament, according to his coach and father Jeff Diaz. “We had some key hits but the key to our win was the pitching,” Jeff Diaz said. “It was a team victory. We had good all-around play.” There were just three teams in the tournament that included Lennox, Santa Monica and District 27 champion Harbor City. On Saturday, Santa Monica started out defeating Harbor City, then Lennox rolled over Santa Monica 11-3 later that day. Esparza was the winning pitcher, going five innings allowing three hits and three earned runs. Julian Diaz pitched two innings but got the final six outs on just 13 pitches. “We jumped on them (Santa Monica) fast,” Jeff Diaz said. On June 25 at Thorpe Park, Lennox had a tough time winning the District 37 Tournament having to go into a double final to top Sportsman from Inglewood. In the first game, Sportsman jumped out to an early big lead and was able to outlast Lennox 17-13. Lennox pulled together and cruised to an 11-5 victory for the district title in the night cap. Already leading 4-0 through four innings, Lennox pulled away by scoring three runs The Lennox Little League 50/70 All-Star Baseball team captured its second consecutive crown in a double final on June 25 at Jim Thorpe Park in Hawthorne. Photos by Joe Snyder. in the top of the fifth and four in the sixth to build an 11-0 bulge. A two-run double by Geo Martinez highlighted the fifth inning. Lennox had four consecutive run-scoring hits, including a double from Jose Manuel Vital, in the sixth. Sportsman made sure the game went the distance with three runs (two unearned) in the bottom of the sixth. An RBI (run batted in) single by Jaymee Lastraps highlighted the inning. Sportsman added two runs, including a run-scoring base hit by Khaliq Black, in the seventh. Lennox moves on to the California Division III Tournament in Santa Barbara. According to Jeff Diaz, the start of the tournament has not been determined. Lennox Seniors Move to Final The Tri Park Senior Little League All-Star Baseball team began the District 37 Tournament with a five-inning mercy rule 17-5 win over Lawndale last Thursday but it lost the second round to Lennox on Saturday at Jim Thorpe Park in Hawthorne. Tri Park faced North Inglewood in the losers’ bracket final on Sunday afternoon in quest to meet Lennox, again, in the first game of the championship series Sunday night. If Tri Park avenges its defeat, the two teams will meet, again, on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Thorpe Park. North Inglewood won its losers’ bracket game against Lawndale last Saturday. Results of Saturday and Sunday games were unavailable. In Tri Park’s easy win over Lawndale, Miguel Osorio had a pair of two-run doubles. Armando Hernandez, Jr. added a two-run single in the top of the fifth inning. The game was stopped after five innings due to the 10-run-plus winning margin by Tri Park. Anthony Campos was the winning pitcher going five innings. Esai Leanos pitched the final two innings. All League Baseball Hawthorne High’s baseball team landed four players on the all-Ocean League team, selected recently by league coaches. The Cougars had two players apiece on first team and second teams. First teamers included senior pitchers Javier Martinez and Andrew Banelos. On second team for Hawthorne were junior catcher Jose Sandoval and senior utility Mike Henderson. The Cougars finished third in Ocean play. The league Player of the Year was senior outfielder Gary Dixon from champion and CIF-Southern Section Division III semifinalist Santa Monica and junior pitcher Jay Sterner from runner-up Culver City was Most Outstanding Player. In the Pioneer League, Lawndale, which finished in fifth place, had senior Jesse Garcia make second team. Co- Most Valuable Players in the Pioneer included senior pitcher Kyle Smith of Southern Section Division IV champion Torrance and junior Drake Pringel of Division IV runner-up South Torrance. Torrance’s Manny Olloque, who was drafted and signed by the Major League Baseball Kansas City Royals, was Most Outstanding Player. Leuzinger had one player make all-Bay League in junior utility Sergio Hernandez. The Bay’s Most Valuable Player was senior infielder-pitcher Angel Mora of champion West Torrance. Seniors Eli Morgan of Peninsula and Cassius Hamm from Redondo were Co- Pitchers of the Year. The league’s Co-Most Outstanding Players included senior infielder Nyles Nygard (West Torrance) and junior infielder Duncan McKinnon (Redondo). • Demitre McField of the Tri Park Senior Little League All-Star Baseball team makes a back handed catch on a fly ball in the outfield in last Thursday's District 37 Tournament opener against Lawndale. Tri Park won handily 17-5 Business Briefs July 4th Will Delay Trash Pickup One Day Waste Management, Inc., reminds trash and recycling customers that normally receive service on Fridays to put out their trash on Saturday, July 5th for a one-day only pickup, as service will be delayed until then. This affects the following cities: Manhattan Beach, Rolling Hills Estates, Carson, South Gate, Huntington Park, and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles, ie., Chatsworth, West Hills, Rancho Dominguez, West Rancho Dominguez, Rosewood, El Camino Village, Alondra Park, Del Aire, and Wiseburn. Lawndale ESD Receives County Dollars to Reduce Obesity Lawndale Elementary School District (LESD) has been awarded more than $700,000 from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) to implement two new community healthy lifestyle education programs. Within LA County’s Public Service Area eight, Lawndale, Hawthorne and Inglewood suffer from a higher prevalence of childhood obesity rates compared to other communities in the region. Nutrition Education Obesity Prevention (NEOP), or as it is more widely recognized, Champions for Change, empowers Lawndale parents and caregivers to make healthier choices. The grant provides the opportunity for seven trained peer parent educators to conduct nutrition classes at all nine LESD schools. This year more than 500 parents have taken classes. A dozen parent-child gardening and nutrition lessons will be conducted this summer and additional courses are being planned for the fall. This summer, LESD kicks off its second DPH grant with funding to implement the Choose Health LA Kids (CHLAKids) initiative. Through CHLAKids, LESD will partner with Head Start, public libraries and community centers to conduct interactive nutrition classes and cooking demonstrations to show parents and caregivers new ways to prepare healthy meals. Collaborations with local grocery stores, farmers markets and mini-marts will be formed to offer tours and budget shopping tips. Program staff will also conduct outreach for Choose Health LA Restaurants, a partnership between DPH and local restaurants to promote healthier food choices, including children’s meals. Both programs run through 2016. • Questions on New Mayors For some reason your newspaper is not doing its due diligence while reporting on the two new mayors of Hawthorne and Lawndale. These two, Chris Brown and Robert Pullen Miles, are not individuals who simply lived in their respective cities for years and then felt a civic responsibility to run for office. Rather, they are nothing more then professional politicians who sought self-promotion and power. Chris Brown previously ran for city council (and lost) in Los Angeles and also filed to run in Lawndale, but supplied fictitious names on his filing papers and was not allow to run. He simply took advantage of a prior mayor embroiled in scandal and a split Latino vote to win. There was also ample evidence to suggest Brown actually did not even reside within Hawthorne’s boundaries prior to the election. Pullin Miles had also previously run for city council in Gardena as well as a run for the Compton School Board. He has also twice filed to run for the state assembly. Your paper reported that he claimed to live in Lawndale for “nearly 20 years.” But this is more then stretching the truth since he ran for Gardena City Council in 1997. His hypocrisy also extends to claiming “he is not a professional politician” in his past newsletters and fliers, but in other past articles he claims his final goal is to reach the state assembly and, in addition, he works for another professional politician, Ted Lieu. These men are nothing more then political opportunist and carpetbaggers. Why your paper chooses to ignore the truth and simply report what is spoon-fed by their campaigns is a mystery. Everything state here (and much more) can be found by simple internet searches. If your newspaper truly carries the news, then it is your duty to investigate and print the truth so that the citizens of Hawthorne and Lawndale can learn for themselves the facts about who they have elected. I’ve lived in Hawthorne (first) and Lawndale (second) my entire life, and I also have friends who work for both cities. And so I am troubled by what I see as a taking over of these cities by phony politicians. – Susan Martinez Letters
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