TORRANCE TRIBUNE January 5, 2017 Page 3 South Soccer off to Historic Start By Adam Serrao Led by head coach Chad Lagerwey, the South High boys’ soccer squad has been an excellent team for some time now. After all, it did wrap up last season with a first place finish in the Pioneer League and made it all the way to the CIF Division IV championship game where the team lost to Godinez. Lagerwey and his Spartans only lost five games that year. This season, they’re back and looking to make even more of an impact on what has already been an extremely successful campaign. Through their first 10 games, South has remained flawless with an undefeated record while even capturing a tournament title in the process. It’s safe to say that the Spartans look to be the class of the Pioneer League once again. South High has been so successful in the recent past that to simply capture another Pioneer League title wouldn’t necessarily mean success. This year is all about the championship--something that Lagerwey and his team have been thinking about since their loss in the CIF championship game one season ago. A perfect precursor to another playoff run was this year’s South Torrance Holiday Classic--a five-game tournament where the winner takes all. It’s not often that a team is firing on all cylinders so early in the season, but Lagerwey has had his squad ready. The Spartans not only won in the first and second rounds of the tournament, but went on to eventually beat Palos Verdes by a score of 2-1 for the second time this year to secure the tournament title. “We talked about this tournament as great preparation,” Lagerway explained. “It’s a five-game playoff. It’s a short window against quality teams and a really good measuring stick.” So far in terms of measuring this South High team’s ability, it is off the charts. David Paine may just be the MVP of the season so far, but it was Dara Fahkfouri who got the scoring started for the Spartans in the tournament championship game against PV. Fahkfouri put the ball past opposing goaltender Kyle Littman to give his team a 1-0 lead at around the 45th minute. “That goal gave the team a boost,” Fahkfouri explained. “You could see everyone starting to perform.” Ryan Vedov gained the biggest boost in performance, scoring what turned out to be the game-winner with a little more than five minutes remaining in the match. South goaltender Kohl Kutsch was clutch for the Spartans throughout, coming away with five saves in the match. The Spartans will look to continue their absolute dominance this season as they host North High this Friday night in what will be the first game of league play. The Spartans are clearly destined for playoff positioning, but must not look past their league rivals if they wish to have a season for the history books this year. West High The West High Warriors soccer team, under head coach Mike Shimizu, figure to give the Spartans the most run for their money this season. Coming off of a 7-11-4 season a year ago and a fourth place standing in the Pioneer League, Shimizu has his team playing much better ball this year. The Warriors began the season with great victories over Beverly Hills and Bishop Montgomery on their way to a three-game winning streak to start the season, but suffered heartbreak when they took a frustrating 5-4 loss in overtime to Millikan to fall out of contention in the second round of the South Torrance Classic. Trent Klaser came through with the equalizer for West late in the second half and at that time, it looked like the momentum might switch sides in favor of the Warriors. Instead of momentum, it was a fight that broke out on West’s sidelines just before the half, resulting in a red card for one player from each team. Cole Prince hit a penalty kick in dramatic fashion to send the game into overtime, but the Warriors took the unfortunate loss when Millikan came through with the winner. The Warriors will see their first game of league play when they travel to North High to take on the Saxons next Wednesday. North High North High has had an unfortunate start to its soccer season, but head coach Robert Rivas and his crew hope that 2017 brings a bit more luck. The Saxons were victims to a four-game losing streak earlier in the season, but most recently took a rough 2-1 loss to the Bishop Montgomery Knights in their final game of the South Torrance Holiday Tournament. Steve Montoya and Andrew Huerta scored the two goals that crippled the Saxons, but North will look to rebound with two tough league games coming up against South and West High to begin the new year. Torrance High The Torrance Tartars soccer team has hit a rough patch of late, losing four out of their last five games, including a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Channel Islands Raiders. The Raiders were able to come away with three goals in the first half of play to put the game away early. Despite their recent woes, Torrance and head coach Ryan Burnett will look to get things turned around when the team begins league play with two decent matchups versus both Centennial and Leuzinger. – Asixlion@earthlink.net • Up and Adam Entertainment Film Review In Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, Life Americana is Lyrical By Ryan Rojas for www.cinemacy.com The thing about daily life, since it’s typically lived in such a familiar, repetitive and track-like fashion, is that we often miss the subtle, magical coincidences that are going on around us all the time. In his latest movie, Paterson, writer and director Jim Jarmusch sprinkles in these subtle surrealities that often go unnoticed into a week in the life of a bus driver who quietly drives his routes and more quietly writes his original poetry. All the while, coincidence washes over him and his community, making Paterson a film that speaks to the beauty of everyday life and the role of an artist in it. In this tone poem of a movie, which also plays more accessible than Jarmusch’s other films, Paterson operates more from the invisible structures of poetic stanzas than the freeform swirl that his last released film, the rock and roll-soaked vampire flick Only Lovers Left Alive, did. Like Lovers, which showed centuries-undead vampires suck up culture in arts, music and history only to live alone in their same unfulfilled lives, there’s a similarity here that Jarmusch explores. He follows an equally emotionless man who similarly takes in the pleasures of poetry without entertaining the thought of publishing his own or even the very poetry in motion around him. It’s this failure to dream in which Jarmusch sets up his main character, Paterson (Adam Driver)--the humble bus driver who coincidentally shares his name with the city where he drives his routes in Paterson, New Jersey, to show and study this noble pursuit of the artist as one that is only valid when it’s realized rather than romanticized. Following a day in the life from one Monday through the next in chapter-like fashion, Paterson is tuned to the rhythms of the day from sun-up to sundown. He wakes up every day to face a wristwatch that reads around 6:15, hunches over a bowl of cereal at home and scribbles some lines of poetry before setting off on his daily route. Then he returns to the home that he shares with girlfriend and bulldog (whom he walks to the local bar for a late night nightcap--a process that more or less repeats daily). But it’s in the moments in between the mundane where Jarmusch hones in, and where Paterson makes its message. Although he’s a poet who scribbles things like how love is like his favorite matchbook brand, he doesn’t tie together the coincidence that his bohemian girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) shares with him--her dream about twins--and failing to see the many varied sets of twins that then populate the rest of the film. The rich tapestry of the city of Paterson hides its coincidences and meanings in plain sight. A young girl approaches Paterson with her original poetry about rain--a theme we see Paterson earlier write about in his poem about moving through trillions of molecules of water, showing the playful interconnected themes that link the things between the days. Instead, Paterson, the reluctant artist whose humility led him to follow his same life’s track of driving the bus and writing his poems in his secret notebook, goes about his day meekly while larger life meanings play out around him. Driver in the driver’s seat (pun intended) continues to shine in auteur-driven movies--of which this is the latest--delivering a finely controlled and nuanced performance. The quiet depth Driver brings forth in Paterson the character shows a man pondering the serious artistry of a mind stirring. It’s not that he’s an insecure artist. He’s just an egoless one, more content living a humdrum life writing his poems for an audience of one. His quiet but commanding performance anchors a film that is also as measured and patient--and within Jarmusch’s playfully dreamy movie, it’s not out of reason to think that Paterson himself is a physical embodiment (read: tour guide or ghost) of the blue-collar city. The light-hearted surreality throughout the movie offers much to unpack, making Paterson a more poetically enriching experience than the traditional film offers. Paterson will be most loved by those willing to experience the movie much like they would a literary work by actively unpacking the film for symbolism and themes like they would from an actual poem. Jarmusch’s ode to the quiet American artist, who in fact self-identifies as a poet over filmmaker, proves that there’s magic in the mundanities of real life, if only you choose to see it. Paterson is 118 minutes and rated R for some language. Now playing at The Landmark in West Los Angeles. • Adam Driver in Paterson. Courtesy of Amazon Studios. Visit us online: www.heraldpublications.com
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