Led by Coach Brian Shackelford, the Foothill high school JV boys volleyball team is undefeated, with only one game left in the season. They are 28-0 matchwise.
They won both tournaments they played in: the Dougherty Valley tournament and the Northgate tournament. Playing crosstown rival Amador Valley High May 1, the team triumphed again.
The team includes: Clay Bennett, Nick Byron, Nick Csongor,l Brian Guidoux, Jonathan Harold, Don LaBarre, Lawrence lam, Preston May, Colby Marceau, Robbie Miller, Chris O’Neill, Ariel Sciammas, Colin Swerdon and Dakota Watterworth.
Mustang Cubs top A’s 6-2
The PONY Baseball Pleasanton Mustang Cubs trounced the Livermore Mustang A’s 6-2 Saturday.
Solid pitching and an exceptional defensive effort helped the Cubs prevail in a game that was well played on both sides. Cubs pitchers Max Gershman, Nolan Burton and Dustin Dukleth gave up just six hits combined, with only one walk and 11 strikeouts. Cubs defense recorded two double plays: one in the third and another in the fifth, and made only two errors. Offensively Parker Jameson and Dukleth led the way with two hits and one run each. Gershman also had a hit, as did Max Moore who drove in one run in the process.
The Livermore A’s shut out the Pleasanton Tigers 9-0.
The A’s pitching, lead by Luke Hernandez, Eamon Smith, Ray Funk and Tyler Langowski, continued to be strong and was backed up by outstanding defensive plays by Kade Gomes, Spencer Kramm and Trey Olsen.
On offense, Max Desantis, Ryan Carlson and PJ Kalcic provided great run support.
Twister adds two victories
The Pleasanton Girls Lacrosse Twister team added two more victories to their record last Saturday at Hart Middle School.
In the first game against the Walnut Creek Warriors, Lauren Hall earned a hat trick with three goals. McKalee Mooney dazzled the crowd with a shovel shot for a goal. Lynnea Flaherty scooped up a ground ball, drove down the field, and fired into the net for a goal. Superior passes and shots by Sarah Monday and Kirsten Jensen. Kira Ewanich and Lindsey Kail had the most ground balls and showed dynamite defensive skills to shut down the Warriors. Final score was 12-0. In the second game, the Twister team showed their expertise again in moving the ball down the field. Flaherty sent a perfect pass to Olivia Deutschman who fired it into the net for a goal. Other great goals were made by Brianna Nicholas, Andrea Arden, and Evan Murphy. Grozier stepped out of her goalie role and showed her speed and superior ball cradling. Excellent defense was executed by Hannah Stapp, Madison Steele and Kail. Final score was 12-7.
Lady Falcon swimmers defeat Amador 106-79
The Amador Valley High Lady Dons were defeated by the Foothill High Lady Falcons to complete the duel meet season, 106-79. At the diving break, Foothill graduating seniors Melissa Bonnel, Steph Csongor, Jana Gaytan, Lisa Narum, Neda Nguyen, Taylor Peterson, Amanda Schmitz, Sara Schoch, Katie Sharp, Sammie Suchland and Amanda Venema were recognized for their contributions to the team. Foothill has been undefeated in the duel season all four years for this graduating class.
The meet started with Foothill capturing a win in the 200 Medley Relay swam by Wang, Nguyen, A. Schmitz and Narum. Amador came back and won the next event, the 200 free, but not without a tough battle from Wang. Narum and Nguyen came back to finish one, two in the 200 IM making the score tied after three events. In the 50 free, Peterson took second with a personal best time. A. Schmitz and Bonnel finished second and third in the 100 fly keeping the score essentially tied. Narum finished first in the 100 free with teammate Poon taking third giving the Lady Falcons a two-point lead. A. Schmitz followed with a win in the 500 free with Bonnel and Fong contributing points allowing Foothill to maintain a slight lead. In the 200 Free Relay, Lau, Peterson, H. Schmitz and Bonnel stepped up for the big win. Down to the last three events of the meet and still too close for comfort, the Lady Falcon backstokers of Wang, Mayes and Poon finished one, two, three, putting the win on the side of Foothill. The breaststokers lead by Nguyen went first, third (Lau)and fifth (Doi), to increase the lead over Amador. Foothill diver Holly Micheff won the diving for Foothill helping to increase the lead.
Lightning keeps spirit despite losses
The Pleasanton Lightning got stomped on 12-2 by the Berkeley Lacrosse Club Sunday, but the boys never lost their spirit throughout the weekend.
The seventh grade, 13-year-old boys team includes Devin Bell and Kyle Banda, who scored the goals with a shot by Ryan McGlaughlin. Grounders were picked up by Conner Sanchez, Richard Vanderbilt, Cale Rubinson, Jack Chervet, Kevin Costello, Tyler Mattimore and Kenton Koos. Faceoffs were won by Ryan McGlaughlin, Tommy Turner and Kevin Costello. Alex Olguin admirably defended the goal against yet another team spiked with towering eighth graders.
Against the Ross Valley Grizzlies, the Lightning was defeated 5-2. One goal was scored by Trevor Maes. Tyler Trinidad stormed 100 yards from goal to goal to score the other, the second time he achieved an impressive coast-to-coast this season. Shots were made by Ryan McGlaughlin, Grayson Poe and team captain JT Garcia. Faceoffs were won by Jack Chervet, Ryan McGlaughlin, Tyler Mattimore and Alex Olguin. Grounders were picked up by Kyle Banda, Conner Sanchez, Devin Bell, Jack Chervet, Tyler Trinidad, Ryan McGlaughlin, Grayson Poe, Cale Rubinson, Tyler Mattimore, JT Garcia, Colton Swalley and Michael Boveda.
PFLL scores
The Majors Division Giants broke out of their huddle yelling out “compete”–and that’s just what they did, beating the Cubs 4-3. They found themselves in a real dog fight with the Cubs. Timely hits and some spot-on defensive plays in the later innings made the difference. Zach Lander pitched five innings giving up only one earned run and going three for four at the plate. One of those hits was a home run, which was mistakenly called a ground double by the umpire, but later confirmed by the Cubs outfielders as a homer. Brad Pluschkell went three for four in the game along with one of the key hits in the sixth. It was then up to Chase Torquemada who stepped into the box and delivered a shot to right scoring the go-a-head run. The key defensive play came in the fifth inning on a bang, bang play from right field. With two outs, a base hit to right had the Cub’s runner streaking home from second with the go-a-head run. However, a rocket shot from Brandon Ruotolo to the cutoff Zack Lander who delivered a quick strike to the plate, where Akshay Bommireddi was waiting in perfect position to apply the tag denying the Cubs of the lead and setting up the dramatic sixth inning win for the Giants.
The AAA Division Giants pounded the Rockies 12-3. At one point in the game, the score was tied at 3-3 when Ryan Tucker led off the bottom of the third with a single, Anthony Trucco walked, Jason Sarubin reached on an error, and TJ Myers singled to drive in the lead run. With Mason Behiel batting, the Rockies once again shifted their defense. Undeterred, Behiel hit a tape measure shot over all four left fielders for a two-run triple. Francis Dunne followed with a walk, Heath drove in Mason Behiel with a base hit, and Christian Ramirez drove in Dunne with a sacrifice fly to right field. Up 8-3, the Giants tacked three more runs to their lead and Behiel came in to close and shut the Rockies down one-two-three to end the game.
Soccer star signs with Utah State ***run with photo in folder***
Midfielder Allie Maduell of Pleasanton has signed to compete for the Utah State University Aggies in the 2008 season. Maduell joins nine other incoming freshmen. The Foothill High School senior was named to the East Bay Athletic League second-team as a senior and served as team captain, as she led her team to the state championship game in each of the last two seasons. Maduell was also a member of the Livermore Arsenal Club during her last three years of high school, where she led the team to two undefeated seasons. Maduell was also on the Olympic Development team and lettered two years in basketball.
Amador JV boys fall to Foothill
By the narrowest of margins, the Amador Valley JV boys fell to Foothill 89-87. The two-point margin is only part of the story as Joey Silva finished only .02 seconds out of first place in the 50 free.
Amador got out to an early lead, going 1-2 in the Medley relay and held the lead after the 200 relay and the 100 IM. Hayden Forrester’s six points in the diving event put Amador up 35-33 and Sam Martin, Matthew Sun and Sneharth Mukherjee went one, three, four the 100 butterfly to push the lead to 46-33. The Falcons pulled even after 100 Free, and took a two-point lead after the 500 free despite a second place finish by James Cheney.
After going 2-3 in the 200 free relay the Dons trailed by two, but flipped the lead by two when James Sun, Chris Johnston, and Mahir Kalra when one, three, four in the 100 backstroke. Trevor Landas and Stefan Hall whent 2-3 in the 100 breaststroke and the meet was all tied up going into the 400 free relay. Needing a win the event, the Dons had to settle for second and third and the Falcons took home the narrow win.
Vortex picks up two key wins
A spectacular team performance propelled the Pleasanton Vortex Pup B1 boys lacrosse team to two hard-fought victories in its last two home games of the regular season. On Saturday, attack player Ian Mills scored a game-high four goals to lead the Vortex past the Walnut Creek Warriors, 8-4. Against the Ross Valley Grizzlies on Sunday, attack player Colton Steiner contributed a hat trick and an assist as Vortex completed its first shutout of the season, 7-0.
Vortex (7-6) started off slowly against Walnut Creek and trailed by a score of 0-2 just seven minutes into the game. However, Vortex responded to Walnut Creek’s initial run with an even larger streak of its own, scoring four straight goals. In the second half Vortex, used a balanced scoring attack to build its lead, with one player (Ian Mills) scoring twice, two players (Colton Steiner and Brian Culy) scoring one goal and three different players (Erik Gallagher, Kevan Knaggs, and Nick Burnap) assisting on goals.
After Saturday’s thriller, Sunday’s game against the Grizzlies provided another opportunity to win an important home game. The offense (Erik Gallagher, Aaron Hollingsworth, Andrew Natsch, Jackson Fiahlo, Brian Kinnee, Wesley Bower, Joe Chacon, David Zatorski, and Brian Culy) took advantage and used well executed fast breaks as well as set plays. The defense (Jason Sereda, Sam Gorman, Noah Geib, and Will Drake) smothered the Grizzlies for the entire game and goalie Connor McFarlane turned away all shots on goal.
The Vortex have a playoff game May 17 at Diablo Vista Middle School in Danville.
–Jeffrey Mills
