Arizona

Orange Lutheran High does not have an easy game on its schedule. MaxPreps ranked the school’s schedule as the toughest in the nation, as it faces off against five opponents in the website’s preseason national top 25 rankings.

The first three weeks have been a true gauntlet.

It started with an away game in Florida against Miami Central High, the seventh-best team in the state, according to MaxPreps. Orange Lutheran only lost by one point.

After beating the 15th-best team in California, San Diego Cathedral, last week 38-24, the Lancers faced its biggest test yet: Chandler (Ariz.) Basha, the No. 1 team in Arizona, and ranked 12th nationally. Orange Lutheran is the eighth-ranked team in California and 61st nationally.

A 30-24 loss to Basha last season still hung in the air around Orange Coast College on Friday night, and it looked like Orange Lutheran would be in for another one after Basha senior quarterback and Princeton commit Jake Rogers threw a 62-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Jaden Baldwin on the third play of their first drive.

However, because they didn’t make this season about themselves, Orange Lutheran has a prime directive to make things as hard as possible on opponents. A 23-17 win Friday suggested they followed through on that goal.

After the first quarter, Basha was not able to do anything effective on offense.

Every possession in the third quarter was a three-and-out, with one resulting in a punt out of the end zone. Basha had a bad snap, giving Orange Lutheran two points.

Beyond that, twin brothers and juniors Anhor The Great Johnson and King Rich Johnson swarmed everything that Basha tried to do.

It started with a 75-yard pick-six from King Rich on a snaking sideline return that gave Orange Lutheran a lead they never conceded.

Anhor The Great had so many pass breakups that counting would’ve been a fool’s errand.

Defensive line bat downs and sacks haunted Rogers, who finished the game with 192 yards passing and two touchdowns with two interceptions as well as a less than 50% completion on passes and two interceptions.

Senior lineman Lucas Rhoa got to watch this all unfold from the sidelines, and he was truly in awe after the game.

“One of the best defensive games I’ve seen,” he said. “Really, two big plays and three other points [is all Basha got]. We couldn’t do it without them, because we only put up 23 points.”

The only score given up in the second half was a 30-yard pass from Rogers to senior running back Noah Roberts. It gave the Bears life for the first time since the half. It was also Roberts only big play on a night where he averaged less than two yards per carry.

It was senior night for Orange Lutheran, with emotions flowing around Orange Coast College stadium all night, but it was a sophomore running back who had the most explosive performance.

Ryan Christianson finished with 151 yards rushing and one touchdown on 31 rushes. He was buoyed by Rhoa and a strong offensive line performance.

“Our running back is amazing, he did amazing things,” he said. “I’m proud of the way we played tonight, but there’s so much more we could clean up. So many points were left on the board. If we clean it up we’re going to be very good.”

First year head coach Ray Fenton inherited this insane schedule, but he probably would’ve booked the same battles. Many of his players will be playing Division I football on Saturdays, so why not test them now?

Plus, Orange Lutheran plays in the Trinity League. With highly ranked schools such as St. John Bosco, Mater Dei and Santa Margarita on the schedule, playing weak schools in nonleague games does nothing but harm Orange Lutheran’s talented roster.

“We can’t hide from our league, it’s like the SEC of high school football,” Fenton said.

PHOENIX — The staff caring for Jakob Blodgett said he already had been sneaking candy and refused to take his insulin. An employee at the Arizona group home where the 9-year-old boy was being cared for texted a supervisor about the boy’s elevated blood-glucose reading.

The response? Give him water.

After two missed doses of the long-lasting insulin he needed, he was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with brain swelling, put on a ventilator and died in 2022 of complications from Type 1 diabetes.

There were no penalties imposed for Blodgett’s death, and Arizona’s largest group home provider now stands at the center of a political controversy swirling as Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs seeks reelection. Records show Sunshine Residential Homes made political donations beneficial to Hobbs and months later received a rate increase from the state for providing beds for children.

The Arizona attorney general, a fellow Democrat, found no evidence of bribery. But Republican legislators are pushing back with their own questions, and the state auditor general’s office is conducting a separate investigation.

The boy’s death and the pay-to-play allegations highlight questions about Arizona’s congregate-care capacity for children, training for workers who care for them and oversight of providers and other contractors who hold leverage over the state simply due to their size and influence.

Alleged political favors become campaign fodder

Hobbs maintains she wasn’t involved in the decision to increase rates for Sunshine Residential Homes. But Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, has made the scandal a centerpiece of his campaign to unseat her.

“That was all handled by the department,” Hobbs said, “and they made the decision based on what was in the best interest of the department and the kids in their care.”

The allegations were first reported by The Arizona Republic and prompted an investigation by Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes. However, Mayes’ office said it couldn’t find evidence to support bribery charges against Hobbs and concluded that Sunshine’s rate increases were the result of its “outsized leverage” as the state’s largest group home provider, not because of politics.

The company had threatened to reduce its bed capacity if it didn’t get an increase, saying it would instead use beds to house unaccompanied immigrant children for the federal government, officials said. Child welfare officials have said a reduction in Sunshine’s beds would significantly affect the state’s ability to place children in homes and would likely lead to siblings in foster care being split up and sent to different homes.

In all, Sunshine made $550,000 in contributions, including $100,000 to Hobbs’ inaugural fund in December 2022 and $150,000 to a legal defense fund for Hobbs between November 2023 and May 2024, according to records.

A separate investigation by the state auditor general’s office and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, is continuing.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office also has interviewed several Sunshine employees as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into Blodgett’s death. No one has been charged.

Blodgett isn’t the only diabetic child to die after a stay at an Arizona group home. In July 2024, a 15-year-old boy staying at a group home in Mesa operated by another company died of diabetic ketoacidosis after staff said the boy refused to take insulin, according to records.

Text messages outline concerns over a diabetic coma

Blodgett was staying at a foster home in metro Phoenix where only the house manager was trained in managing his diabetes.

Staff members said the boy was refusing to take his medicine. The manager advised an employee via text to tell the boy that the manager would be called if he refused to take his medicine.

“We don’t want him to go into a diabetic coma,” the manager texted.

The employee texted back about whether the child should get insulin. The manager didn’t respond.

The next day, the employee texted the boy’s blood glucose reading to the manager and asked what to do. The manager said to give Blodgett water but didn’t give any instructions about insulin, according to lawyers for the state and Blodgett’s family. The day after missing his second dose, Blodgett was taken to a hospital.

Violation nets no penalties

Two weeks before approving a 30% rate increase in May 2023, the Arizona Department of Child Safety issued a licensing violation against Sunshine over Blodgett’s case. The agency declined to specify to The Associated Press which policy was violated.

Robert Pastor, an attorney representing the family in a wrongful death lawsuit, said the violation was for not giving Blodgett the insulin as prescribed. The lawyer said Sunshine’s staff missed the signs of ketoacidosis, a serious complication caused by a lack of insulin, and waited too long to take Blodgett to the hospital. He also disputed claims that the boy had refused medication.

The state didn’t fine Sunshine or suspend or revoke its license as a result of the violation, according to court records. The agency said it detailed the steps Sunshine had to take to come into compliance, but declined to reveal to the AP what those steps were.

Pastor agreed with the attorney general’s conclusion that Sunshine has a lot of leverage over the state due to reliance on the company’s beds.

“That leverage gave Sunshine an increased rate increase,” Pastor said. “We also know that that leverage that Sunshine has over DCS means that when they kill a child, there will be no consequences. There will be no accountability.”

In a statement, Sunshine spokesperson Tommy McKone said the wrongful death lawsuit remains active, but declined to comment on the licensing violation and the company’s policy on responding to children who refuse medications.

“Sunshine Residential followed all policies and procedures for the required care, throughout his stay at our homes, under state law,” McKone said.

In court records, lawyers for Sunshine said the state indicated Blodgett’s medical needs were minimal and didn’t inform the group home provider that Blodgett’s diabetes management was complex.

Boy was hospitalized before heading to group home

Blodgett went into foster care in December 2022 after his father was jailed on a drug charge. His blood glucose levels were high when he was brought to a welcome center operated by the Department of Child Safety, which sought medical help for Blodgett from a children’s hospital where he was treated over several days.

Once discharged, Blodgett went to a Sunshine home.

While he went two days without getting the long-lasting insulin he needed before going to bed, the staff did give him another type of insulin — fast-acting insulin after eating meals — over both days. After the boy missed a long-lasting dose, the house manager contacted the same hospital to talk about how to improve his blood glucose levels.

In a deposition, the house manager testified there was nothing the staff could do if the child refused his medication. Pastor said the claim that the boy refused insulin is a false narrative aimed at blaming the child.

More workers should have been trained

Myriam Villarreal, an official in the Department of Child Safety’s operation that licenses group homes, testified in an April 2025 deposition that Blodgett’s condition wasn’t caught in time because group home workers weren’t trained in spotting the signs of ketoacidosis.

Pressed on why the company didn’t face any penalties, Villarreal testified that the state asked for policy modifications from the company. And she said training should have been provided to the staff members who directly cared for the boy, not just the house manager.

“We didn’t look that every single staff (member) had the appropriate training,” Villarreal testified.

Billeaud writes for the Associated Press.

PHOENIX — The Trump administration has begun work on a project to build a stretch of border wall in southern Arizona along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation, pushing ahead with one of its signature projects despite protests from the tribe.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the area is a dangerous smuggling route and that building the wall will close a longstanding security gap. But members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose membership spans both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, have accused the administration of trespassing and say the construction will damage land sacred to the tribe.

The wall segment is part of a $46 billion effort by the Trump administration to fill the border with 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers, and technology designed to stop undocumented immigration and smuggling.

But as building efforts have ramped up, the administration has run into opposition from landowners, environmental groups, and Native American tribes who say construction is violating property rights and desecrating sacred Indigenous sites.

The Tohono O’odham Nation said in a statement Tuesday that about 20 Customs and Border Protection officers, working with contractors, went onto the tribe’s land early that morning to begin construction.

Drone videos published by nation officials show roughly 14 vehicles and an industrial drill at one of the sites.

A federal judge permitted the government to move forward with construction earlier this month, but the tribe says the contractors are violating tribal codes and trespassing to access the border wall site.

The Tohono O’odham Nation, which has 37,000 members including thousands who live in Mexico, sued the federal government in June in an attempt to block construction of the border wall. The tribe argued that the wall would cause “significant devastation” on the reservation, including the destruction of mountain peaks sacred to the tribe, and would alter boundaries of their nation.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled in favor of the government, noting that the border wall would be built on a 60-foot wide buffer zone of federally owned land called the Roosevelt Reservation.

“Defendants have not yet articulated plans to construct outside the Roosevelt Reservation,” the judge wrote in his opinion.

The Tohono O’odham Nation said that even if construction were contained to the Roosevelt Reservation, driving onto tribal land to access the area still constitutes trespassing.

“The contractors, who are on the Nation illegally, were accompanied by agents as they worked on three separate locations near the border with drill trucks to conduct soil sampling and other activities,” tribal officials said in a statement.

The CBP agents were masked, armed, and set up a vehicle blockade to stop tribal police from removing the contractors, according to Tohono O’odham officials. The nation had set up “No Trespassing” signs before Tuesday.

So far, no physical confrontations between police or members of the Tohono O’odham Nation have been reported.

CBP defended the need for the wall in a statement Tuesday, saying the desert spanning the Tohono O’odham Nation is a corridor for drug smuggling.

“The project will close one of the most dangerous smuggling and trafficking corridors on the Southwest border: remote desert that has facilitated decades of drug loads, migrant deaths, and cartel activity,” said CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott.

Tribal officials said they’re exploring further legal actions in an effort to remove contractors.

SLSCO Ltd., the Texas-based construction company building the section in Arizona, has secured over $390 million in funding from the Department of Homeland Security to build the border wall since 2023.

Schuettler writes for the Associated Press.

The San Diego Padres minor league catching coordinator is in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will remain so “pending removal proceedings,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday in a statement.

Oswaldo Pirela, a former Texas Rangers minor league player, was detained Sunday morning at El Paso International Airport.

Pirela, 34, was flying to Phoenix, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. The Padres’ triple-A affiliate is the El Paso Chihuahuas, and Pirela was with the team during its home game Saturday night against the Salt Lake City Bees, an Angels affiliate.

The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Pirela came to the United States from his native Venezuela in September 2014 and that his permission to remain expired Feb. 10, 2018.

Homeland Security said Pirela was not carrying his work permit at the time he was detained. Pirela’s brother Juan Pirela presented Phoenix multimedia news organization Arizona’s Family with Oswaldo’s work permit, which indicated it was issued in 2024 and is valid until 2029.

“It’s very hard. He’s authorized to work in the United States,” Juan Pirela said. “So, the same department, Homeland Security, issues a work permit but then somehow it’s not enough.”

The Homeland Security statement addressed the issue: “To be clear, work authorization or a pending application do NOT confer legal status in the United States.”

“In violation of our nation’s laws, [Pirela] overstayed his welcome. When approached by law enforcement officers, he was not in possession of legal documentation granting him status in the country. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings and will receive due process.

As a roving catching instructor, Pirela is based out of the Padres’ spring-training complex in Peoria, Ariz., and travels to the organization’s minor league affiliates in San Antonio, Fort Wayne, Ind., and Lake Elsinore in addition to El Paso. He spent the 2024 season as bench coach for the Class-A Lake Elsinore Storm and became the organization’s catching coordinator in 2025.

“We recently became aware of the detainment of minor league catching coordinator Oswaldo Pirela in El Paso, Texas,” the Padres club said in a statement. “We are working to gather additional information and will not have any further comment at this time.”

Pirela was signed by the Rangers at age 17 out of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and played catcher, first base and the outfield from 2009 to 2011 for the team’s Dominican Republic Summer League affiliate.

PHOENIX — Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz trudged toward the dugout as Arizona’s Ryan Waldschmidt celebrated with teammates after hitting a two-run, walk-off home run to seal a 4-3 win that sent the Dodgers to a season-worst seventh straight loss.

“We’ve just got to play better,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “I don’t think that the standings — obviously, they are important, they matter. But I just feel like with the talent that we have, we just got to play good baseball, and it’ll take care of itself. It always does.”

The Dodgers’ recent skid dropped their National League West lead into single digits for the first time in over a month. They are now only 7½ games ahead of the second-place Diamondbacks in the division.

They also now have the fourth-best record in the majors (69-47), falling behind the Brewers (72-44) and Braves (70-46) and Rays (69-46).

“A week ago, it looked a lot different,” Roberts said. “And another week from now, it could look even more different. So you’ve just got to put your head down and play baseball.”

They did, at least, have a better record than last season (67-49) at the 116-game mark. But the Dodgers would prefer to, unlike last year, at least earn a first-round bye, and ideally home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Their performance Friday sent them in the wrong direction.

The Dodgers went hitless against Diamondbacks starting pitcher Merrill Kelly for the first five innings. Kyle Tucker and Shohei Ohtani both drew walks, as the Dodgers’ only baserunners before the sixth — and Ohtani was thrown out attempting to steal second to end the third inning.

Finally, leading off the sixth, Tommy Edman — who three innings prior was robbed of a home run on a leaping grab by Diamondbacks right fielder Corbin Carroll — broke up Kelly’s no-hit bid with a sharp infield hit.

Kelly picked off Edman at first base, but Hunter Feduccia followed with a single of his own, the catcher’s first hit since rejoining the Dodgers at the trade deadline.

Ohtani and Andy Pages both drew walks to load the bases. And the Dodgers finally scored on a groundball fielder’s choice from Freddie Freeman. That single run was all they got out of the inning.

Dodgers starting pitcher Roki Sasaki held the Diamondbacks to two runs in six innings. He surrendered a solo homer to Arizona third baseman Nolan Arenado in the second and an RBI triple to Geraldo Perdomo in the fifth. But he only gave up two other hits.

With both starters out by the seventh (Kelly exited with two outs in the sixth because of cramping in his right leg), the Dodgers orchestrated a comeback and then gave it up.

Edman drove in the tying run, too, lining a single to left for the Dodgers’ third hit of the inning off Diamondbacks right-hander Taylor Clarke in the seventh. But the Dodgers failed to turn a bases-loaded situation into a crooked number when Ohtani grounded into a double play to end the inning.

The next inning, Pages gave the Dodgers the lead with a solo homer off Diamondbacks lefty Brandyn Garcia.

The Diamondbacks threatened against Dodgers setup man Tanner Scott. But he escaped a bases-loaded jam in the eighth by winning a 12-pitch at-bat against Arenado for the inning-ending strikeout.

Bubic joins the team

Trade-deadline acquisition Kris Bubic, who is rehabbing at the Dodgers’ Arizona complex, is taking advantage of the opportunity to be around the team this weekend at Chase Field.

“It’s been a whirlwind the last couple days,” Bubic said. “Obviously I had been with Kansas City the whole time since I was drafted. I’ve been there my whole big-league career. I’d been on the shelf for a little bit now, but to hear I was getting traded over here was pretty exciting.

“Obviously the roster speaks for itself. The success speaks for itself. The opportunity to be a part of this, to learn from these guys, all the coaches on the staff and whatnot, it’s going to be an exciting time. I’m really looking forward to getting started.”

Pitcher Kris Bubic throws during a game between the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mariners on May 3.

(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)

Bubic initially landed on the injured list in mid-May with a low-grade flexor strain in his left forearm, he specified. While working back from that injury, he had setbacks with an impingement in his left shoulder.

Because he has an injury history with both his elbow (2023 Tommy John surgery) and shoulder (2025 rotator cuff strain), the Royals didn’t rush him back. Bubic said he had a cortisone injection on July 1 and then threw off a mound on Sunday.

“I’m kind of itching to get back going,” he said. “But I know talking with the staff here they’ve got a pretty good plan. I’m expected to come out of the ‘pen in some capacity. At this point, I’m looking forward to getting back on the field and helping this team down the stretch.”

Bubic said the Dodgers have already presented him with a couple mechanical tweaks. He hopes to begin a minor-league rehab assignment around the end of the month or beginning of September.

Homestand plan

The Dodgers plan to pitch two-time Cy Young winners in back-to-back games against the Royals when they return to Los Angeles next week.

On Monday, Tarik Skubal is scheduled to make his first home start at Dodger Stadium, and second with the Dodgers since being acquired in a trade with the Detroit Tigers. On Wednesday, Blake Snell is set to return from the IL for his second start of the season, his first since May.