William Hudson, a 14-year-old freshman golfer, shot 71 on Monday at Western Hills Country Club in Chino Hills to win the Servite Invitational.
“It was very important to me and my school,” Hudson said.
Some think it’s the first time a St. John Bosco student won an invitational title.
Hudson is a straight-A student who picked up his first golf club when he was 3. He has a daily routine involving practicing at 6 a.m. before heading to school. He’s also enrolled in a school entrepreneur program that involves taking classes at a junior college that will qualify for college credits.
“They are long days, but I get through it,” Hudson said.
He comes from a family that enjoys golf. His great-grandfather played until his death at 98 last year.
“I love how it can take me to interesting places and meet interesting people,” Hudson said. “I can play for the rest of my life. It’s a lifelong sport.”
It’s looking like another strong year for golfers in Southern California, with several individual champions returning, including Jaden Soong of St. Francis and Grant Leary of Crespi.
Now Hudson has thrust himself into the conversation.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
The rise of girls’ flag football is following a familiar path. There now are travel teams with girls competing in offseason competitions as all-star teams similar to seven-on-seven football tournaments.
Under The Radar sports media, which for years has shot videos for YouTube and been involved in 11-man football competitions, is sponsoring a flag football team gaining attention for its success this year.
Called the Ballerettes, the team has several high school athletes from Southern California.
Leah Davis is a sophomore from Upland who was All-Baseline League. Denver De Jongh was a standout freshman at Mater Dei. Savvy Su’e was the freshman quarterback at Banning last season. She also plays softball and basketball.
As participation and popularity rise, you can expect more travel competitions, camps and opportunities for college recruiting.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
Artist Ako Castuera is best known for her work on the award-winning animated series “Adventure Time.” As a writer and storyboard artist, she helped intrepid heroes Jake the Dog and Finn the Human become iconic toon characters.
Though she brought flying rainbow unicorns and a platoon of plotting penguins to life on screen, there’s more to Castuera’s resume than hyper-imaginative animation.
Ceramist, writer and storyboard artist Ako Castuera in her studio.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The Echo Park-based creative is also a professional ceramicist whose hand-built vessels and sculptures have been on display at the Japanese American National Museum of Art, Oxy Arts and the Oakland Museum of Art.
In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who are creating original products in and around Los Angeles.
While Castuera’s studio is filled with its fair share of playful “Pee-wee’s Playhouse”-themed ceramic charms and anthropomorphic banana figurines, her craft is just as much devoted to highlighting Southern California’s natural resources and Indigenous people, as well as her own Mexican-Japanese heritage.
“‘Whimsy’ is a word that’s been applied to my work a lot. This is not my word,” she said during a recent tour of the Monrovia workspace she shares with her husband, artist Rob Sato, and fellow ceramicist Rosie Brand.
Ako Castuera’s work is anthropological and at times unusual, like her foot box sculptures. She also feels a special connection to her tools.(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“Not that whimsy is negative, but I do feel like it doesn’t really get a handle on the substance of what I feel I’m working with, as far as the depth of the clay, the depth of the experience, of the land.”
She sat perched on a stool at her workbench, using a smooth stone to grind soil clumps into fine dust as she talked. She collects the red earth during nature walks around the San Gabriel Mountains area — whether the riverbed of the Arroyo Seco, or the foothills of Claremont, her hometown.
“This is special dirt,” she explained.
To her, it has a presence, a life of its own and a cherished history. She uses it to make anything from trinket boxes to ornate geometric vases to statuettes of quizzical creatures.
Some of her most recent creations stand on a nearby wooden shelf. They’re ceramic depictions of Pacific tree frogs and great herons, both denizens of the L.A. River. The waterway has long been a source of inspiration for Castuera.
Ako Castuera’s work ranges from massive pieces to the miniature, like these figurines.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“I love the L.A. River,” she said. “It’s my neighbor. It’s my teacher. It’s a place where I walk and bike.”
She regards the river as a muse and wants to inspire Angelenos of all ages to appreciate it. To that end, she teaches youth workshops at the riverside arts hubs Clockshop and Sooki Studio. What’s more, the river was a “main character” on “City of Ghosts,” the L.A.-celebrating, Emmy-winning Netflix animated series she directed. She’s even been known to use some of its water to transform soil into moldable clay.
“The more people who are brought into a sense of kinship with the river, the better,” she said. “Because then, they really feel like ‘The river takes care of me; I want to take care of the river.’”
Castuera’s work has an anthropological bent, as well as an ecological one. For example, her research into Southern California’s Kumeyaay and Cahuilla Indigenous tribes inspired a series of large jars patterned after ollas, traditional pots used for water and seed storage. She plans to incorporate these jars into an immersive installation that will be on view at the Candlewood Arts Festival in Borrego Springs in March and April. And last fall, she hosted a community event with Los Angeles Nomadic Division in which she discussed how soil played a vital role in the societies of both the Gabrielino-Tongva tribes of L.A. and the Ryukyuan people of her mother’s native Okinawa.
Finding the sweet spot where cultures combine is a constant source of motivation for Castuera. She’s created her own twist on shisa, lion-dog statues that are common sights all around Okinawa. And she’s currently working on a collection of small sculptures honoring her patrilineal ties to Puebla, Mexico. Her “taco babies” were inspired by one of the region’s best-known dishes, tacos árabes, which combine flavors from Mexico and the Middle East.
“I was thinking about the beauty of being in a living mix and what that would look like personified,” she said of the wee figures wrapped in colorful tortilla-like blankets.
Ako Castuera makes ceramics for the love of the process, not the final product.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Some of Castuera’s work makes it into gallery shows and some she sells. But just as often, she smashes it and takes the soil back to where she originally found it. It’s a habit of creating and destroying that she formed as a student at Claremont High School, where she studied the craft for two semesters, yet fired zero pieces.
“I don’t think I could’ve articulated this at 15, but it’s about the process of building, not the process of creating a product. It’s about working with the material — just making the space and the time for that practice,” she said.
“The excitement and the magic is really about the discovery of the unexpected. It’s so engrossing and it really just gets me engaged with life.”
John Shirreffs, the soft-spoken giant who trained Zenyatta, perhaps the best mare of all-time, died in Southern California on Thursday. He was 80. No cause of death was announced.
Shirreffs was one of the top trainers in Southern California with 3,589 starts, 596 of them wins resulting in $58.5 million in purses.
He was a familiar face around local tracks, usually ponying his horses to the track during morning training and then avoiding the spotlight when his horse won by staying on the racing surface and not going to the Winner’s Circle, leaving the punditry to his wife, Dottie Ingordo.
Shirreffs first grabbed national attention when he won the Kentucky Derby with Giacomo at odds of 50-1 in 2005. The horse was partially owned by legendary record producer Jerry Moss, the M along with Herb Alpert in A&M records. Shirreffs remained Moss’ primary trainer until his death in 2023.
Then after Giacomo came Zenyatta, whose personality and skill won the hearts of Southern California race-goers in her 19-race winning streak that included an “un-believe-able” (according to race caller Trevor Denman) last-to-first win against the boys in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita in 2009.
Shirreffs, a Marine veteran, fell into horse racing by accident.
“When I got back from Vietnam, I had no place to go, but I had a friend who knew somebody, so they they said, ‘Come on out West,’” Shirreffs told The Times before last year’s Kentucky Derby.
“So here I’m in New York, I don’t know anything about [horses] except I’ve seen a lot of cowboy movies. So here comes Jim Matthews, pulls up in his trailer, he has his horse set and he it backs his horse out of a trailer.”
Shirreffs admits to not really knowing what he was doing.
“A week or so later, Jim’s just calls me and says, ‘Do you want to come to work for me?’ I said ‘Yeah, that’d be great,” Shirreffs said. “So, I went to work for him and didn’t get paid anything, just room and board. He soon said, ‘I’ll give you this horse and if you sell it, you can make some money.’
“So I’m riding this horse across this field and I get stuck in this mud box. I get the horse out of the mud and Henry Freitas [at Loma Rica Ranch in Central California] asked if I would like to work for him. I said, ‘Well, sure, I get paid here, right? This is great.
“I worked there about 11 years, and one day in he says, ‘John, you wanna take my horse to the fairs?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to do that.’ And that’s how it all started. You know, I never planned it and the opportunity just presented itself each time and when I was fortunate enough, and had some experience with horses, and that’s how it started.”
Shirreffs was asked if Vietnam or training horses was more difficult.
“Well, we don’t want to talk about that,” Shirreffs said.
Santa Anita issued a statement regarding Shirreffs’ death.
“Every horse who races at Santa Anita must first pass by the statue of John’s greatest trainee, the wonderful mare Zenyatta. While John’s victories were plentiful and prestigious, what he accomplished with Zenyatta in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic was a masterpiece and deservedly was voted as the top moment in Santa Anita Park’s 90 years. Our deepest condolences are extended to John’s wife, Dottie, and his family, including those horsemen and women who worked closely with John for so many years. May his memory be a blessing.”
Get ready for the return of bow ties for Redondo Union basketball coach Reggie Morris Jr. It’s his signature wardrobe item added whenever the playoffs begin, and the Sea Hawks (25-3) are capable of extending their season for more than a month the way they are playing.
“It means time to dress the part, time to win,” Morris said.
Few coaches in the postseason have achieved what Morris has. The son of City Section Hall of Fame coach Reggie Morris Sr., Morris Jr. has won Southern Section titles at Redondo, Leuzinger and St. Bernard along with winning a City Section title at Fairfax. He has one state title at Redondo.
Reggie Morris Jr., in 2013. He has a collection of bow ties he brings out for the playoffs.
(Nick Koza)
The Sea Hawks are seeded No. 3 in the Southern Section Open Division playoffs behind top-seeded Sierra Canyon (22-1). Both teams are similar, relying on pressure defense, athleticism and talent. If they ever get to meet, the game should be a good one.
“They have great personnel, a great coach,” Morris said. “There’s a lot of respect for what they do.”
Morris is familiar with many of the Sierra Canyon players, having coached them in travel ball, from Maxi Adams to Brannon Martinsen. And he knows Sierra Canyon coach Andre Chevalier, who’s a fellow City Sectiongrad.
Last year in the playoffs, Redondo gave Sierra Canyon two of its toughest games, losing in overtime 69-66 during the Southern Section playoffs and losing 74-68 in the regional semifinals.
“Last year’s experience has helped us tremendously,” Morris said. “The level of intensity, the talent, the attention to detail — they’ve applied that all season long. We have a lot of lessons to pull from.”
Redondo’s big three are SJ Madison, Devin Wright and Chace Holley, all seniors. Playing in the Open Division requires extreme focus on taking it one game at a time and never looking ahead because every game can be won or lost by the slimmest of margins. Redondo opens pool play on Wednesday at home against Etiwanda.
“This year I feel anybody can be beaten,” Morris said. “We can beat anyone and they can beat us.”
Even though the Sea Hawks cruised to their Bay League championship with few challenges, they played a competitive nonleague schedule with two wins over Crestview League champion Crean Lutheran, the No. 1 seed in Division 1, and wins over Arizona power Phoenix Sunnyslope, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, Crespi and Damien.
“We’ve played the most teams in the top 15 in Southern California,” Morris said. “We’re confident we can play with anybody. We’re battled tested. We feel we can make noise.”
Sierra Canyon and Redondo have been considered the top two teams in Southern California for months, but the computer rankings put Santa Margarita as the No. 2 seed.
The real surprise would be if either Redondo or Sierra Canyon fails to reach the Open Division championship game the final weekend in February at the Toyota Arena in Ontario.
Just keep track of Morris wearing bow ties in February for clues as to how the Sea Hawks are doing. He has plenty.
Asked what color of red he wears, Morris said, “Game time decision.”
