The senior season being put together by quarterback Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo High can be described as nothing less than sensational.
In his latest performance on Thursday night against Los Alamitos, the Ohio State commit passed for a school-record 570 yards in a 76-49 victory. According to Mission Viejo’s official statistics, he completed 24 of 31 passes for 569 yards and five touchdowns with one interception.
He has led Mission Viejo (9-1) to wins over six teams that have been ranked in the state‘s top 25 going into the release of Sunday’s Southern Section playoff pairings. Mission Viejo will be part of the Division 1 playoffs that are expected to have an eight-team field.
Receiver Jack Junker was Fahey’s favorite target on Thursday, catching 10 passes for 299 yards and three touchdowns.
On the season after 10 games, Fahey has completed 75% of his passes for 3,108 yards and 25 touchdowns with just two interceptions. He has turned in MVP performances for much of the 2025 season.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
After Contreras’ offensive coordinator, Carlos Trujillo, did his work on Friday night during his team’s 39-14 win over Hollywood, he was picked up by car and whisked off to Los Angeles International Airport to take a red-eye flight to Chicago so he could complete the 11th marathon of his life.
“I will never be crazy enough to do one,” Contreras head coach Manuel Guevara said.
Running 26.2 miles is pretty challenging, but Trujillo has found something he enjoys, and players admire his commitment.
“The entire varsity [team] wished him good luck,” Guevara said. “It teaches the kids that coaches challenge themselves in different ways.”
He’ll be back for practice on Tuesday as Contreras (4-3, 2-0) prepares for a key Central League game against Bernstein on Thursday night.
Trujillo, 43, said he started running marathons when he was head coach at North Hollywood. He has run marathons in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and New York besides Chicago.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
WINNIPEG, Canada — Mark Scheifele broke a tie with 8:13 left with his second goal of the game, Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Kings 3-2 on Saturday.
Scheifele picked Josh Morrissey’s pass out of the air and deflected it past goalie Darcy Kuemper to give Winnipeg the lead. Alex Iafallo had a power-play goal for the Jets in the first period to help the Jets rebound from a season-opening home loss to Dallas on Thursday night.
Scheifele tied it 2-2 with 1:03 left in the second. In the tail end of killing a penalty, Morgan Barron stole the puck and fed Scheifele, whose backhander deflected off Anderson past Kuemper.
The Kings took a 2-1 lead midway through the second. Kempe finished off a pretty three-way passing play with Anze Kopitar and Andrei Kuzmenko.
Anderson tied it 1-1 just 50 seconds into the second period. His screened shot from the point got by Hellebuyck.
Sitting in a chair on Thursday night as fans came into SoFi Stadium to watch high school football games between Loyola and Gardena Serra and Leuzinger against Palos Verdes, you can hear the different reactions of first-time visitors as they climbed escalators and stairs to reach their seats.
Many were in awe.
“This is nice.”
“Wow. This stadium is so different.”
“I can’t believe I paid $80 for a high school game.”
The games have been put together by Playbook Events. Teams have to give up revenue they would make from hosting their own games. Parking costs $10 while student and adult tickets range from $29 to $71. Usual student tickets are $10 at home sites.
It’s clear players enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime experience to play in a prestigious NFL stadium that will host the swimming competition at the 2028 Olympic Games. And first-time visitors who’ve never been able attend a concert or NFL game at SoFi because of cost are truly impressed with the seating and experience.
But there’s also some issues that could enhance the experience. One fan suggested better directions on where to park and how to pay for parking, since only credit cards are accepted, and lots of grandparents are not tech savvy on how to purchase tickets online or which entrance to take to find the parking lot. Schools need to provide more specific instructions. Organizers are also requiring fans to sign a waiver when entering, leading to long lines if you don’t arrive early.
The cost for fans can be prohibitive, which means schools need to take that into account when agreeing to play a game at SoFi. The organizers certainly know what they are doing. Games start on time and security is plentiful and helpful for first-time visitors.
Loyola athletic director Chris O’Donnell said, “For this kind of experience, for both teams, it’s really great. I’d do this again in a second.”
The next big game at SoFi Stadium happens Thursday at 5 p.m. when unbeaten Los Alamitos plays Huntington Beach Edison.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
Then over in the NFL, the reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles were dominated by NFC West rival New York Giants 34-17 on “Thursday Night Football.” And in the NHL, the Flyers lost their season opener 2-1 to the Florida Panthers.
For any other city’s fan base, that might be considered the worst day ever. But believe it or not, Philly fans had to endure a similarly disheartening day nearly 42 years ago, according to sports statistician Greg Harvey.
Cities in history to have their NHL team lose, NFL team lose & MLB team lose in the playoffs & be eliminated all on the same day:
Harvey pointed out on X that Oct. 16, 1983, was the only other time in history that one city’s MLB team team suffered a season-ending loss in the postseason while its NFL and NHL teams lost as well. And that unlucky city was Philadelphia.
That was the day that the Phillies, nicknamed the “Wheeze Kids” that season for all the veteran players on the roster, fell 5-0 to the Baltimore Orioles to lose the World Series four games to one.
Meanwhile, the Eagles were off to a 4-2 start to their season before losing that day to the Dallas Cowboys 37-7. It was the start of a seven-game losing streak for the Eagles, who wound up finishing the season 5-11.
The Flyers suffered their first loss of that season — 5-4 to the New York Rangers — after starting the year with five straight wins. Months later, they ended up finishing third in the Patrick Division before being swept out of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs by the Washington Capitals.
So maybe, just maybe, you might want to take it easy on the Philadelphia sports fans in your life — at least until the next time one or more them does something that makes the rest of us cringe.
And hopefully those fans extend the same courtesy to Kerkering. Maybe he’ll end up being the one person who can tell Santa Claus and the others that Philly fans aren’t all that bad after all.
With back-to-back wins over Palos Verdes and Inglewood, Leuzinger High’s football team has vaulted to the top of the Bay League hierarchy.
On Thursday night, despite losing quarterback Russell Sekona to a fractured hand in the second quarter, Leuzinger (5-0, 2-0) relied on its defense and the play of running back-turned-quarterback Journee Tonga to come away with a 40-14 victory over Palos Verdes at SoFi Stadium.
Tonga contributed touchdown runs of 14 and 21 yards on option plays. Then Leuzinger’s speed back, Kelton Strickland, ran 84 yards for a touchdown late in the third quarter. And Tonga added a 61-yard touchdown pass. All this came with Palos Verdes (4-3, 1-1) thinking the 5-foot-8 Tonga wasn’t going to be much of passing threat. Aided by his offensive line, Tonga found holes in the Sea Kings’ defense.
The Olympians’ defense frustrated Palos Verdes quarterback Ryan Rakowski, who was ejected with 11:41 left after getting into a squabble with Leuzinger linebacker Samu Moala. The game was delayed as the officials talked to both coaches trying to determine ejections. Moala was ejected along with two teammates.
“High emotion,” Moala said. “Lesson learned.”
Those ejected can be sidelined for one to three games depending on the officials’ report.
Rakowski had 12 yards passing at halftime and finished with 87 yards.
Palos Verdes made a brief rally in the fourth quarter, recovering an onside kick, recovering another fumble and closing to 27-14 on two touchdown passes by senior quarterback Giorgio Di Mascio. But Pakipole Moala clinched Leuzinger’s victory with a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown. Then Tonga added his third rushing touchdown of the night.
It was a moment applauded and appreciated by high school football fans and coaches throughout California.
Matt Logan, respected and admired for his vision, creativity and consistency as head coach at Corona Centennial for 29 years, achieved historic victory No. 300 on Thursday night when his team delivered a 62-20 win over Eastvale Roosevelt.
He becomes the 15th football coach in state history to reach 300 wins, according to CalHiSports.com. Jim Benkert at Simi Valley is the only other active coach in the exclusive club that is topped by Hall of Famer Bob Ladouceur with 399 wins at Concord De La Salle.
Corona Centennial football coach Matt Logan closing in on 300 victories in his career.
(Craig Weston)
The school tried to get as many of his former players to come to the game to celebrate, with 18 graduating classes represented. Afterward, Logan received lots of hugs and a special trophy from athletic director Tony Barile. There was a large sign unfurled with “300 wins” prominent, along with special T-shirts and hats made for the occasion. His teams have won 10 Southern Section titles. The Huskies (5-1) are hoping to earn an 11th when the playoffs begin next month.
“Something I’ll remember forever,” Logan said.
One of the humorous moments was Logan trying to recognize and remember some of his former players from as far back as 1995.
“I actually recognized most of them, especially from the ones from when I first started,” he said.
Logan, 58, started out as a defensive coordinator at Centennial for two years before taking over as head coach. To show his versatility, he became known for his program’s warp speed, no-huddle offense through the years. His team in 2015 remains the only team other than St. John Bosco and Mater Dei to win a Division 1 championship.
“I love this city. I grew up in this city,” Logan said of his loyalty to the community.
Two Centennial running backs, Malaki Davis and Zander Lewis, led the Huskies on Thursday night, each rushing for more than 100 yards. Davis had four touchdowns.
Next week is a showdown league game against unbeaten Vista Murrieta.
So when the Rams play the 49ers on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium, McVay fully expects the usual massive contingent of 49ers fans.
“They obviously have a great fan base,” Sean McVay said Monday during a videoconference with reporters before deadpanning. “I blame my grandpa for that.”
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Gary Klein breaks down what went right for the Rams in their stunning comeback win over the Indianapolis Colts at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
McVay could also blame former team ownership, which moved the Rams from Los Angeles to St. Louis after the 1994 season. That left Southern California without the Rams for more than two decades before they returned in 2016.
The departure to St. Louis created untold numbers of Southern California NFL fans who embraced the 49ers, the Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers among other teams.
McVay, however, said he was “hopeful and optimistic” that the Rams on Thursday will feel the same vibes they got in their season-opening victory over the Houston Texans and on Sunday in their 27-20 victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
“I’ve loved the home atmospheres we’ve had this year,” McVay said, adding, “I certainly felt our crowd. I thought it was an advantage and an edge to us. And I’m looking forward to seeing as many Rams fans come out and support us.”
The Rams’ victory over the Colts improved their record to 3-1 heading into the NFC West opener against the 49ers (3-1), who are coming off a 26-21 defeat by the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The 49ers are in first place in the division, with victories over the Seattle Seahawks (3-1) and the Arizona Cardinals (2-2).
“We got the benefit of them coming to our house,” defensive lineman Braden Fiske said. “We feel good about it. It’s going to be a battle for the division.”
The 49ers started 3-0 despite the absence at times of key players such as quarterback Brock Purdy, star tight end George Kittle and star defensive end Nick Bosa among others.
Purdy, who signed a $182.5-million extension before the season, is dealing with a toe issue and his status for Thursday night’s game will be determined. Kittle remains on injured reserve for at least one more game and Bosa is out for the season.
San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey carries the ball against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sept. 28.
(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
But the 49ers still have running back Christian McCaffrey and linebacker Fred Warner leading the way for coach Kyle Shanahan’s team.
Last season, the Rams defeated the 49ers at SoFi Stadium, 27-24, on a last-second field goal by Joshua Karty.
After the victory over the Colts, Rams edge rusher Jared Verse noted fans’ spirited reaction when the 49ers-Jaguars score flashed on the video screen, with the 49ers trailing.
“That’s just what it means,” Verse said of playing against the 49ers. “It means a little bit more.”
Etc.
The Rams suffered no obvious significant injuries against the Colts, McVay said, but added that players would be evaluated. … McVay said he was “not sure” whether offensive lineman Steve Avila (ankle) would be ready to play Thursday. Avila has been sidelined for three games. Justin Dedich has started in Avila’s place at left guard.
La Cañada High football coach Dave Avramovich said he has never heard anyone greet, question or call out running back Dash Paper by his last name. It’s always, “Dash!”
It’s an appropriate nickname (his real first name is Dashiell) for how he’s been performing on the football team for the 5-0 Spartans. In his latest game on Thursday night, Paper rushed for 189 yards and one touchdown in a 42-13 win over Maranatha.
The senior has gained 689 yards and scored six touchdowns.
“He’s awesome,” Avramovich said. “He’s grown up a ton. Last year he was the backup running back. He had a bunch of touchdowns called back because of penalties. We could see the explosiveness in practices and games. He’s running tough.”
One of the top flag football teams is Camarillo, led by basketball point guard Mya Rei Smith, the quarterback. Athlete. This is what happens when you get your top girl athletes out for flag football. Camarillo is 16-1. pic.twitter.com/eEUoUe3i2R
La Cañada has wins over Crescenta Valley, La Salle and Maranatha, all neighboring schools. If they played and beat St. Francis, they could claim to be neighborhood champions.
“I don’t want to play St. Francis,” Avramovich said.
He’s become good friends with St. Francis coach Dean Herrington.
For now, it’s about watching Dash dash his way for touchdowns.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
TOKYO — When Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone powered though the final curve of the 400-meter final at world championships, she glanced to her right and saw something that hadn’t been there in a while.
Another runner.
She had a race on her hands.
The best way to explain how McLaughlin-Levrone became the first woman in nearly 40 years to crack the all-but-unscalable 48-second mark in the 400 is that the opponent she beat Thursday night on a rain-glistened track in Tokyo, Marileidy Paulino, broke 48 seconds, too.
“You don’t run something like that without amazing women pushing you to it,” McLaughlin-Levrone said.
The final numbers in this one: McLaughlin-Levrone 47.78 seconds. Paulino 47.98.
They are the second and third fastest times in history, short only of the 47.60 by East Germany’s Marita Koch, set Oct. 6, 1985 — one of the last vestiges from an Eastern Bloc doping system that was exposed years after it ended, but too late for the records to be stripped from the books.
McLaughlin-Levrone, who stepped away from hurdles to see what she might be able to do in the 400 flat, said she was every bit as focused on winning the title in a new event as going after a record that had always been thought unapproachable.
American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone reacts after winning gold medal in the women’s 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Thursday.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
And Paulino, the reigning Olympic and world champion in this event, wasn’t just going to give it away.
This was an even race, the likes of which McLaughlin-Levrone hadn’t been part of in at least three years in the hurdles, as the runners rounded the stretch. McLaughlin-Levrone opened a gap of about four body lengths with 30 meters left, but Paulino was actually gaining ground when they both lunged into the finish line.
“At the end of the day, this wasn’t my title to hold onto, it was mine to gain,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “Bobby uses boxing terms all the time. He said, ’You’ve got to go out there and take the belt. It’s not yours. You’ve got to go earn it.’”
Bobby is Bobby Kersee, the wizardly coach who helped transform McLaughlin-Levrone into the greatest female hurdler ever and might be doing the same in the 400. Brutal training sessions with one-time UCLA quarter-miler Willington Wright were part of the regimen.
“I felt that somebody was going to have to run 47-something to win this,” Kersee told The Associated Press. “She trained for it. She took on the challenge, took on the risk. She’s just an amazing athlete that I can have no complaints about.”
As the times came up on the scoreboard, the crowd roared. The enormity of the moment wasn’t lost on anyone.
Nobody had come within a half-second of Koch’s mark until this race. Third-place finisher Salwa Eid Nasar clocked 48.19, a time that would have won the last two world championships.
“It’s just amazing what the 400 has become the last couple years,” said Britain’s Amber Anning, who finished fifth in 49.36. “I love it, it makes me want to step up my game. To see it done, it gives hope to us that anything’s possible in the 4.”
Paulino, meanwhile, was more focused on her unique place in history than not winning the race.
“I’m thankful for having the opportunity to break 48,” she said. “I still feel like a winner. I’ve spent five years every day training for this.”
McLaughlin-Levrone took up the 400 flat in 2023, but injuries derailed her run at a world championship that year. She focused on hurdles last year for her second Olympic gold medal in the event, then came back to the flat for 2025.
When she ran 48.29 in the semifinal, she broke a 19-year-old American record and said she still felt she had “something left in the tank.”
Then, with a push from Paulino, she let it loose.
“Today was a really great race for track and field, and I’m grateful to put myself in position to bring an exciting event to our sport,” McLaughlin-Levrone said.
It’s still an open question as to whether she will stick around in this race long enough to go after Koch’s record, or return to the hurdles, where the number “50” hangs out there much like “48” did in the race she won Thursday night.
Nobody had thought much about 50 seconds in hurdles until McLaughlin-Levrone started breaking the record in that event on a semi-regular basis. Four years ago at the Olympics, she lowered it to 51.46 in the empty stadium in Tokyo.
American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone crosses the finish line, winning the women’s 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Thursday.
(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
She broke it three more times and then, in Paris last year, took it down by another .28 seconds to 50.37.
Over time, those races became mere matters of McLaughlin-Levrone against the clock.
This time, something different — a bona fide showdown for the gold medal that knocked down a once-unthinkable barrier in racing.
Whatever McLaughlin-Levrone’s next move is, it’s bound to be fast.
“I think, now, 47 tells her that she can break 50,” Kersee said. “Knowing her, she’s probably going back to the hurdles and try to take what she learned now in the quarter(-mile) and try to execute a plan to run 49.99 or better.”
The Slye brothers at Salesian High, Jordan Jr., a sophomore defensive back/receiver, and Marty, a freshman quarterback, certainly have the genes to succeed.
Their mother, Dena, a counselor at the school, was a softball standout at Washington. Their father, Jordan, was a receiver at Washington.
Now the boys have helped Salesian to a 2-1 start. Jordan Jr. is a 6-foot-1 cornerback with big-time potential. Marty got the size in the family at 6-4 and 235 pounds. He’s been the starting quarterback in three games, asked to contribute immediately as a freshman.
Jordan Jr. said it’s fun playing together on the same team. Jordan caught a touchdown pass from Marty on Thursday night against Bishop Alemany, but it was called back because of a penalty.
“It’s amazing having them, and a third one is on the way,” coach Anthony Atkins said.
Yes, a third Slye brother, Michael, will be a freshman next fall, so prepare for the era of the Slye brothers at Salesian.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
Moyo Odebunmi, a junior running back at Cleveland High and native of Nigeria who had never played varsity football until this season, is quickly adjusting to the speed of the game.
On Thursday night against Arleta, his first three carries resulted in touchdown runs of 68, 85 and 59 yards. He also caught a touchdown and had a 99-yard kickoff return in Cleveland’s 70-37 win. He finished with 303 yards rushing.
Odebunmi, who is 5-foot-7 and 155 pounds, didn’t play football as a freshman, came out last season and learned the game on junior varsity. Now coach Mario Guzman can’t find enough spots to use him.
“We had him all over the field,” Guzman said. “He’s just an athlete we have to have out there.”
Another big contributor for Cleveland was soccer athlete Samael Cerritos, who was 10 for 10 on PATs.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
But for their most intriguing recent draft pick, it’s also the opening day of a different kind of season.
In the 17th round of last month’s MLB draft, the Dodgers took a flier on University of Missouri pitcher Sam Horn, a 6-foot-4 right-hander with a big fastball, a promising slider and an athletic, projectable build.
Like most late-round prospects hoping to become a diamond in the rough, Horn came with questions. He pitched just 15 innings in his college career after undergoing Tommy John surgery as a sophomore. His limited body of work led to a wide range of scouting opinions.
In Horn’s case, however, the biggest unknowns had nothing to do with his potential as a pitcher.
Because, starting Thursday night, he will also be under center as quarterback for Missouri’s football team.
Horn is not only a two-sport athlete, but someone still undecided on whether his future will be on a mound or the gridiron. As a quarterback, he was a four-star recruit in Missouri’s 2022 signing class. And this fall, he has been locked in a battle with Penn State transfer Beau Pribula, jockeying for first-string signal-caller duties at an SEC program coming off a 10-win season.
When Missouri opens its 2025 football schedule Thursday night against Central Arkansas, Pribula will play the first half, and Horn will play the second half. As for the rest of the season, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz has yet to hand either player all the keys to the offense.
“I think both quarterbacks have done an excellent job of doing the things that we’ve asked them to do, and there wasn’t enough separation that I felt like there was a clear-cut starter,” Drinkwitz told reporters this week. “And so the next-best evaluation is in a live football game to see how guys respond, not only to preparation and a game plan, but also respond to a crowd, also respond to being tackled and being hit.”
It’s a QB battle that Dodgers officials have followed with fascination throughout Missouri’s fall camp.
Already, the club has signed Horn to a baseball contract with an almost $500,000 signing bonus (well above the norm for the 525th overall pick).
The question now is whether he ever ends up playing for them.
“We’re pleasantly hoping he does,” Dodgers vice president of baseball operations Billy Gasparino said this week. “We think there’s a whole window of opportunity to get him much better, and quickly.”
Once upon a time, the Dodgers viewed Horn as one of college baseball’s better pitching prospects. Even in a limited sample size as a freshman in 2023, Gasparino said the team evaluated him as having potential future first-round talent.
“He’s a tremendous athlete,” said Gasparino, the longtime point man for the Dodgers’ draft operations. “He has really good arm action. I think that part was very elite.”
By the time Horn actually became draft-eligible this summer, though, uncertainties about his future made his scouting process unique.
All along, Horn signaled to MLB teams that he wanted to play football this fall. As a redshirt junior, he will have another season of eligibility in football next year as well. Gasparino said the narrative around Horn, who is originally from Lawrenceville, Ga., is that “baseball is his first love.”
“But,” Gasparino added, “he definitely seemed split on what he wanted to do going forward.”
This is not the first recent example of the Dodgers drafting a power-conference college quarterback.
Two years ago, they used their final 20th-round selection in the 2023 draft on then-Oregon State quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, a former two-sport star at St. John Bosco. Uiagalelei, however, never signed with the team. As a highly-touted five-star talent with NFL aspirations, he never made the switch to baseball either, his draft rights with the Dodgers lapsing after he transferred to Florida State for the 2024 football season.
Horn’s situation appears to be different. Unlike Uiagalelei (who never actually pitched collegiately), he spent the last three years on Missouri’s baseball team. And if he doesn’t win the starting quarterback job with the Tigers football squad this fall, his odds of reporting to the Dodgers next spring figure to be much more realistic.
That’s why, as Missouri’s QB battle has unfolded this preseason, Gasparino scoured Missouri recruiting site message boards and local news outlets, looking for any indication of which way the program was leaning.
“The coach is going to give nothing,” Gasparino said jokingly. “So you kind of have to go on the message boards, and to the local writers, to figure out, ‘Alright, who is winning? What is going on?’ It’s been kind of a hard read.”
Leading up to the draft, Horn’s situation also required extra scouting legwork. The Dodgers dusted off his old freshman year and high school evaluations, after he pitched just 10 ⅔ innings in Missouri’s spring baseball season coming off his Tommy John procedure. They also reached out to NFL scouting departments and college football recruiters, “just to figure out how talented he was at football,” Gasparino said.
The Dodgers do have downside protection if Horn ultimately decides to stick with the football, with Gasparino noting that “to actually get his signing bonus, he has to come to us.”
But in the meantime, they’ll be keeping a close eye on Missouri’s football season — starting with Thursday night’s opener in which Horn is slated to see the field.
“Definitely gonna be watching,” Gasparino said. “I mean, I guess first, it’s like, don’t get hurt. But also just hoping that the right answer becomes very clear on what he should do sport-wise … Of course, we’d be disappointed if it’s not baseball. But would hate another year of in-between.”
Alyssa Thompson scored in the 86th minute and Angel City snapped an eight-game winless streak with a 1-0 victory over the Orlando Pride on Thursday night at BMO Stadium.
Angel City (5-7-5) had not won a match since May 9. Thompson’s goal was her sixth of the season, second most on the team.
It was Alex Straus’ first win as Angel City coach and the franchise’s first win against the Pride since 2023.
“It felt really good. I feel like I haven’t had a goal in a while,” Thompson said. “So being able to get those goals that I’ve been working on, and just the positions that I’ve been in, in training. It was really nice.”
Orlando (8-5-4) is winless in its last five matches. The Pride were without top scorer Barbra Banda, who injured her hip in the team’s scoreless draw with the Kansas City Current last week. Banda has eight goals this season.
Orlando announced earlier Thursday that they had signed Lizbeth Ovalle from Mexico’s Tigres UANL for a record transfer fee. Ovalle, known as Jacquie, is set to play in the Liga MX Femenil All-Star game this weekend before joining the Pride.
Angel City welcomed back defender Ali Riley, who was available on the bench for the match. Riley was placed on the season-ending injury list midway through the 2024 season because of a chronic leg injury that threatened her career.
The Little League team from Honolulu has a chance to become a three-time world champion.
Winners of the Little League World Series in 2018 and 2022, the team from Hawaii earned a spot in this year’s World Series on Thursday night with a 4-1 win over Fullerton Golden Hill in San Bernardino. They will travel to Williamsport, Pa., where the World Series begins on Wednesday.
Golden Hill’s only two losses came from Honolulu, including a 1-0 loss to start the tournament. It was the first time in the league’s 69-year history that a team had advanced to the West Region final.
Pitcher Bronson Fermahin took advantage of his team scoring three runs in the first two innings by throwing lots of strikes. He had eight strikeouts through the first four innings and finished with 11 in 5 ⅔ innings before Golden Hill pushed across a run with two outs in the sixth.
Fullerton Golden Hill pitcher Lincoln Ploog struck out 10 in a loss.
(Craig Weston)
Lincoln Ploog of Golden Hill was brought in to pitch with two outs in the first inning. He hit three batters but finished with 10 strikeouts in 4 ⅓ innings.
Honolulu scored two runs in the first on an RBI single from Evan Crawford and a bases-loaded hit batter. An RBI double in the second by Kuana Payanal provided a 3-0 lead. Mason Mitani hit a home run in the fifth. Golden Hill scored a run in the sixth. Fermahin had to leave because of pitch count with two outs in the sixth. Mitani came in to get the final out, catching a broken-bat line drive.
Golden Hill showed off two future standouts in Ploog and infielder Gavin Janicke, who came in with four hits in eight at-bats. Janicke struck out 14 in a win on Wednesday and wasn’t eligible to pitch Thursday.
Rodríguez, who stole third base in the first inning, has 15 home runs and 20 stolen bases this season. The 24-year-old is the first player in MLB history with at least 15 homers and 20-plus stolen bases in each of their first four seasons.
Evans (4-3), a 24-year-old rookie, allowed three hits and walked three with three strikeouts. Andrés Muñoz pitched a scoreless ninth for his 23rd save.
Rodríguez hit a solo shot off Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi (4-7) and Arozarena added a two-run homer to give the Mariners a 3-1 lead in the fifth.
Mike Trout doubled and then scored when Nolan Schanuel followed with a single in the first for the Angels. Zach Neto added an RBI single in the seventh.
The Mariners acquired first baseman Josh Naylor from Arizona earlier Thursday, ahead of the trade deadline on July 31.
Key moment: Trout drew a four-pitch walk to load the bases with two out in the ninth before Muñoz got Schanuel to line out to end the game.
Key stat: Trout has 437 total bases and 146 runs scored in his career against Seattle, both of which are records. Rafael Palmeiro and Rickey Henderson hold the previous marks of 435 total bases and 145 runs, respectively.
Up next: Seattle’s Bryan Woo (8-5, 2.91 ERA) is scheduled to start Friday against José Soriano (7-7, 3.73) in the second of a four-game series.
Police in Cincinnati arrested at least 13 people, including two journalists, after demonstrators protesting the immigration detention of a former hospital chaplain blocked a two-lane bridge carrying traffic over the Ohio River.
A reporter and a photography intern who were arrested while covering the protest for CityBeat, a Cincinnati news and entertainment outlet, were among those arraigned Friday morning in a Kentucky court.
Other journalists reporting on protests around the U.S. have been arrested and injured this year. More than two dozen were hurt or roughed up while covering protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles.
A Spanish-language journalist was arrested in June while covering a “No Kings” protest against President Trump near Atlanta. Police initially charged Mario Guevara, a native of El Salvador, with unlawful assembly, obstruction of police and being a pedestrian on or along the roadway.
A prosecutor dropped the charges, but Guevara had already been turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is being held in a south Georgia immigration detention center. His lawyers say he has been authorized to work and remain in the country, but ICE is trying to deport him.
Video from the demonstration in Cincinnati on Thursday night shows several tense moments, including when an officer punches a protester several times as police wrestle him to the ground.
Earlier, a black SUV drove slowly onto the Roebling Bridge while protesters walked along the roadway that connects Cincinnati with Covington, Ky. Another video shows a person in a neon-colored vest pushing against the SUV.
Police in Covington said those arrested had refused to comply with orders to disperse. The department said in a statement that officers who initially attempted to talk with the protest’s organizer were threatened and met with hostility.
Among the charges filed against those arrested were rioting, failing to disperse, obstructing emergency responders, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
Reporter Madeline Fening and photo intern Lucas Griffith were charged with felony rioting and several other charges, said Ashley Moor, the editor in chief of CityBeat.
A judge on Friday set a $2,500 bond for each of those arrested.
The arrests happened during a protest in support of Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian immigrant who worked as a chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. He was detained last week after he showed up for a routine check-in with ICE officials at its office near Cincinnati.
Protesters met in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday in support of Soliman, then walked across the bridge carrying a banner that read, “Build Bridges Not Walls.”
Covington police said that “while the department supports the public’s right to peaceful assembly and expression, threatening officers and blocking critical infrastructure, such as a major bridge, presents a danger to all involved.”
Seewer writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
When four top film studio musicians formed the Hollywood String Quartet in the late 1930s, its name was presumed an oxymoron. Exalted string quartet devotees belittled film soundtracks, while studio heads had a reputation for shunning classical music longhairs.
The musicians spent two intense years in rehearsal before disbanding when war broke out, and the quartet was brought back together in 1947 by two of its founders, Felix Slatkin (concertmaster of 20th Century Fox Studio Orchestra) and his wife, Eleanor Aller (principal cellist of the Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra). Oxymoron or not, Hollywood produced the first notable American string quartet.
Throughout the 1950s, the ensemble made a series of revelatory LPs for Capitol Records performing the late Beethoven string quartets and much else, while also joining Frank Sinatra in his torchy classic, “Close to You.” Everything that the Hollywood String Quartet touched was distinctive; every recording remains a classic.
The legacy of the Hollywood String Quartet is a celebration of Hollywood genre-busting and also of string quartet making. Today, the outstanding Lyris Quartet is one of many outstanding string quartets who can be heard in the latest blockbusters. Another is the New Hollywood String Quartet, which is devoting its annual four-day summer festival to honoring its inspiration as it celebrates its 25th anniversary.
The quartet’s festival began Thursday night and runs through Sunday in San Marino at the Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall. The repertory is taken from the earlier group’s old recordings. And the concerts are introduced by Slatkin and Aller’s oldest son, who as a young boy fell asleep to his parents and their colleagues rehearsing in his living room after dinner.
Conductor Leonard Slatkin speaks at the New Hollywood String Quartet concert at the Huntington.
(New Hollywood String Quartet)
The celebrated conductor Leonard Slatkin credits his vociferous musical appetite to his parents, who, he said Thursday, enjoyed the great scores written in this golden age of movie music and also championed new classical music as well as the masterpieces of the past. L.A. had no opera company in those days, and Slatkin said his parents likened film scores to modern opera scores.
Just about everyone has heard his parents in one film or another. Take “Jaws,” which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. That’s Aller’s cello evoking John Williams’ shark-scary earworm.
You’ve no doubt heard New Hollywood violinists Tereza Stanislav and Rafael Rishik, violist Robert Brophy and cellist Andrew Shulman on some movie. IMDb counts Brophy alone as participating on 522 soundtracks. You might also have heard one or more of the musicians in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra or Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The New Hollywood String Quartet, from left: Rafael Rishik, Andrew Shulman, Tereza Stanislav and Robert Brophy.
(Sam Muller)
The New Hollywood’s programming may not encompass the original quartet’s range, but it is nonetheless a mixed selection of pieces that have somewhat fallen by the wayside, such as Borodin’s Second String Quartet. The original quartet’s performances and swashbuckling recording of the Borodin surely caught the attention of L.A. director Edwin Lester. In 1953 Lester created and premiered the musical “Kismet,” which adapts parts of the Borodin quartet, for Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, before it went on to be a hit on Broadway.
Times have changed and the New Hollywood brings a more robust tone and more overt interaction to its effusive interpretation compared with the silken and playful Slatkin and crew, who were all Russian-trained players. Hugo Wolf’s short “Italian Serenade,” which opened the program, was here lush and Italianate, while on an early 1950s disc it dances more lightly.
The big work was César Franck’s Piano Quintet. Slatkin noted that the recording, released in 1955, didn’t sell well, probably thanks to the album cover’s saturnine painting of a composer that few would recognize. Slatkin also noted that his parents weren’t enamored of their performance, but then again, he explained that they were temperamentally ever ready to find fault.
That recording, which features his uncle, Victor Aller, a graceful pianist, is slow and commanding. Jean-Yves Thibaudet was the right guest in every way for the big-boned performance at the Huntington. He is a French pianist with a flair for German music, well suited for the Belgian French composer’s Wagner-inspired score.
Thibaudet is also a longtime L.A. resident and an especially versatile performer who happens to be featured on the new soundtrack recording of Dario Marianelli’s “Pride & Prejudice,” which tops Billboard’s classical and classical crossover charts. He and Slatkin also go back decades, having performed together and become such good friends that the conductor turned pages for him in the Franck.
Seeing the 80-year-old Slatkin onstage evoked a remarkable sense of history, reminiscent of the roots to L.A.’s musical openness that his parents represented. On my drive home Thursday, I couldn’t resist following the route Albert Einstein would have taken after practicing his violin when he lived a 12-minute bike ride away during his Caltech years — the time Slatkin’s parents were making music history at the studios. Like them, Einstein played with the L.A. Philharmonic (although invited once not because he was a good violinist but because he was Einstein).
The New Hollywood and Thibaudet made no effort to relive the past in Franck’s quintet. Instead, in their opulence and expressive explosiveness, they showed Hollywood how to produce a remake that’s magnificent.
In the meantime, Leonard Slatkin, who is a former music director of the L.A. Phil at the Hollywood Bowl, returns later this month to the venue where his parents met in 1935 at a Hollywood Bowl Symphony competition. He will conduct a July 24 program that includes a recent work by the next generation of Slatkins. His son, Daniel, is a film and television composer.
There’s a reason Nate Jackson’s debut Netflix special arrives during barbecue season. Perched on a stool under the spotlight at his shows, the comedian spends most of the evening delivering hospital-worthy third-degree burns to crowd members who want the smoke. If you lock eyes with him in the first five rows, chances are you even paid extra to be his next victim by sitting in “the roast zone.”
During a recent pair of packed, back-to-back gigs at the Wiltern last month, the Tacoma-bred comic made full use of his flame-throwing abilities to torch his highest-paying L.A. fans over their questionable fashion choices, weird haircuts and bad teeth. As the evening progresses he dives deeper, extracting more information and grilling them about their personal lives and romantic relationships with a camera zoomed in on them, broadcasting their faces on a jumbo screen if they were at a Dodger game. When everything works right, Jackson finds a way to weave the stories of his random burn victims together in a way that makes the whole show feel pre-planned. Meanwhile, even as Jackson is busy making fans the butt of his comedic freestyle, the person laughing the hardest is usually the roastee. It’s the mark of good crowd work that’s not simply well done but more importantly done well.
This ride of the unpredictable twists and turns is given the same spotlight and attention in his special as his pre-written jokes in a way that keeps the pace engaging while making his audience the stars of the show. It makes his debut “Nate Jackson: Super Funny” a testament to the style and the brand of comedy he’s grown from a weekly comedy night to a brick-and-mortar comedy club and now a Netflix special that bears the same name.
Speaking of names … no, he didn’t interview himself for this story. But a journalist and the comedian swapping professions for a day or two could be funny. Whaddaya think, Nate?
Recently Nate Jackson spoke to Nate Jackson about his career coming up in the Tacoma comedy scene, refining his ability to improv on shows like MTV’s “Wild ‘N Out” and using his crowd work skills to go viral on TikTok.
This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Well, well … Nate Jackson.
Nate Jackson.
I heard about you, man.
When I Google me … we come up. What is the likelihood of that?
It’s been my whole career — searching “our name.”
Then there’s a random guy [another Nate Jackson] playing a guitar and then all of the sudden, a third-string Denver Bronco [also named Nate Jackson] wants to write a book about playing football while high, and then he takes over the front three pages of our name.
No worries, us doing this interview together will definitely help us both surge in Google rankings.
So you’re Nate Jackson. I’m Nate Jackson Jr., and my dad is [also named] Nate Jackson. So this is a lot of Nate Jackson.
Some Nate-ception going on!
[Laughs] Bars!
Congrats on your latest special, “Nate Jackson: Super Funny.”
What’d you think?
I thought that it was a great balance of what everyone’s seeing on you on their phones [via TikTok] recently, and it also shows people what you spent your entire career doing in comedy before social media. You’re able to convey the level of crowd work you do in a live setting really well. I know a lot of people say, “Oh, crowd work is so easy to do,” but is it actually really hard?
Oh no, it’s easy to do. It’s hard to do right.
“Organic [humor] wins almost every single time when you’re writing material. One of the main challenges is making it so that it’s consumable by the masses,” Jackson said. “You want to write about things that people can relate to.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
How did it start for you with the crowd work becoming a central part of your act?
It never was a thing I wanted to go to as a central part of my act. I fought against that concept. If you work on a joke for three months, you want that to work more than the thing you just walked out [on stage] and said, “Look at that light flickering.” But you can’t control what is going to hit harder. Organic [humor] wins almost every single time when you’re writing material. One of the main challenges is making it so that it’s consumable by the masses. You want to write about things that people can relate to. You want to be relatable, right? Well, what’s more relatable than, “It’s hot in here, and we can all feel it.”
How did you get started in the Tacoma comedy scene?
I started because I had a room in Tacoma, Washington. I had a lot of rooms in Washington, and I consolidated them into a Thursday night, and it was the “Super Funny Comedy Show,” which is now the “Super Funny Comedy Club.” But it was every Thursday, and I was young enough in my career that I was like, I need to produce a show that would pack this place out, and I don’t have the skill set to be the [driving force] yet. But I can host; I can add a live band. I need my headliners coming from somewhere else. So that’s why we had [big names like] Lil Rel, Tiffany Haddish, Leslie Jones, Deon Cole. So Tacoma was spoiled by the lineups that came and did [my] Thursday night.
In doing that, every week I could write, but I could not keep up with the pacing of having a monologue every Thursday. [I was] a new comic without my voice. So I abandoned that. Sometimes I would make a joke and then say, “Now I’m just gonna mess with who’s in front of me.” And that [crowd work] muscle started to pulsate. Then I added a little improv to it. Then it I said, “All right, this next [set] I’m gonna go up with [no material]. I’m gonna go up naked and I’m coming off with a ‘W.’” It got to where people are like, “Yo, I kind of like it when you just freestyle.”
So doing improv on stage led to you freestyle roasting people?
It didn’t necessarily need to be a roast. I could be [a joke on] something I saw on the news that day. They just want to see me create — to just pick up the newspaper and then go off that. I’m like, “Guys, that’s a slap in the face to when I’m putting three, four hours in at Starbucks, working on the writing and making sure the punch lines are all there.” But it’s the same thing I’m doing with the crowd work content. I don’t just mess with people for the sake of messing with them. I am getting information to then plug into a setup. Now we’re in a comedy structure where it’s act out and mix up a set up, a punch line, etc. I want to make it worth slowing down the pacing that I would have if I was the only one talking and dictating the energy.
When I go to somebody, it is now at their pacing. They can take four minutes on the answer, and people are now fidgeting in the crowd. I’m like, “Come on now, hey, come on.” You got to keep it moving; that’s the rule to what’s happening onstage. It can go slow, but we need to feel like we’re going from point A in a story or an interaction to point B. Sometimes maybe I’m going from point A to point C, and I hit you with some misdirection in there, then, wham to point C and all connects. People are like, “Wait, so the last 10 minutes was a setup?!” That’s what I pride myself on. So you, how do just say, “Oh, that’s crowd work” — is it?
“I think that what I’m doing it is the evolution of stand-up,” Jackson said. “You [can’t] go on stage and just do your set the same way — the way you practice it in your mirror — in front of a blinding light, where you can’t even see [the crowd].”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
It’s definitely more than what people ascribe to it as a part of a show. It turns the fans into the show in a way that they can walk away feeling good about — even if they’ve been roasted.
And that’s on me, because I could just be malicious and leave it bad. But I always, I try to uplift. I’m a “Que,” a member of Omega Psi Phi [fraternity]. It’s one of our principles, “to uplift.” I don’t want you to leave the show being like, “Man, I’ll never watch a show again.” No, it should be like, “Okay, [he roasted me], but we had fun.” I’m not trying to beat up on people.
I wanted to talk about the role TikTok played in your recent glow-up in comedy over the last few years. How did it help you develop as a comedian?
I just started showing [my skills]. Once you start showing it, you’re not a secret anymore. Comics would come to Tacoma — which is off the beaten path — and then be like, “There’s a guy up there that even as a host you need to have, you need to be ready to follow, because he’s just — he’s literally just up there winging it, and he’s on fire.” Everyone in comedy knows the guy or the girl, and that was kind of what the stigma became. I was one of comedy’s best-kept secrets. People would come up [to my comedy shows], they would see my razzle-dazzle, they would take little bits of my recipe and add it to their stuff. And so I would watch people years later and be like, “Really … really?!” Don’t come up here and take my sauce and then, because you got more shine than me, use it. It takes a lot to just be the person that can handle that and not develop a chip on the shoulder. But if I’m the creator, if I’m their origin and I’m the source of [my style of comedy], then I have no issue continuing to create.
People were just like, “You need to get online!” I was like, “I am! I have every app and I’m tired now. How many things I gotta manage?” And it just got to the point where I was like, “Alright, let me get on. Let me do TikTok. That’s the app where people are following.” I saw friends that were having wild success on there, and I was like, alright, I’ll try it. And sure enough, within six or seven clips — the seventh [clip] hit. It wasn’t mega viral or anything, but it did more than my average video was doing over on on Instagram. I said, there’s something to this. And I stayed on it. And then things kept it [growing]. And so I was watching, and the needle was moving. And so here we are.
How often would you post clips on TikTok when you started using it?
I was posting at least once a day. That is not easy, because you got to get your sound right, your video needs to be quality, and then you got to pull it, edit it, and caption the words that are on the screen. There’s AI now, but all of us who were doing this [before AI] would laugh about it and be like,“When do you caption?” We’ll watch a movie and literally just be captioning. For a five-minute video, a four-minute video, I’m talking about exhaustion … Now, you plug that thing in [with AI] and the whole thing is done. Thank God, or thank computer. I don’t know who [I] was supposed to thank in that scenario, but it streamlined the process so much more content can come out now. What took me all night long to get one clip out — now we do three a day. Or two a day now, at the very least.
We talk about how AI can be a threat to original entertainment, including comedy. But are there ways AI and social media have changed the art form for the better?
Yes, and we can do so much more. We can now edit a whole podcast in two minutes. You would think it’s getting rid of jobs, and in theory it should be, but it should make one person be able to do so much more. Instead of someone losing the job, we have the capacity to put out way more content. So let’s keep all of our employees, but let’s now do 180% times more work. Also as far as AI goes, I’m okay if we stop right now for two years. Let’s just stop right now … before we legitimately are in a plot of “Terminator.”
With the type of show you’re doing now, where do you see the future of comedy going?
“Live your life to the fullest. Love hard, play hard,” Jackson said. “We only got one shot at this. I left it all out on the stage. That’s exactly how we should live every day.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
I think that what I’m doing it is the evolution of stand-up. You [can’t] go on stage and just do your set the same way — the way you practice it in your mirror — in front of a blinding light, where you can’t even see [the crowd]. What’s the difference between being in front of seven people or 70,000 people? It feels exactly the same. I think there’s a detachment between the person and the people. We’ve seen the guys that are such glitzy superstars — that just being there to watch it, that’s the presence you want to be in. But with human interaction, every show is different. You have to be malleable and loose. You can’t do your set, 1-2-3-4-5 — you gotta be able to go 5-3-2-1-4, with different segues on the fly.
What’s a better mechanic, the one that does the same 14 diagnostic steps no matter what car comes in, or the one that opens the hood and listens and goes, “[Your car needs a] timing belt, gimme a timing belt”? Let’s say you have five jokes — your hot five. Three [jokes] are about your cat, one’s about your mom and one is about a motorcycle. And you walk out on stage and there’s a motorcycle club in the front four rows. Do you get off of your normal order and establish rapport with the audience by moving your motorcycle joke to the front, or do you set yourself up for failure by talking about your new cat for three jokes to a motorcycle gang? They’ll listen to you if they like you. So get what will establish that first — be malleable.
A lot of new fans of yours may not know, but you’ve had experience with improv years ago in the “Wild ‘N Out” days [on MTV during Season 8, circa 2016]. What’s it like taking those skills you learned on TV and moving it to your own specials, podcasts and social media in this new era?
It’s all “yes, and …” We take the current situation and go, “What else can we add?” We’re just building … the real talent, the expertise comes in when they build, and it’s also a pivot, like the segue you just did right now to get into this topic. So kudos to “Wild ‘N Out” to being able to procure and find all of us and put us together. But all of us obviously had something, otherwise how do you catch the eye of a network showrunner? Shout out to Nile Evans and everybody that’s a part of procuring the talent that ends up being the stars of tomorrow. We can be like, “Oh, it’s a little urban hip-hop show.” Or we can be real about the fact that Katt Williams and Kevin Hart and all these people have come down the halls of that show. I would argue “Wild ‘N Out’s” alumni that have hit are as decorated or more than “In Living Color.”
This special feels like just a big culmination of your career right now. What’s something you would want people to take away from it after watching?
Live your life to the fullest. Love hard, play hard. We only got one shot at this. I left it all out on the stage. That’s exactly how we should live every day. Bert Kreischer said [my new special] made him miss doing stand-up … that is so powerful. The best comics make you go, “Why didn’t I think of that?” or, “God, I gotta write!” He didn’t watch it and go, “You know who you remind me of?” I think that’s not flattering. He watched and said, “I gotta get down on my stuff.” I don’t know if it’s like, “Oh, this kid’s coming,” or if it’s just a, “I respect what you do, I appreciate it, and it made me want to get back on my stuff.” I feel like it’s more the latter, but there’s going to be some of that “OK, this kid’s coming.” There’s going to be nothing you can do because I’m coming, whether you like this special or not.
The Lakers have made a move to a better position in the second round of the Thursday night’s NBA draft, moving up to the 45th pick and sending their 55th pick and cash to the Chicago Bulls, according to people not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The cost of the pick was about $2.5 million, and it may put the Lakers in position to draft a center.
People around the league said the Lakers are trying to put themselves in position to draft center Ryan Kalkbrenner out of Creighton University. Kalkbrenner is older at 23, but he’s 7-1 and averaged 19.4 points and 9.0 rebounds last season, and he shot 66.3% from the field and 34% from three-point range.
And the Lakers’ biggest need this offseason is a center.
