toreadors

Verdugo Hills, the fourth-place finisher in the Valley Mission League with a 10-18 record entering the City Section Division I playoffs, completed a remarkable turnaround on Saturday, winning its fourth consecutive playoff game to take home the Division I title with a 3-1 victory over Taft at Dodger Stadium.

No one was picking the Dons in this one. They had used their two best pitchers in a 10-inning semifinal win over top-seeded Sylmar. But coach Angel Espindola had a plan.

“I’ve got tricks up my sleeve,” he said.

Anthony Velasquez threw a complete-game one-hitter while relying on his defense to make the routine plays and deal with six walks and only one strikeout. At the plate, the hero was first baseman Cutlor Fannon. He had an RBI double in the first inning and an RBI single in the seventh.

But there was drama in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Toreadors’ Victor Jara represented the tying run at the plate with two outs. He hit probably the hardest ball of the day to deep left field.

“The last one scared me,” Velasquez said as he watched left fielder Moises Rodriguez stick out his glove running to catch it and start a victory celebration.

Rodriguez said he “felt all my emotions running through me” as he chased down the fly ball.

“It was surreal,” he said.

Verdugo Hills pitcher Anthony Velasquez threw a complete game in 3-1 win over Taft at Dodger Stadium.

(Craig Weston / For The Times)

Espindola’s best coaching moment came in the bottom of the sixth inning. Taft drew consecutive walks from Velasquez with one out. Espindola went to the mound for a pitcher conference.

“Relax,” is what he told Velasquez.

Then Taft hit into an inning-ending double play.

Verdugo Hills’ fielders more than handled the Dodger Stadium environment. Catcher Miguel Wong threw out a runner trying to steal second. Outfielders Rodriguez, Jack Iafrate and Jessie Olmos combined to catch seven fly balls. And third baseman D’Angelo Duran and shortstop Ethan Sanchez were flawless on ground balls.

As for what happened in the playoffs, Rodriguez said, “We changed our perspective to playing baseball instead of doing baseball. It was let’s have fun.”

Make it 17 and counting.

That is how many boys’ tennis titles Palisades has won in a row after its 18.5 to 11 victory over Taft in the City Section Open Division championship match Wednesday afternoon at Balboa Sports Center in Encino.

Freshman Kensho Ford, who reached the CIF singles semifinals at the Ojai tournament four days earlier, swept his four sets at No. 1 as expected — dropping a total of three games in the process — but what co-coaches Robert Silvers and Bud Kling did not anticipate was Zach Cohen sweeping at No. 4 to give the top-seeded Dolphins a split of the 16 possible singles points.

Cohen played No. 1 doubles with Zach Stuffman all season but was itching to play singles for the playoffs and wound up winning all six of his sets including two before being subbed out for the last two rotations in Monday’s semifinal rout of fourth-seeded Marshall.

“I’ve been asking for two years now and when Coach Rob told me Saturday I’d be in singles I was so excited,” said Cohen, who was also the Division I individual champion while pacing the Dolphins to their fifth straight cross-country team title in November at Elysian Park.

Five is nice, but 17 straight is a dynasty unparalleled in City Section history. No team in any sport from a City school has ever produced a longer streak and no coach has more City crowns than Kling’s 55 (33 boys, 22 girls). Palisades has also appeared in 21 straight finals. The last time two other schools met for the City’s upper division title was 2004 when El Camino Real defeated West Valley League rival Granada Hills.

Palisades got another surprise when the sophomore tandem of Josh Glaser and Bennett Murphy, who were bumped up to varsity a month earlier, won all three of ithebsets at No. 3 doubles, beating the Toreadors’ top two duos in tiebreakers.

Taft’s Dannes Djalilov won two sets at No. 1 singles during Wednesday’s City Section Open Division tennis final.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Danees Djalilov took two of his four sets at No. 1 singles and Brandon Celestine did the same at No. 4 for the second-seeded Toreadors, who were the last team to defeat Palisades in the finals — doing so in 2007 and 2008 led by two-time City individual singles winner Josh Tchan.

Moments after Ford finished off his 6-0 victory over Alec Volodarskiy to move his team within half a point of the championship, Stuffman and new partner Jack Plotkowski put the Dolphins over the 15-point threshold by completing a sweep at No. 1 doubles with a 6-2 ousting of Taft’s No. 2 team.

Taft was seeking its eighth City title and first since winning Division II in 2019.