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Some really bad news to report today that probably shouldn't come as a shock to anyone but will to a lot of people: Facing a tremendous budget deficit, the Kern High School District today announced its plans to do away with the junior varsity level in the six team sports that still have...
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This year’s Western Conference final is sure to be a Wild West showdown. You have the ultimate match up of NBA scorers with Melo vs. Kobe, along with a good low-post match-up in Kenyon Martin and Nene vs. Paul Gasol and Andrew Bynum, and a point guard match-up with Chauncey Billups vs....
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We can't make this stuff up.
It's been, what, a week since the Bakersfield Jam announced they were folding? Now, one passionate fan is trying to drum up interest to buy the team. Hard to tell whether it's a joke or not, given the mix of humor and seriousness that runs throughout the post...
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RYAN BROWN,22, WAS HONORED AT THE CSUB BANQUET AND THE HONORS SOCIETY FOR HIS INCREDIBLE ACHIEVEMENT ON AND OFF THE COURT!
THIS YEAR WAS EXTREMELY HARD FOR HIM IN MANY RESPECTS. Academically sound, Ryan was challenged to maintain his high GPA while missing classes because of...
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In case you haven’t noticed it’s playoff time for both the NBA and the NHL. While both have some interesting first round match-ups, I have decided to do a comparison to give you the chance to decide which league offers more excitement during the playoffs.
So lets fire up the...
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UPDATE, 10:59 a.m. Tuesday: I've just been corrected on this post, so if you saw it last night when it first went up, here's the correction: Bakersfield has been awarded the CIF State Basketball Championships for 2010 only. The finals return to Sacramento in 2011 and then will be...
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There's something about Division IV and the state basketball playoffs. For the second straight year, the only boys basketball team left from Kern County as we reach the Southern Cal semifinal (state quarterfinal) round is in Division IV with a star at guard andis traveling to the...
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From the National Homeschooling basketball tournament to the city parks of Bakersfield: One man rekindles his love for the game.
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We've just completed boys semifinal day in Central Section basketball, and it sounds like there was a batch of great games around the Valley tonight.
One of them I saw firsthand. Liberty started sloppy, played flawlessly in the middle and then got sloppy again in holding off...
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We've taken to calling this upcoming Friday and Saturday the Hell Weekend around the sports desk at The Californian. To wit: The Central Section boys and girls basketball championships will be contested those days in Fresno, the March Meet drag-racing extravaganza at Famoso Speedway...
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It's a crazy one in the office tonight with boys and girls soccer Central Section championships and boys basketball quarterfinals roaring along all over the Valley. I went to Frontier to watch the school unveil the new lights on its stadium and then the Titans girls soccer team, which won...
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The Chinese are calling this the Year of the Ox, and that's fine and dandy. Oxen are strong, formidable animals with a good reputation, I guess, though I don't know the first two things about them.
But strong, formidable teams in Kern County aren't the story of the year so far in high...
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Well, that was a lost weekend. Sorry I wasn't able to post more updates from Lemoore and the wrestling, but at first I had computer problems, and then I just got too busy. But I'll make up for it with an exquisite post tonight. Or at least an average one, right?
All three winter sports are...
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For most sports fans, this topic has been a continuing debate for years. Love him or hate him, Kobe Bryant might possibly be the biggest star in basketball, maybe even bigger than Jordan.
Taking a closer look at the comparison of Jordan and Bryant requires more than just subjective standpoints...
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Rivalry games make college basketball more exciting than the NBA where players get traded, coaches get fired, teams go from title contenders to last place, and suddenly the rivalry dies.
Sure you can talk about Knicks-Heat, Bulls-Pistons, or Lakers-Celtics, all time-specific rivalries. The...
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UPDATE, 10:15 p.m.: So, make it dejå vu all over again. Liberty falls behind Garces in the third quarter, stays with it and nips the Rams at the end. This one was a good bit more exciting, given the way Westin Hill banked home a 3 in the final seconds ("lucky shot," he...
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Girls rankings below or at this link.
One more week of rankings next week, then we'll let the playoff results speak for themselves.
BOYS
1. Clovis East (23-4, 8-0 TRAC, Division I, last week: 1) — For all the talk about how wide-open boys hoops was in the section this year, and...
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Welcome to the last week of the regular season, which in girls basketball is going to decide very little in the respective Kern County league races: Stockdale and Garces have clinched the two big leagues (and really, we knew that was coming a month or more ago) and Arvin has control over the...
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Had a fun day yesterday, running around to surprise my fiancée with some gifts and then checking out a couple of league wrestling tournaments. There weren't many surprises — Bakersfield High dominated, as did some spectacular individual wrestlers like Centennial's Seth Hicks,...
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The Kern High School District needs to leave sports alone. There will be many angry parents and fans (I'm a Centennial fan myself) if sports are cut thanks to Sacramento's problems. It's time we hold our legislature accountable for this, not the student athletes. Many other...
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League champions are rolling in left and right, with soccer season over tonight and basketball just a week behind.
Here's what we know so far:
Boys soccer
SEYL — Golden Valley (9-2-1 in league)
SWYL — West (11-0-1)
SSL — Wasco (8-2-0)
Girls soccer
SEYL — Liberty...
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So with the regular season in soccer wrapping up in the next two days and basketball just a week behind and wrestling's league tournaments starting tomorrow with the SSL meet at Bakersfield Christian, is it too early to hand out awards for winter sports?
Well, yes. Yes it is. I always...
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Girls rankings below or at this link.
These rankings and records do not reflect Tuesday night's games.
BOYS
1. Clovis East (20-4, 5-0 TRAC, Division I, last week: 1) — Remember when we thought the race for No. 1 in the section was wide-open? Maybe it still is, but the...
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I swear I don't mean for this blog to become a ranking service, so I'm going to apologize in advance for four posts in a row — and six out of seven — being rankings.
That said, I don't want to cut out on basketball rankings in the middle of the season. I do promise to have some...
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Girls rankings below or at this link. Again, I promise some soccer rankings by the end of the week.
BOYS
1. Clovis East (19-4, 4-0 TRAC, Division I, last week: 1) — Who would have thought the Timberwolves would be tested more by Buchanan than Clovis West? Goes to show...
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So I was partly right on my Super Bowl pick: Arizona couldn't run the ball, and that did make their offense one-dimensional. But Kurt Warner didn't throw for two or three interceptions. He threw one, though it was enormous turning point in the game just before the half. Warner and his...
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Here's the girls side of the inside look feature I tried the other day with some boys events. I'm going to have to fudge a bit on this one, because the games I'm using were played at the same time, so I obviously wasn't at one of them. In this case, that's the soccer game, but I'll do my...
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Last week I laid out a sort-of planner of big events for the rest of the regular season in the winter sports. This week I'm going to do some actual analysis, which, I'm told, is where I try to tell you what I think about some of those games.
Eh, at least I'll try. Let's go with a big...
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Girls rankings below, or click here.
BOYS
1. Clovis East (17-4, 2-0 TRAC, Division I, last week: 1) — Friday's game with Central became much more important after the Grizzlies knocked off Clovis West in the first round of TRAC play. Clovis East knew how to respond.
LAST...
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Another week gone by, another week closer to the high school version of March Madness, a little time for the playoffs I like to call ... February Frenzy.
OK, so that was really dorky. Sorry about that. Really. But I do have another set of Central Section rankings. Girls are below (with a...
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Here are thoughts on Bakersfield's new league structure, from myself and copy editors Ron Stapp and Todd Camps in audio form. Also a few minutes of basketball and wrestling discussion are included.
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I was excited to see an e-mail in my inbox this morning with the three proposals the Central Section came up with for the new league alignment. I hurriedly printed off the proposals, went over to the printer and started looking them over on my way back.
Turns out, there was no need. The...
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We've got an entire gaggle of news items to get through, and then I want to talk big hoops dates the rest of the season.
— First off, the city of Bakersfield is getting proactive about raising its high school sports profile. Bako's Convention and Visitors Bureau has placed a bid with the...
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Girls rankings below or at this link.
BOYS
1. Clovis East (14-4, 0-0 TRAC, Division I, last week: 1) — Of all the impressive things on the Timberwolves' resumé — some tough out-of-section wins and some routs of Valley teams — the best so far might have been its...
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Lots of folks talking inauguration this week, and since there was a nice story on Barack Obama's basketball days in last week's Sports Illustrated, it's time to celebrate with a basketball-themed week.
Today will be power rankings. The rest of the week, I'd like to discuss big games left on the...
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See girls rankings below or at this link.
BOYS
1. Clovis East (13-4, 0-0 TRAC, Division I, last week: 1) — The Timberwolves solidified their spot at the top with a rout of Fresno-Edison last week. They have enough tests sprinkled into the rest of the schedule to keep things...
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My apologies for posts being so few and far between. I'm still getting settled back into the flow of things in the office, and that includes coming up with content again when during football season, the blog was on a very tight schedule. I'm going to do better, I promise.
To that end, I...
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Faithful School House Zach readers will remember a couple of weeks ago when I promised a winter sports podcast, then continually failed to deliver. Well, at long last, here it is. We had some technical problems while switching to a new Web server, but those should be in the past now.
Keep in...
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See girls rankings below or at this link.
BOYS
1. Clovis East (11-4, Division I, last year: D-I champion) — All of the Timberwolves' losses have been out of the section, and they've beaten Liberty, Porterville-Monache and East in winning the Kern Schools Federal Credit Union Lloyd...
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I'm going to attempt boys and girls basketball rankings in the Central Section, just like we did at School House Zach for football in the fall.
Before I start, I need to admit that this is going to be difficult and probably somewhat controversial among area basketball fans.
Football...
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I've been in Bakersfield off and on for a week or so at a time since Thanksgiving, but I went for a run this morning and found myself thinking this was the first time in six weeks that I actually felt like I was sliding back into my routine.
After having company for Turkey Day, I've...
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Yes, thank you very much, I enjoyed my mini-vacation to the coast this weekend. Rained a bit, but I'll bet it was nicer there than it was — well, than it was pretty much anywhere else.
But I'm back. And I'm rested. And I'm, uh, going on vacation again next week! But in the meantime, I'm...
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In the middle of high school football playoffs, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that winter sports have also begun, and, actually, are humming right into league play this week.
In basketball, these early-season tournaments and non-league games are often the key to a nice run when things...
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We interrupt your regularly scheduled football programming to bring you this boys basketball note:
Very nice ceremony for Stephon Carter at Garces today, where he announced his intention to sign with Cal State Bakersfield to play for the next four years.
I've asked a few basketball people...
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I had never been to Trader Joe's before I moved here. I hadn't even heard of it. I went there a couple of days ago to get a few things...bagels, soup, tortilla chips, guacamole, blah blah blah. My total was $23 exactly. The cashier looked at me and asked if I knew what that meant...having an even...
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You can check out videos on YouTube, MaxPreps, Ball is Life, or wherever else they may be, or you can just trust me on this one.
Campbell Hall's Jrue Holiday is one heck of a basketball player. It's become a cliché, but it's very fitting in this case: Holiday cannot be stopped, only...
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What a night it was for Garces, which will send both its boys and girls basketball teams into the state quarterfinals (technically, the Southern California semifinals, but who wants to get techinical?) after two very different victories at home.
The finals: Garces girls 48, Whittier Christian 46...
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While the wrestling gets to set to rage at Rabobank, March also is almost here, and that means it's time for basketball too. Six local teams are headed up to Fresno this weekend for Central Section championship games after girls teams from Stockdale, Centennial and Garces all won semifinal games...
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I don't really believe this, but without a conference, the next best thing the 8-17 Roadrunners can do is judge themselves against the other eight Division I independents , and at least in one category, CSUB is No. 1 - but hardly with a bullet.
Albeit bolstered by empty luxury suit seats...
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According to the Bakersfield Jam majority owner Stan Ellis, the nation’s looming recession, subprime mortage crisis and general financial challeges were the reasons for the team slashing ticket prices earlier this week.
Well, one out of three isn’t bad. At least, they were right...
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