Culver City High School is known for having an outstanding athletic program and this year is no different. Four teams have punched their ticket to the prestigious CIF Southern Section playoffs that start this week. The baseball and girl lacrosse teams play their first-round games today, Thursday and the boys and girls track and field teams drive into action on Saturday, May 4.
The baseball team will start their quest for a CIF title at 3:15 p.m. Thursday when they host 14-13 Castaic. If they advance their next game will be Tuesday, May 7. The10-6 and first place (6-0 in the Ocean league) girls lacrosse team will play at home on Thursday at 5 p.m. against 12-8 J Serra. The track and field teams will kick off their playoffs at Ontario high school at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
The baseball team completed a dream come true regular season by posting a 22-4 overall record and a first place Bay league record of 7-3. What made this season so remarkable is the Centaurs were 9-13-1 overall last season and 3-7 in the Bay league. They went from last to first in the Bay league in one year. That’s incredible.
After they beat Santa Monica 2-0 at home last week to capture the league title head coach Devaughn Wallace was overcome with emotion. “I am just overjoyed with emotion. These boys have been working very hard since the year ended last year and this group right here said they were going to come back and take care of business and that’s what they did. Hats off to them.”
Wallace continued to say, “We are just having fun. Baseball is a fun game. It’s a kid’s game that grown men play to have fun and these boys are kids and they are still having fun, yet we are learning a lot and working really hard. No one thought that we would get to this point. Like I have been saying all year, one game at a time.”
The girl’s lacrosse team has also worked hard to climb to the top of their league. “The players are seeing that when you put in hard work good things can happen,” said head coach Catie Shin a few weeks ago. “As a team collectively, they have improved so much.”
The boys and girls track and field teams are going into the CIF prelims with a loaded team. The Centaurs have an opportunity to win both the boys and girls CIF championships. “We have a lot of athletes that will be competing on Saturday,” said head coach Jahmal Wright. “We are hoping that everyone runs and jumps their best on Saturday.”
Leading the way for the boys’ team is Nolan Johnson, Duaine Mayrant, Dante Mayrant, Kingston Waring, Joaquin Bell-Andrade and Asher Samual. For the girls Morgan Maddox, Savanna Mullins, Sahaah Belleard and Zakiya Ugozie will be looking to advance to the CIF finals on May 11.
