Braves

NEWPORT BEACH - The Braves used some solid pitching to defeat the Diamondbacks, 3-0, last weekend in Newport Beach Little League Majors Division action. Pitchers Evan Zoller and Tyler Ellis combined to toss a one-hitter for the Braves, walking only one, while striking out 12. James Gray went 2 for 2 with a run scored, while Zak Warsaw added a hit and an RBI for the Braves. For the D-Backs, Hunt Rychel pitched five strong innings, allowing only two hits.

Pitchers Max Frisbie and Camden Nicholson held the first-place Red Sox scoreless through five innings as the Braves secured a 9-3 triumph in recent Newport Beach Little League Majors action. Nicholson began the scoring with an RBI single in the first inning and was followed by Grant Keligian's double and single. Parker Stone, Dillon Campbell, Andrew Fulcher and Noah Molnar contributed to the Braves' hit attack. The defense was led by Jeff Jones, Frisbie, Jack Gerdau, Josh Harrison, Michael Hayde and Kevin Tsou.

NEWPORT BEACH - The Dodgers used quality pitching and errorless defense to defeat the Braves, 9-4, in Newport Harbor Baseball Association Bronco Division (ages 11-12) action. Pitchers Eric Paine, Jarrett Daniel and R.J. D'Cruz combined for 10 strikeouts while the defense, led by Jerry Whitney, Chase Behr, Trey LaGrandeur, Jake Dayton, Alan Orozco and Robert Tumlin, was superb. D'Cruz, Daniel and Ian Goodwin sparked the Dodgers' offense with consecutive doubles, while Dan Winkle came through with a two-run single.

NEWPORT BEACH - The Braves opened the season with a 6-3 win over the Reds in Newport Beach Little League, AA Division action. Pitchers Evan Zoller and Tyler Ellis held the Reds to five hits and two earned runs, while Zak Warsaw, James Gray, Martin Ostrowsky and Andrew Dilynas played solid defensively. Key hits came off the bats of Jordan Taormina, Paul Knezevic, Andrew Dialynas and James Gray, while Matt Lutton and Matt Bergner played a good, all-around game.

The Dodgers used some late-inning magic to defeat the Braves, 14-13, in Newport Harbor Baseball Association Bronco Division (ages 11-12) action. Ian Goodwin came through with four hits, while Jarrett Daniel added three hits and scored the winning run for the Dodgers. R.J. D'Cruz came through with two hits and three runs scored, while Trey LaGrandeur, Chase Behr, Dan Winkle, Alan Orozco, Jerry Whitney and Eric Paine each added key hits. The Dodgers' pitching staff was led by Daniel, D'Cruz, Jake Dayton and Robert Tumlin.

20-13 NEWPORT BEACH - The Braves opened the game by scoring four runs, but that didn't seem to faze the Giants, who came back with 13 runs of their own in the bottom of the first en route to a 20-13 victory in the Majors Division of Newport Beach Little League. Tom Koss hit a three-run home run in the top of the first inning for the Braves, his second in two games to stake the Braves to an early lead, but the Giants countered with 13 runs in their half of the inning and would never look back.

NEWPORT BEACH - The Diamondbacks jumped out to a 13-4 lead, then held off a late rally by the Yankees to win, 13-9, in the first round of the Newport Beach Little League AA Division playoffs last Saturday. Anna Palchikoff had a bases-loaded triple in the fourth inning, while Kendall Pick and Brian Yasukochi each had two-RBI hits. Hunter Alder pitched two strong innings for the Diamondbacks before Yasukochi came in to quiet the Yankees' bats in the final inning.

The Angels' offense exploded for a couple of big wins last week in Newport Harbor Baseball Association Pony Division (ages 13-14) action. Eddie Pinela, Justin Miranda and Abdon Ortega each ripped home runs in the Angels' 21-5 win over the Diamondbacks. J.T. King had three hits, while Ivan Ramirez added two doubles for the Angels. The defense was led by Steve Hernandez, Mike Ransom, Josh Cox and Karissa Scura. Miranda, Ortega and Pinela again sparked the offense in the Angels' 13-9 win over the Braves.

again The Mud Hens staged another come-from-behind victory when they defeated the Corona del Mar Athletics, 9-8, in Newport Harbor Baseball Association Pony Division action. In the bottom of the seventh inning, with the score tied, 8-8, Nathan Cramer slammed a double to plate his Mud Hen teammate Brice Stillman for the winning run in a close play at home base. Stillman got aboard on a single. The Mud Hens had tied the game with two runs in the bottom of the sixth, when Nick Frazier pounded out a triple that brought in Andrew Skjonsby and Brendon Salisbury.

In a bit of coincidence, Timmy Winning drove in the game-winning run to score Sean Tokuyama, giving the Reds a 5-4 victory over the Braves, in Newport Beach Little League Majors Division action. The Reds rallied in the sixth inning, after trailing 4-3. The Reds' Dylan Davis' single brought in Evan McNerny to tie the game, 4-4. Reds pitcher Andrew Silva and Braves' hurler Thomas Koss each held their opponents to four hits over five innings of work. The Braves received hits from Koss, Cambden Nicholson and Tom Dialynas, while the Reds were powered offensively by Blaine Nielson and Brett Bartlett.

"Lone Survivor" is a brutally honest depiction of ground combat in the 21st century. It provides an unflinching look at the gritty reality facing our finest soldiers in the merciless badlands of Afghanistan. It should be required viewing for every member of Congress and the executive branch of our government. An American war movie like no other, it relays the unvarnished truth of a real-life Navy Seal operation gone bad. Mark Wahlberg plays Marcus Luttrell, the only member of the team to survive Operation Red Wings in 2005.

This July 4, I thought of three important events in our history. The first occurred 237 years ago, the second 150 years ago, and the third just a few days ago. These three events explain what America means to me now. An edited version of Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence was published 237 years ago with these words in the second paragraph: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they...

Ahoy! The recent cold weather has brought boat winterization to the forefront of my mind; however, we live along a portion of the Pacific Ocean where our boating season really never ends. Let me explain, before I get a flood of reader emails, that we do not need to completely winterize our boats for freezing temperatures along Southern California's coastline. We need to do that only if our boats are stored in our local mountains or high deserts. Keep in mind that the temperature only plays a role of how in-depth you will need to perform your winterization.

The Pixar studio is the gold standard for generation jumping animated films. "Toy Story,""Finding Nemo" and"Wall-E" were ground breaking blockbusters. The win streak clearly continues with their rousing fairy tale adventure"Brave. " This time they add a dose of Disney philosophy to the Pixar formula. The spirited heroine is Merida, a spunky and self reliant girl with flaming red hair. She is a princess of course, as Disney requires in such stories. Her father rules a kingdom in the beautiful Scottish Highlands.

The weather and the ocean swells were the biggest challenge for the Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high school sailing teams. They battled the cold, wind and rain as they competed in the Gaucho Regatta, put on last weekend by the UC Santa Barbara sailing team in Santa Barbara Harbor. At dawn on March 17, the two large sailing teams drove through the pouring rain to Santa Barbara in numerous cars. They towed their boats to sail against 28 other high school sailing teams from San Diego to San Francisco.

NEWPORT BEACH - Lifelong surfer Billy Lewis stood on Balboa Pier watching the waves Thursday afternoon. Spots of water from the splashes shooting upward dotted his face, shirt and hat. "I had to take a look at it. I'm a surfer," the Newport Beach resident said. Hundreds joined Lewis on the pier because no one around there was up to experiencing Mother Nature first hand. Waves were up to 8 feet on average, with some peaking as high as 12, lifeguards said. The sand around the pier was absent of any people braving the waves, and only a few tried dipping their feet in the shorebreak.

NEWPORT BEACH - Not even a hurricane could stop them. A Navy SEAL's widow and mother-in-law were so determined to make the cross-country trip to Newport Beach in time for his benefit tournament that they drove some 300 miles - from Virginia Beach, Va., to Charlotte, N.C. - as Hurricane Irene churned northward. Keri Mills of Virginia Beach, and her mother, Cindi Gore of Newport Beach, had to get to the Palisades Tennis Club in time to honor Special Warfare Chief Petty Officer Stephen Matthew "Matt" Mills.

It had all the atmosphere of a public execution straight out of a black-and-white Western. At high noon Friday, nearly a dozen teachers and coaches from Corona del Mar High School, draped in black protective shawls, turned to face their tormentors: hair stylists who shaved their heads in the name of cancer research. As pop music blared from speakers, students emerged from the shadows of their classrooms and gravitated en masse toward the stage as the faculty appeared to the cheers of their students.

The Braveheart Project was started in Scotland during the middle 1990s by a group of coronary heart disease health-care professionals who were concerned that their patients were losing valuable information as they were being referred from one expert in the field to another. Once they focused upon their patients' situation, the reason was quite plain: Their patients were not experts in the field, were in a foreign and stressful environment, and were almost always scared. So all of these conditions tended to result in a lack of attention and loss of memory.

As Sandy Ryan lay on the table Wednesday morning, with her arm being prepared for its first blood donation, she remembered a young donor she worried would die. With that fear still lurking in her mind, the Costa Mesa resident looked out the window from the Newport Beach Police Department. “At least I have a view,” she said. As she may have envisioned her last moments, Ryan made a donation that will likely keep up to three other people from experiencing theirs.