Schools

NEWPORT COAST - The first thing that caught the eye of Coach Gabriel Reyes when he and his Panorama City St. Genevieve team arrived at Sage Hill was the high school baseball field. "We don't get [to see] these type of baseball fields in the [San Fernando Valley]," said Reyes, while marveling at the manicured infield, the trimmed outfield grass and the 12-foot fence around it, and the batting cage behind the visitors' dugout. While St. Genevieve had never played on a field as nice as Sage Hill's, the host school had never seen a pitcher quite like the one it faced Tuesday.

MONTEBELLO - The bond between baseball brothers on the Estancia High team only became stronger in the third inning at Montebello High. A wild-card playoff game in the CIF Southern Section Division 4 playoffs can bring out the best in players. Yet, a highly questionable call against the Eagles also seemed to trigger some big-time energy from Estancia. The Eagles responded well from a controversial hit-by-pitch judgment call. They scored five runs over the final four innings and pushed past Montebello, 7-1. Estancia will play at South Torrance (17-10)

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has picked out seven athletics improvement projects to build with a $100,000 grant from Costa Mesa. The money is the first installment of what could add up to half a million dollars in grants from the city in the next five years if Costa Mesa chooses to continue the program as it has projected, according to a resolution the council approved in February. The money is meant to fund capital improvements at Costa Mesa high schools where the public has access during non-school hours.

The Estancia High and Sage Hill School baseball teams are the lone survivors/playoff squads from the Newport-Mesa area. Both teams were assigned Tuesday wild-card games when CIF Southern Section playoff pairings were released Monday. Games are scheduled to begin at 3:15 p.m. In Division 4, Estancia (16-9), the Orange Coast League third-place team will play at Montebello (15-9), the Almont League second-place team. The winner will play at South Torrance (17-10, Pioneer League champion)

BOYS' TRACK AND FIELD CIF Southern Section Division 2 preliminaries MOORPARK - Newport Harbor senior Marty Taylor qualified first in the discus throw with a personal-best heave of 190 feet, 4 1/2 inches and he qualified first in the shotput in 60-9 1/2 at Moorpark High on Saturday. Taylor is one of three Sailors advancing to the CIF Southern Section Division 2 finals next week at Mt. San Antonio College. Will Fortier and Ramsey Hufford qualified in the shotput with marks of 53-4 (seventh)

It was a race Tyler Connors looked forward to all last week, the 100-yard backstroke at the Orange Coast League boys' finals. It pitted him against the league's top swimmer in the event, or so he thought. The day before the meet at Costa Mesa High, Connors didn't see the name he expected to be on the race sheet. The swimmer, Laguna Beach's Erik Juliusson, decided to skip the 100 backstroke and compete in two other individual events. So, the one swimmer that could push Connors in his best event wasn't going to be in the finals.

RIVERSIDE - Last year the Corona del Mar High boys' swim team finished second place at the CIF Southern Section Division 1 finals, the Sea Kings' first top-two finish since 1970. They liked it so much, they had an encore performance Saturday night at Riverside City College. CdM's boys couldn't quite catch Capistrano Valley, which won CIF for the second straight year with 327 points. CdM was second with 264. The CdM girls also finished second, marking the first time in program history that both genders finished top-two at CIF finals.

Underlying all the many issues in education is one big, persistent problem: income inequality. From preschool to college, from test scores to technology access, socioeconomic status is the single most important determinant of student opportunity and achievement. This has long been, and probably will always be the case, but it hasn't always been addressed or even fully acknowledged. Recently, however, some bold, yet vastly different, responses to the have/have-not problem have emerged, each bringing fresh controversy while challenging our ideas about how far our public school system should go to try to engineer solutions.

BASEBALL Sage Hill 3, St. Margaret's 1 NEWPORT COAST - Conner Bock produced two hits and drove in a run for the Lightning in the Academy League game Friday. Harrison Rhee and Max Strohman added one run batted in each for Sage Hill (11-6, 8-5 in league). * Corona del Mar 4, Irvine 2 IRVINE - Baron Schwarz was two for four with two runs batted in and a double for the Sea Kings in the Pacific Coast League game Friday. Brett Olson, who was one for three with an RBI, pitched a complete-game three-hitter for CdM (8-16, 3-10 in league)

IRVINE - The Corona del Mar High boys' swim team won seven of 11 events at Friday's Pacific Coast League finals. The CdM girls won six of 11 events, also setting three school records. But the reason why it was University hopping into the water at the end of the meet could be summed up pretty easily. "It just comes down to Uni's depth," CdM girls' coach Doug Volding said. The Trojans defended their girls' and boys' league titles at Woollett Aquatics Center. CdM finished in second place in both genders.