Our final Pocial Athlete of the Week for the fall season comes to us from the tennis court. Congratulationst to La Quinta’s Juliana Guerrero.
Guerrero, who finished third at the Desert Empire League individual meet and swept all three of her sets in a first-round playoff match against Indio, earned the most votes by a wide margin in this week’s voting.
Congratulations to Guerrero and all of our fall season Pocial Athletes of the Week. We’ll restart our weekly voting after the Thanksgiving holiday as we delve into the winter sports season.
To that end, if you are a boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball, boys’ soccer, girls’ soccer, boys’ wrestling, girls’ wrestling or girls’ water polo coach, fan or parent, feel free to nominate candidates for the Pocial Athlete of the Week. E-mail [email protected] with details and maybe even a photo of the player you think deserves a mention.
Cross country
Shadow Hills: The Knights’ girls’ cross country is off to the CIF Finals for the second straight year as they easily qualified by finishing second in their heat on Saturday at Mt. SAC on Saturday. The top five teams advanced.
On this day it was Ruby Avila leading the pack as the girls’ ran close together. Avila finished in 19 minutes and 22 seconds, followed closely by Miranda Salcedo and DEL champion Julia Fernandez who both clocked a time of 19:27. The trio finished sixth, seventh and eighth overall.
The team, which also includes Kimmy Mills, Sophia Ramirez, Jaelyn McDermott and Ari Lupian will be back at Mt. SAC on Saturday in the CIF Finals.
COD Football in bowl game Sunday
The College of the Desert football squad has made postseason play for the second straight season thanks to a 6-4 campaign, where they earned third place in the American Metro League after going 3-2 in conference play. The Roadrunners will be playing Santa Ana in the Southern California Bowl which will be played at Eddie West Field, Santa Ana’s home stadium.
This is the third bowl game the Roadrunners have been to under head coach Jack Steptoe, who’s still searching for his first postseason win.
In a strange turn of events, the two teams just played on Saturday in the final game of the regular season but will now play each other again eight days later. Santa Ana won that game 49-28, so the Roadrunners will have their hands full but will also be motivated by the chance to settle the score.
The Southern California Bowl will take place this Sunday with kickoff at 4 p.m. Parking at Eddie West Field will cost $10 and will be cash only. General Admission will cost $12 while kids and adults over the age of 60 will be able to get in for $8.
Basketball tournament
Rancho Mirage High School is the place to be this Friday and Saturday for the Design Pro Tipoff Classic, two days full of basketball that includes local teams such as the Rattlers, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Twentynine Palms, Xavier Prep and Desert Christian Academy. Here is the varsity schedule:
FRIDAY’S GAMES
- 2:30 p.m.: Cathedral City vs. Southwest
- 4 p.m.: Chaminade vs. Rancho Mirage
- 5:30 p.m.: Bishop Amat vs. Brawley
- 7 p.m.: Twentynine Palms vs. Palm Springs
- 8:30 p.m.: Xavier Prep vs. Calexico
SATURDAY’S GAMES
- Noon: Brawley vs. Desert Christian Academy
- 1:30 p.m.: Silverado vs. Chaminade
- 3 p.m.: Southwest vs. Twentynine Palms
- 4:30 p.m.: Xavier Prep vs. Bishop Amat
- 6 p.m.: Southwest vs. Rancho Mirage
- 7:30 p.m.: Calexico vs. Cathedral City
Boys’ basketball
Rancho Mirage: The Rattlers followed up a 58-46 win over Palo Verde Valley in their opener with a narrow 46-44 overtime road victory at Brawley on Tuesday. Defensively in the Brawely win, Josh Walls and Vincent Davis locked down the opponent, while freshman Marcus Gragg Buchanan led the team with 11 points. Gram Craven made two crucial 3-pointers in overtime and Alessandro Lopez added 10 points in the win. Next up for the Rattlers (2-0) is a game in their own tournament against Chaminade at 4 p.m. Friday.
Girls’ basketball
Palm Desert: The Aztecs are off to a 1-2 start early in the season at a tournament in Redlands, winning their opener against San Gorgonio 37-27, before dropping a pair of games to AB Miller (32-10) and Fontana (55-28).
In the win over San Gorgonio, Katelyn Gallagher had a fantastic game with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 10 steals. Naomi Plunkett added eight points and eight rebounds, while Ava Tethal and Alisha Blomgren each added six points. Isabel Martinez led the team with five points in the loss to AB Miller, and it was Tethal with 13 points pacing the team in the loss Fontana.
Next up for the Aztecs is Valley View on Friday played at Redlands High School.
Attention winter coaches for basketball, soccer, wrestling and girls’ water polo, please e-mail in any results or information from your games to [email protected]. That info will be useful, including to help us pick our Athlete of the Week candidates.