Archive for April, 2011

UCSD captures CCAA title behind Camille Gaito’s pitching

Monday, April 25th, 2011 by

The UCSD Tritons claimed their first California Collegiate Athletic Association softball title Saturday, behind the pitching of Camille Gaito, who won both ends of a doubleheader against Cal State East Bay.

Gaito started and won the first game 12-2 and followed that up with a relief appearance in the second game, where the Tritons came from behind for a 2-1 victory.

The title accomplishment ensures some favorable postseason action. The Tritons will be the top seed next weekend in the CCAA tournament in Stockton, California. And no matter what the results of that tournament, the Tritons are sure to get an invitation to the NCAA West Regional tournament the following weekend.

Gaito began developing her talent in the Marin Girls Softball organization.
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Posted in Marin Girls Softball, Softball, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Indi Cowie does things with a soccer ball that are unbelievable!

Friday, April 22nd, 2011 by

If you’re a member of the soccer cognoscenti, you’ve probably known about Indi Cowie for a long time.

But for the rest of us, Indi Cowie, a 16-year-old North Carolina high school student, became an overnight internet sensation when the New York Times did a feature story about her. Cowie is a soccer player. But more to the point of her fame, she is one of the world’s best soccer freestylers.

Soccer has a strange existence in the United States. Millions of kids play the game. But Americans do not accord Major League Soccer, the professional embodiment of the sport, with the same respect or interest as other professional leagues. The anomaly here encompasses the fact that the MLS is given more respect overseas than it is on our home shores.

Then consider that freestyle is an orphan offshoot of the basic game. That pretty much explains why most of us never heard of Cowie before now.

Freestyle soccer is all about tricks … manipulating the ball through a series of increasingly difficult and improbable moves without ever touching it with a hand. Americans are accustomed to catching and throwing balls, so the very idea of expending effort to master the art of not handling the ball is a foreign concept.
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Camille Gaito paces UCSD Tritons to Tournament of Champions title

Monday, April 11th, 2011 by

Camille Gaito won 8 games in 8 days. -- Photo courtesy UCSD.

Camille Gaito and her University of California at San Diego teammates may wish all their games were played in Turlock, California.

In the Mizuno Tournament of Champions, which was held at the Cal State Stanislaus campus in Turlock in the first week in April, Gaito pitched in, and won, five games in three days as the Tritons went 6-1 while winning the tournament.

The following week, the Tritons were back in Turlock to play Stanislaus. They won three of four games, with Gaito getting credit for all three wins as the Tritons cemented their position at the top of the California Collegiate Athletic Association standings.

Gaito posted the second lowest earned run average in NCAA Division II softball last year, so it was hard to imagine what she could do as an encore. How does this sound? A 21-1 record and an ERA under 0.50 runs per game.
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Posted in Marin Girls Softball, Softball | No Comments »

Robles overcomes long odds to become a collegiate wrestling champion

Saturday, April 9th, 2011 by

Anthony Robles won an NCAA wrestling championship on one leg.

There’s something special about Arizona State wrestler Anthony Robles.

You’ll notice it right away … the 2011 NCAA wrestling champion has only one leg.

To those of us who only became aware of Robles this March when he won the title, this seems like an extraordinary, almost superhuman, feat. But for the wrestling cognoscenti, Robles has been a wrestler to watch for a long time.

Robles went undefeated in Arizona high school wrestling in both his junior and senior years. As a junior at Arizona State in 2010, he reached the semifinals of the NCAA tournament, losing to the then-defending champion in the 125-pound weight class. This year, when he reached the finals, he was confronted with Matt McDonough, the current reigning champ.

Robles was a long shot in the match in more ways than one. Arizona State is not exactly a hotbed of collegiate wrestling success. Only one school west of the Rocky Mountains has ever won the NCAA team title. Wrestling champs come out of America’s heartland. Oklahoma State and Iowa have won a combined 57 of the 83 team championships awarded in the sport. Throw in the success of Oklahoma and Iowa State and the four schools have won 72 team championships. Robles’ opponent, McDonough, was representing Iowa, one of those dominant programs and McDonough, a sophomore, had only lost two matches in two years.
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Posted in Wrestling | No Comments »