Los Angeles Loyola

They should start handing out binoculars to high school football fans with the price of admission, because schools no longer seem to care whether fans can actually see a player's number on the field. Bellflower St. John Bosco and Los Angeles Loyola each came out Friday night with sleek Nike-designed jerseys that required "special glasses" to identify players, as one St. John Bosco observer quipped. "I'm just making it up," a play-by-play announcer for iBN Sports said at halftime.

Because of the radar gun, too much emphasis is placed on how hard pitchers throw instead of whether they can get batters out. Sophomore right-hander Jordan Sigman of Los Angeles Loyola is the classic example of a pitcher who uses ball location instead of velocity to achieve success. Sigman's fastball has been clocked at a meager 78 mph, which is especially slow by major league standards. But it hasn't prevented him from being a surprise standout in the Mission League.

Less than six months after his 17th birthday, Warren Williamson of Los Angeles Loyola earned a spot in the starting lineup for the Cubs' basketball team, completing a comeback that's nothing short of remarkable. For almost two years, the 6-foot-4 Williamson suffered episodes of dizziness and vomiting. He sought a diagnosis from more than a dozen doctors. He endured countless blood tests, CT scans and X-rays. Doctors checked his heart, his brain, his ears.

Call them the Pac-5 pillagers. The Compton Dominguez Dons continued their run of success against teams from the powerful Pac-5 Division on Friday, pulling out a 14-11 victory over host Encino Crespi. The Dons, who play in a Western Division that is three notches below the Pac-5, have made a habit of beating their more powerful counterparts, recording at least one victory against a Pac-5 team in nine of the last 10 seasons. Included in that stretch were triumphs over storied Long Beach Poly in 2005 and Los Angeles Loyola in 2007.

C.J. Schellenberg, at 6 feet 7, is intimidating anywhere on the volleyball court. But when he sprints to the service line and bounds into the air, he can make even the most seasoned player wince. That's what happened midway through the Southern Section Division I championship Saturday night at Cypress College.

From the "lessons learned" file comes the story of senior quarterback Justin Posthuma of La Canada St. Francis. A week ago, he fumbled inside the 10-yard line with just over a minute left against Sherman Oaks Notre Dame that probably cost his team a victory. On Friday night, he completed a three-yard touchdown pass to Travis Talianko with 11 seconds left to give St. Francis a 27-23 victory over Los Angeles Loyola, its first win over the Cubs since 1982. Afterward, Posthuma addressed his teammates.

Top-seeded teams in all of the Southern Section and City Section divisions won their playoff openers over the weekend, setting up some marquee quarterfinals. One of the most interesting is the Southern Section Division I game featuring two-time defending champion Long Beach Poly (9-1) against Los Angeles Loyola (7-2-1) in a rematch of last year's championship game. Poly won the final, 16-13, in overtime at Edison Field for its third title in four years.

Survival was the underlying theme in sweltering conditions on the first day of the 94th annual CIF state track and field championships at Clovis Buchanan High School. The temperature was over 100 degrees when Friday's preliminaries began and athletes were trying to qualify for today's finals without suffering from heat exhaustion in the process. There was no cooling down Sherman Oaks Notre Dame junior Khalfani Muhammad, who bettered his personal best in the boys' 100 meters, winning his heat and placing first overall in 10.44 seconds.

Trey Mason swished a pair of free throws with five seconds left and Los Angeles Loyola came from behind to slip past host Santa Monica, 83-82, in overtime Friday night in a semifinal game of the Santa Monica tournament. Parker Jackson-Cartwright scored 27 points, including four three-pointers, and Mason added 17 for the Cubs (7-0), who handed Santa Monica its only other loss last week in the finals of the South Bay Classic in Torrance. "We had confidence because we've played them before and we were down 10 points in the fourth quarter the last time," Mason said.

In a first-round Division I Southern California Regional playoff opener, Los Angeles Loyola and Crenshaw looked as if they were playing park league basketball, and the fans who packed Loyola's gym Wednesday night were entertained from start to finish. Brandon Baker of Crenshaw torched the Cubs for 45 points, including 19 in the fourth quarter. "I was feeling it," Baker said. Teammate Andre Edwards scored 29 points, including 20 in the third quarter. But Loyola's balance proved too much, and the Cubs (25-5)