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Culver High Plays It Close to the End in Lacrosse Season Finales

Doug Dupuy — 7:00 AM April 28, 2008

Downey High School’s lacrosse team came to Culver City High last Tuesday night with a simple and effective game plan: Place a talented goalie in net to ward off the Centaur attack,and then smother that offense with a swarming defense.

The strategy worked for a 9-6 Downey victory.

By double- and triple-teaming the middies and attackmen at various times in the game, Downey was able to capitalize on changes of possession and rack up an early lead (6-2 at halftime).

Culver High Lacrosse Is Called a Work in Progress

Doug Dupuy — 7:00 AM April 22, 2008

The Culver City High School lacrosse team, which closes the regular season with two critical home matches, tonight at 6 against Downey High and Thursday at 6 against Beverly Hills High, played a most formidable opponent last Tuesday night. The Centaurs came away with an eye-opening and humbling 14-3 loss to Palos Verdes High, which truly ruled in every aspect of the game.

Palos Verdes won most of the face-offs, was faster, bigger, stronger and more skilled in the fundamentals. They executed more intricate plays on offense, intimidated on defense and hit so hard with their stick checks that they snapped two of the Centaurs’ poles in half.

Culver Lacrosse — A Potent Offense Can’t Overcome Deficiencies in Narrow Loss

Doug Dupuy — 12:00 PM April 14, 2008

The good news on Tuesday night last week was that the Culver City High School varsity lacrosse team scored eight goals.

The bad news: They allowed Peninsula to score nine.

It sounds like a clich�, but the best offense truly is a great defense.

Culver High’s Lacrosse Team Keeps Fans on Edge of Seats

Doug Dupuy — 8:00 AM March 21, 2008

Lacrosse, what a great spectator sport.

Combining elements that remind fans of other better known sports, like soccer, hockey, football and even basketball, it creates an exciting, unique blend of strategy and nonstop ball movement that can keep fans on the edges of their seats.

That is what happened last Tuesday night when Mira Costa High School, Manhattan Beach, came to Culver City High.

Culver High Lacrosse This Week Was a Tale of Two Teams

Doug Dupuy — 11:00 AM March 14, 2008

In the course of a sports season, coaches work on the fundamentals, and drill their teams to achieve a level of consistency and talent that will provide them with the competitive edge to prevail over their opponents.

Culver City High School’s lacrosse team — which split two decisions this week — has a knack for being consistent: dominantly brilliant one night and competitively error prone the next, and there seems to be a direct correlation to the level of the competition.

Culver High Lacrosse Team Scores Two Wins After Loss to Beverly

Doug Dupuy — 1:00 PM March 07, 2008

After a three-day road trip to the Bay Area, that included tours of college campuses and two tune-up games, the Culver City High School lacrosse team returned to Southern California this week to face a league rival, the Normans of Beverly Hills.

In a game marked by frequent Culver City turnovers, especially in transition trying to clear the ball, Beverly Hills took full advantage, outscoring the Centaurs, 11-6. There were some bright spots for Culver despite the loss. Junior Carl Smith (2 goals, assists) and senior Jamison Bartlett (1 goal) played some tenacious midfield. They kept the Centaur offense in the zone and set up goals and assists by Daniel Alvarez, Austin Dupuy, and Scrappy Mair.

Culver’s Perfect Football Season Ends in Double Overtime

Greg Dynabursky — 11:00 AM November 26, 2007

Culver City High School’s undefeated and untied football season came to an end last Friday night in Santa Fe Springs.

The Centaurs lost a heartbreaking, emotional contest to the St. Paul Swordsmen, 32-26, in double overtime.

The defeat ended Culver’s run at a CIF championship.

Culver Rallies from 14 Points Down to Beat Leuzinger at 0:12

Greg Dynabursky — 9:00 AM November 19, 2007

Senior quarterback Darius Banks scored the tiebreaking touchdown with 12 seconds left last Friday night to lead undefeated, untied Culver City High School to a 35-28 victory at home over Leuzinger in the first round of the CIF football playoffs.

The Centaurs, 11-0, go on the road next Friday, playing St. Paul in a 7:30 game the day after Thanksgiving in Santa Fe Springs.

St. Paul, which shared the Mission League championship with Alemany, defeated Quartz Hill, 24-14, in its playoff opener.

League Champion Centaurs Make History in Win Against Beverly Hills

Greg Dynabursky — 10:00 AM November 12, 2007

The Culver City High School football team achieved a milestone in its final regular season game last Friday night, defeating crosstown rival Beverly Hills, 31-21, at Beverly.

The victory gave the Centaurs a 10-0 regular season record, a first in the 50-plus year school history.

Ranked No. 1 in the Western Conference, perfect Culver City opens the CIF playoffs at home on Friday night at 7:30 against Leuzinger of the Bay League, which finished with a 6-4 record.

Centaurs Remain Undefeated, Avenging Loss to Santa Monica

Greg Dynabursky — 10:00 AM October 29, 2007

Culver City High School’s undefeated football team took over sole possession of first place in the Ocean League last Friday night, avenging a onesided loss from last year when the Centaurs beat Santa Monica, 30-27.

In the last home game of the regular season, just-promoted junior varsity kicker Devin Sylvester, a sophomore, provided the winning margin.

Turning Out the Lights on the South Sepulveda Scheme

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM September 20, 2007

Curious, isn�t it, that after the community roared in defiance when plans were announced a year ago for massively reshaping South Sepulveda Boulevard, there was only an inaudible whimper this week when the project officially died?

When the City Council announced at Monday night�s meeting that its experiment with high-flying developer Bob Champion officially was a failure, the door formally slammed shut on South Sepulveda � for the foreseeable future.

The only sound since to pierce the cool Culver City air was the sigh of relief from merchants on the west side of South Sepulveda.

Silbiger�s Question of the Week � Affordable Housing in an Office Building?

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM September 19, 2007

I was going to recount a collegial visit with City Councilman Gary Silbiger in front of Fire Station No. 1 at 6:30 one morning last week, the day of the 9/11 observance.

For the 50th time in the 5 1/2 years that Mr. Silbiger has been on the Council, I was going to remark what a dandy chap he is, not necessarily a raconteur, but a very decent sort.

All of which is prologue, as you may have suspected, to his latest gaffe, direct from the dais, in plain view.

What makes Mr. Silbiger such a fascinating character study is that, in the tradition of the City Council�s all-time icon, Albert Vera Sr., he, too, has a steel-strong, devoted colony of worshipful followers. With reverential fervor, they consecrate every breath he draws.

Separate Classrooms for Whites, Browns and Blacks? Sure Sounds That Way

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM September 16, 2007

I have huffed, I have puffed, I have read journals in pigeon Spanish and in ebonics.

Still, I cannot discern a consensus liberal position on matters of race in America.

Do liberals think that Latinos and blacks, as they now patronizingly group the academic underclass, were born inferior to you and me?

Notice that liberals don�t say �immigrants and blacks� because that would include Asians. And as all sober boys, girls � and liberals � in America know, Asians, like Jews, make education of their children a priority. Since they, too, are minorities, label-loving liberals have to be careful.

Why the Lustre Suddenly Has Been Drained Out of Sept. 11

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM September 12, 2007

Reflections going into the Rosh Hashana holiday when the newspaper will be dark until Sunday:

Remember in the old days, four or five years ago, when Americans were in the process of canonizing Sept. 11?

Some facile thinkers suggested that 9/11, as it came to be known, soon would rival July 4 as America�s premier patriotic celebration?

Overnight, Rudy Giuliani, the wildly successful crackdown mayor of New York City, became known as America�s Mayor. His stern countenance, his heroic declarations and his ubiquitous presence throughout the darkest, most fearful days of the Sept. 11 crisis were enthusiastically praised as the forever-models of modern day government leadership.

Your Turn, Mr. Fulwood: Where Were You This Morning?

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM September 11, 2007

Try stiffening your right arm and pushing it against the nearest wall, for leverage, before I disclose the following information.

The city sponsored a worthy civic event shortly after dawn this morning, less than a tee-shot east of the Culver City Kremlin, which some still call City Hall.

(I don�t know why since the Culver City Kremlin operates behind a thicker wall of obsessive secrecy than the Soviet Kremlin did. Certain fanatical persons walk around cross-eyed all day to avoid seeing their own shadow.)

Why Does Every Candidate Mimic the Same Answer?

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM September 07, 2007

Thoughts assembled while pondering the community�s formal observance of the 6th anniversary of Sept. 11 at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, Downtown, in front of Fire Station 1:

Shrewdly, I suppressed a yawn on Wednesday night at the Culver City Democratic Club meeting when the 2 Democratic candidates for the School Board mimicked what all candidates � good or bad � are obliged to mimic about classroom teachers.

She Scolds Dem Club for Showing Their Partisan ship

Martha Gunther — 3:00 AM September 05, 2007

I was appalled to hear that the Democratic Club Candidates Night for the School Board candidates this evening will include only Democrats. Appalled, but not surprised.

In the 2004 City Council election, when I openly supported Steve Rose, a known Republican, I was severely chastised in print by Darryl Cherness, a major player in our local Democratic Club. Mr. Cherness informed me that I could no longer call myself a Democrat if I was voting for a Republican, albeit in a non-partisan election.

Weeks Later, She Remembers She Forget Her Son. Darn

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM September 04, 2007

I see by the weekend newspapers that one of the despicable women of recent news cycles, Elvira Arellano, has dropped her moral guard again and returned to her old ways.

After behaving like the Mexican Floozie of the Year for 2 weeks in the border town of Tijuana and points south, Ms. Arellano, voted the Mexican Deportee of the Month for August, sent for her private trophy.

That would be her 8-year-old son, Saul, whom she may or may not have conceived for the express purpose for which she has been using the kid lately � to be her ticket to tears from sob sisters in the liberal media. It is working.

A Liberal Tale With a Terrific Kick at the End

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 31, 2007

Walking east on Braddock Drive early this morning, shortly after sunrise, the artful juxtaposition of the fluffy clouds and the ball of fire they were hopelessly trying to shield, formed one of the breathtaking scenes of my considerable life.

This was a vision even an atheist, with imagination, could learn to love.

Get Some Sleep � I�ll See You at 5:20 Monday Morning

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 24, 2007

With adroitness, craftiness and penetratingly incisive insight that is to be envied as well as admired, my talented colleague Frederick Sisa so surgically slices up, then deftly pins his targets, reversing the inside with the outside, whether his subject is a politically infragrant human or a play.

On summer evenings when Diane and I sentimentally place our pea-green rocking chairs at right angles before our vacationing fireplace, she to knit, I to ponder, I tend to repeat myself. �Tis a pity,� she hears me murmur.

If You Attend This Meeting, You Can Shake Hands with an Intrepid Warrior

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 24, 2007

Came this morning at the top of my email file a note from the most perspicacious woman I know, Amanda Copeland.

A strongly articulate lady, she is strident and uncommonly courageous.

This blend of qualities may be desirable in an athlete or an actor. But for a petitioning mom who needs a favor from powerful people, pliability, even daintiness, is much preferred over iron-core stridency and unbreakable bravery.

Where Is the Outrage Over Elvira�s Manipulation of You?

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 22, 2007

When the lights were still working in my house in the pre-dawn hours this morning, Day 4 of the overseas trip by the mistress of the grounds, I was lying awake, 3 hours before arising, thinking not of my wife but of the hottest name in America, Elvira Arellano.

Later this morning, I am interviewing Father Kevin Nolan at St. Augustine Church on a separate, even more delicate, subject.

One Day Down, 13 to Go, But Will the Plants Survive?

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 20, 2007

Remember the hackneyed prison films from your childhood? The black-and-white scenes where jailbirds tracked their remaining time by scratching vertical lines on the north wall with a crudely carved pencil?

Just the Beginning

If the lead is sharp enough, mark down one puny line for me. Thirteen fairly dreaded days to go with my wife out of town and her many plants at the mercy of my not so deft touch.

A Male Feminist Arises, Quivers, Fires and Says, �What a Good Boy Am I�

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 13, 2007

Losing the battle for common sense to himself one more time, the editor of The Jewish Journal struck a stunning blow for the further feminization of America over the weekend.

Seeking to cure his drool by spitting into the eye of his religion, The Fellow, as we shall call him, suggested in his current essay that unmarried Jewish girls, nearing the end of their child-bearing years, should marry any Gentile they can land in order to fulfill their desire to become pregnant.

(We choose not to name him so as not to embarrass his family.)

Given that The Fellow has made a living in recent times by knocking his own religion in the only Jewish newspaper in Los Angeles, perhaps we should not be surprised.

Just disgusted.

Guess Who Is Back in Town? The Entitlement Gang Rides Again

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 10, 2007

An incident at the monthly meeting of the Democratic Club the other night nudged my memory back to childhood.

When I was a Boy Scout a few years ago, our little troop met every other Monday night in the basement of my school.

Both of my scoutmasters were blue-collar workers and busy family men.

No Nudge Needed

Neither had the time nor the inclination to make a courtesy call to Noonan Central.

Since I was committed to Scouting, no one needed to remind my parents to remind me that the regularly scheduled meeting for next Monday would be held as planned, as it had been continuously since the 1940s.

Regardless of the weather and my homework load, I never missed a Boy Scout meeting.

Faux Activists Capitalize on Silbiger�s Sweetness to Make Him Look Bad

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 08, 2007

In the world of the chronically suspicious City Councilman Gary Silbiger, this is the way he believes life should work:

Every Monday afternoon at the stroke of 2, City Manager Jerry Fulwood should abruptly end the meeting he is conducting, draw the blinds in his office, dash home to bake a piping-hot cherry pie and simultaneously dial a brand-name limo service.

Breathing hard by then, Mr. Fulwood should dispatch said limo and a crisply warmed slice of said pie to the home of every Culver City resident who tiresomely gripes that he, important he, was not privately notified of the City Council�s special agenda for that evening.

Darn it, the complainer continues, City Hall knows he is acutely interested. If City Hall expects him to be a participating citizen, it has a responsibility to keep him closely informed.

An Unhappy Anniversary Reminder for Vera Sr.

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 06, 2007

About 7 this morning, I could not get my 92-year-old father off the telephone. Any telephone system in America that has a Noonan for a client is assured of a profit as long as that Noonan is breathing.

My father and my stepmother are on vacation for 11 days out in the countryside. Pop was raving the food � so much, so free and so often. This time he also was excited about describing the playful deer he was studying from his very comfortable vantage point on a long, rectangular porch at the bucolic retirement home operated by my oldest sister.

Burke Says She Lived Here at Least When She Was Running

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 03, 2007

Poking along in the third lane of the 405 North yesterday afternoon, my hair suddenly whooshed to the left. The elderly driver of a silver Maserati convertible, moving jerkily, sliced in front of me, then quickly veered two lanes to the right, imperiling a dozen more cars. Immediately, I suspected the culprit, whose license plate started "5SNX," was the much besieged County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

We know how fast she loves to escape every afternoon from the peasants doomed to residing fulltime in her 2nd District while she returns to her classy digs in Mandeville Canyon. A week ago this morning, the aging Ms. Burke was exposed on Page 1 of the Los Angeles Times as a suspected lawbreaker and an alleged fibber regarding her main residence. The Times' thorough report indicated that the slippery Ms. Burke does not live in the 2nd District any more than Barack Obama. State law says she must. A close reading of her printed statements shows that Ms. Burke does not seem to even claim to live inside the district.

Burke in Trouble? No Problem. The Earl of Hutchinson to the Rescue on His Racist Steed

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM August 01, 2007

As a suddenly radioactive politician feverishly groping for a safe place to land, County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke could not have found a chummier patch of green, green grass than the shining baseball field at West Los Angeles College.

Wasn't She a Vision?

On Monday morning, barely three days after the Los Angeles Times nailed Ms. Burke for seemingly fibbing to its reporters about where she truly lives and sleeps, there was the retiring Sup, resplendent as the ball of fire in the sky.

The Night the City Council Folded up to Appease the Crowd

Ari L. Noonan — 3:00 AM July 26, 2007

Quite a few years ago, at the time my first son was born, I was the night sports editor of a downtown newspaper. We had a mid-week ritual no one else needed to know about.

To avoid jamming the typesetters with copy late in the evening, at deadline, I would telephone the Olympic Auditorium in the afternoon. Hours before the evening�s wrestling matches were to begin, I would jot down the results and write a short story for the next day�s edition.